Arts Explorer #1: My Creative Inspiration

Bob Ross

What does creativity mean to you?

This assignment is personally significant because as an Early Childhood Educator, I strive to encourage children to create and be creators. I plan and implement creative experiences for children based on my personal conception of creativity. From a young age, I would spend a 26 minute portion of my Saturday afternoon sitting in front of the television watching The Joy of Painting, hypnotized by Bob Ross’ voice, the television painting instructor. As he talked his way through paintings, descriptively characterizing strokes and paint effects, rhythmically dap-dap-dappling fall colours onto sycamore trees, I absorbed my earliest aesthetic integration. Now that I am older, I wonder what effects it had on my own personal conception of creativity.  Using a combination of words, sounds, and images, Ross had inadvertently taught me how to paint and encouraged me to be a creator. It was evident that I emulated Ross’ painting style when my art teachers and classmates commented that my paintings brought to mind, “…you know, that guy on TV with the afro.” As a result, this very early experience of linking words with images in an encouraging creative practice shaped my concept of creativity to include aesthetic awareness and the confidence to explore new ways of creating.

Creativity
Based on the work of Beghetto (2009), Csikszentmihalyi (1996), Fielding (1997), Lindqvist (2003) and Sternberg (2006), creativity is defined as a cognitive and social process that involves questioning and generating new ideas, concepts and/or the ability to create connections between already existing ideas or concepts. Although originality and novelty are often ascribed to these new concepts and connections, they are not an essential component of creativity. Creativity is not limited to the arts and applies to other domains such as mathematics, science and technology. Creativity is often associated with higher thinking; however, it is not limited to individuals that have been deemed gifted or score highly on intelligence tests. Although it is a trait one is born with, creativity, however, cannot be developed alone.

                                                          References

Beghetto, R.A. (2009). In search of the unexpected: finding creativity in the micromoments of the classroom. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3(1), 2-5.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.    New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Fielding, R.M. (1997). A Socio-Cognitive Perspective on Cross-Cultural Attitudes and Practices in Creativity Development. Australian Art Education, 20(1-2), 27-33.

Lindqvist, G. (2003). Vygotsky’s theory of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 15(2-3), 245-251.

Sternberg, R.J. (2006). The nature of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 18(1), 87-98.