Creativity

Steve Jobs...RIP. I've been an Apple girl since 1985. My first computer was an Apple IIe and I drooled over the orginal Mac. I have my ipod on in my car, on my break, during my walks. My iphone goes everywhere with me and I even love its camera. Pixar movies are among my favorites. So, I'd say Steve Jobs has had a huge influence on my life. His passing comes not as a shock, but definitely too soon. I found a great quote from him on creativity and thought it would be a nice topic for this creative journal blog. It is from a 1996 Wired article.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

I love, love this quote because I think it touches on the way I think and it touches on one of my core beliefs about teaching and parenting.  As a teacher, much of what I do is give students experiences that hopefully broaden their background enough to allow them to connect the dots in more than a linear fashion.

Background knowledge is severely underestimated in this world.  It shapes each of us in the most profound manner.  A person who experiences joy and delight in school will often seek out further academic experiences.  A person who has been to the zoo will read a zoo book with a much different perspective and understanding than one who has never been to a zoo.  As a parent, I did my best to give my sons a life that was rich in a variety of experiences all in the hopes of creating background knowledge that is vast and accessible.  Both of my sons are creative thinkers and problem solvers and I credit this to their rich background knowledge.  Oh the places they'll go and the things they'll do with their background knowledge serving as a big old trampoline that will catapult them into their future!

Whenever I look at designing anything, I draw upon my background knowledge. I started out in college in the interior design department.  I knew I wanted to create and this seemed a logical choice.  In an art class, I had the assignment to design a wallpaper pattern and show three color variations of the same pattern.  That assignment killed me...killed my desire to be an interior designer.  Why?  I had no background knowledge when it came to wallpaper.  None of the houses I lived in had a scrap of wallpaper and I couldn't imagine what a good wallpaper design would even look like.  My grandfather was a house painter and wallpaper hanger-my father grew up in that business and wanted nothing further to do with wallpaper.  This was before the days of Google and I simply had no examples to consult.  I did my best, turned in a design that was "uninspiring" and gave up my dreams of being a designer.  Background knowledge....never underestimate its power.