Category: Developing Creativity

Also see more posts at The Creative Mind (on the Psych Central site)

Keep the channel open

Keep the channel open

These wonderfully inspiring and insightful comments by dancer, choreographer and teacher Martha Graham (1894-1991), refer to many of the themes of the TalentDevelop sites – such as intensity/excitability, motivation, identity and self-regard, self-criticism and insecurity about creative work, and other topics that impact us as creative people, and may slow down or shut off our [...]

Embracing Our Creative Abilities and Inspirations as Gifts – Part 2

Embracing Our Creative Abilities and Inspirations as Gifts – Part 2

[Also see Embracing Our Creative Abilities and Inspirations as Gifts - Part 1] This idea of viewing our talents as gifts reminds me of the book “Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon,” by Willem Kuipers. In a section of the book titled “Is it a Gift to be Uncommon?” he writes, “Giftedness refers literally to [...]

TalentDevelop on Pinterest

TalentDevelop on Pinterest

Pinterest is “A content sharing service that allows members to ‘pin’ images, videos and other objects to their pinboard. Also includes standard social networking features” Over the past few days, I have been having fun setting up my account and adding stuff. Take a look at my 11 Boards (collections of images and links). This [...]

Embracing Our Creative Abilities and Inspirations as Gifts

Embracing Our Creative Abilities and Inspirations as Gifts

“Something really vital happens if we treat the things that give us the most joy and delight – like, say, our creative abilities – as gifts…” – Jericha Senyak In her thoughtful and stimulating post “I is for Imagination” artist Jericha Senyak writes about some posts on my blog The Creative Mind, that they “seem [...]

Reclaiming Our Creativity

Reclaiming Our Creativity

How can we successfully hold on to the creative thinking and passions we had earlier in life? Ken Robinson and many other writers and leaders warn that too many children are having their intellectual and creative abilities eroded by educational institutions. We may find inspiration to be more creative in art classes and writing workshops [...]

The Cognitive and Brain Bases of Creative Insight

The Cognitive and Brain Bases of Creative Insight

Video: Where Ideas Come From: The Cognitive and Brain Bases of Eureka! Moments Mark Beeman, Neuroscience Northwestern University “How does the brain produce those sudden moments of creative insight? Most creativity occurs over extended periods of time, making it difficult to elucidate the critical cognitive and neural processes. But sometimes, while at an impasse about [...]

Beatrix Potter: artist, scientist, environmentalist

Beatrix Potter: artist, scientist, environmentalist

“Beatrix Potter was a dutiful Victorian daughter who grew into a plain-spoken and determined artist and entrepreneur.” That quote comes from a book review by Regina Marler, who continues, “She was good, but she was not always nice. Between the lines of Linda Lear’s sympathetic biography, “Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature,” can be glimpsed [...]

Myths of Creativity and Creators

Myths of Creativity and Creators

“I just thought making movies was something done by geniuses, and I was very clear that I wasn’t one of those.” Jane Campion When “The Artist’s Way” author and creativity coach Julia Cameron has asked people to list ten traits they think artists have, their responses have included: “Artists are broke,” “Artists are crazy,” “Artists [...]

Can Mood Swings Enhance Our Creativity?

Can Mood Swings Enhance Our Creativity?

“To assume, then, that such diseases usually promote artistic talent wrongly reinforces simplistic notions of the ‘mad genius.’” Kay Redfield Jamison In an interview for NPR radio, science writer Jonah Lehrer commented, “One of the surprising things that’s emerged from the study of moods…is that putting [people] in a bad mood — making them a [...]

Our Greatest Untapped Resource

Our Greatest Untapped Resource

By Cynthia Morris I have encouraged creativity for years, believing that it is essential to all of us. I know that the creative impulse is important, and now I have a greater sense of exactly how vital that is to all of us, right now. Creativity is not a feel-good, optional quality to cultivate, but [...]

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Jonah Lehrer on the Science of Creativity & Innovation

“I have always spent most of my time staring out the window, noting what is there, daydreaming, or brooding.”  Joyce Carol Oates One of the themes that prolific writer Jonah Lehrer develops in his upcoming book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” is that daydreaming can enhance creativity and innovation. Einstein was expelled from school (in 1894) [...]

Are you waiting to feel creative?

Are you waiting to feel creative?

By Jenna Avery A chat with my Writer’s Circle participants inspired today’s post. So often we wait for the right conditions before we write or start our other creative projects. Although we’d like to imagine otherwise, waiting doesn’t get us very far. Are you waiting for the right mood to strike before you work on [...]

An Intense Inner Pressure to Create

An Intense Inner Pressure to Create

In her book, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen quotes some insightful comments by Annemarie Roeper (founder of the Roeper School and The Roeper Review, a professional journal on the gifted) about the intense inner pressure to create as a characteristic of high ability people: “Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted [...]

More Intelligence, More Creative?

More Intelligence, More Creative?

How do intelligence and creative ability interact? Do we get more creative with more intelligence? Dean Keith Simonton, PhD thinks “Intelligence is purely a cognitive construct. Creativity on the other hand, I see as being much more complex.” Like other writers on creativity, he makes a distinction between “little c creativity” and “big C creativity.” [...]

Envy and Your Creative Life

Envy and Your Creative Life

Envy is an insult to oneself. Yevgeny Yevtushenko Envy is human nature. Monica Bellucci A simple dictionary definition of envy is “a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.” In this famous shot of Sophia Loren (left) and Jayne Mansfield at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1957, Loren may [...]

Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein on Teaching the Creative Process

Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein on Teaching the Creative Process

In one of their Psychology Today posts, the Root-Bernsteins declare: “Teach how knowledge is made and you teach for creativity.” Here is more from their post: Creativity is not a “you have it” or “you don’t” kind of thing. It isn’t a personality trait. It’s not a “one size fits all” habit of mind. It’s [...]

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