Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Creativity Corner


I've been thinking a lot lately about creativity - where it comes from, how to get it, how to foster it.  My mother-in-law has actually inspired this line of thinking.  She encourages me to just keep working at my crafting and says it's important to keep the creative juices flowing.

I found a neat post today called Don't Wait For Inspiration that basically said not to wait for inspiration or an idea to come to you but just get to work doing something and the inspiration will come from the action itself.
Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.
Read the rest here.  I actually went on to read some about the artist who said this and he's pretty interesting. 

This is so true.  It struck me that I wait for inspiration a lot before doing anything.  Often I wait and wait and wait and wait for inspiration or an idea and when it doesn't come I decide I'm not good at doing the thing I'm wanting to do and then give up.  I think that is something I like about crafting - especially in the era of Pinterest.



And why I am okay with being a copycat.  Especially seeing that I am the Queen!  I don't have to wait for inspiration. I can just look at something someone has done and start working.  Usually as I get started, ideas start flowing as to how I want to change it a bit to make it a little more my own.  Rarely do I completely copy what someone has done.

I think the more crafts that I get under my belt, the more I'll start to come up with original ideas on my own.  I have already done that with my decorative blocks.  In fact, I'm almost done with a few for Easter and Spring.  I'm so excited to show them to you and to get them put up for sale in my Etsy store.

So what about you?  Do you wait for inspiration?  Or just start working?  How do you feed your creative side?

No comments :