I remember feeling wildly creative and free about the age of 5. There were lazy days of crayolas and texters in a million different colours transcending my dream world onto the paper. Every day in kindy, we all coloured in our books and shared our dreamtime…it was all so natural. And then somewhere around the age of 9, I got the sense that this dreamy world was somehow less important than reading my books and learning arithmetic. By the age of 14, there was “us” and “them”….the artistic types who pursued the creative arts as a career and the rest of us.
Somehow, the further away I got from the age of 5, the further away I got from that feeling that I could just pick up any utensil: pencil, marker, whatever…and let my creative spirit speak in whatever voice it chose on the day.
By the time I was 20 and needed to take some kind of artistic elective course at Uni, I was slightly panicked. I couldn’t imagine that I had any talent in any of the options available. I even asked if it would be possible for me to study an extra unit of art history instead…..completely distanced from that 5 year old who confidently picked up a texter or a paintbrush without reservation and had the best day everyday just for the sheer pleasure in all of it.
And lately I’ve been asking myself why? Why do we devalue the artistic creative spirit at such a young age in our educational system? After all, we value “innovation” in business, don’t we? We value the creative thinker who can create new opportunities in business or solve complex problems.
I caught up Nola Diamantopoulos, a former corporate type, celebrated Sydney artist and creative coach to explore this further. Check out the podcast interview to hear her insights and some interesting observations on the subject…..
There was no such thing as cubism or pointalism before somebody decided to make these marks on a canvas – in effect to break the rules of art. So what’s stopping us from just making a mark on the canvas?….Nola Diamantopolous
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- Nola Diamantopoulos
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- Breath I Sculpture
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- Absence Exhibition
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- Creative coaching
The truth is that we are all creative beings. We showed up on this gorgeous planet to create a unique expression of ourselves. Every act we take is an expression of that creativity: our personality, lifestyle choices, fashion sense, musical taste and the films we see on the weekend to name a few. The dreams that start in our heads manifest themselves in our career choices, our next holiday, our relationships, etc… In short, it’s the realm of possibility manifested in physical form. But does that mean that we’re creating our full potential? Could we be more creative? If so, how??
I’d love to hear your story….what does creativity mean to you?
Breaking into the Arts 