Here is a powerful and nuanced article by Amanda Enayati looking at one of the fundamental paradoxes of creativity: Though creativity is outwardly celebrated by people from all walks of life, creative ideas are often rejected in time of uncertainty precisely because they seem strange and foreign. I found this read to be illuminating: Creativity […]
Creativity and Awareness: A Nondual Perspective on the Nature of Creativity
Author, poet, and potter, Colin Drake muses on the nature of creativity as it relates to awareness. Like the simple act of walking across a room, creativity bubbles up from stillness, moves in relation to stillness, and, in the end, returns again to stillness. “Awareness,” Drake reminds us, “is endlessly creative.” The universe is the […]
How Has Our Perception Of Creativity Changed Over Time?
According to Haydn Shaughnessy, a writer on the emerging economy, creativity has gone through several stages throughout history, including 1) an association with religion 2) romantic concept, 3) a discipline taught in art and architecture 4) as a method related to science and technology 5) as an expression of human potential. Interesting charts on page […]
An Amazingly Informative Animation On Creativity and Education
In this amazing animation, Sir Ken Robinson, international leader in creativity, innovation, and education, illustrates the lack of creativity in education based on the lingering paradigm of the Industrial Revolution. Sir Ken Robinson is a gifted speaker and brings to light the creativity crisis through the lens of history, and posits solutions as to what […]
Want To Improve Your Creativity? Watch A Bit of Movie Magic
In England, home of the blockbuster Harry Potter book and movie series, a recent experiment tested the effects of watching magical scenes from Harry Potter movies on children’s ability to create. What the researchers found out was surprising. See for yourself: “The group who watched the magical clips performed “significantly better” than the other group […]
Creativity in the Bathroom? Steve Jobs’ Vision for Pixar
I just heard a fascinating interview on NPR with Jonah Lehrer promoting his new book on creativity, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In this interview with NPR, he tells the story of Steve Jobs’ desire to create creative cross-pollination among a diverse campus of creatives at their one an only common facility: the bathrooms. Check it […]
Creativity and the Three Stages of Conscious Design Build, Part I: Unconsciousness
First off, I would like to thank the profound work of David Deida, and my partner at Conscious Design Build, Hristiyan Atanasov, for inspiring this three part series. The built landscape all around us has come into being through the power of human beings’ most defining aspect: conscious self-awareness, the awareness of being aware that […]
The Relationship Between Art, Creativity, and Meditation
“Creativity isn’t necessarily an obstacle to meditation but, rather, its fruit.” –Amanda Palmer quoting an unnamed friend. Let me begin by thanking my friend, Adam Gyokazan Coutts–a brilliant and irreverent man, Zen practitioner, dedicated meditator, and one who teaches others the view and techniques of meditation–for sending me the following illuminating article. You can find […]
Create to Honor Impermanence
Some time ago, I was designing a gabled roof to cover a client’s porch. I was stumped trying to solve a detail involving the intersection of a vertical post, a horizontal beam, and a frame for a bug screen. I remembered a solution I liked from a project I’d worked on a few years earlier […]
Consciousness and Creativity, Part VIII: More Advanced Practices for Engaging Consciousness
Last time we looked at some basic practices for engaging consciousness. Let’s up the ante a bit, exploring some more advanced practices for engaging consciousness, lighting a more ardent fire in the hearth of creativity, delving headlong into some of the deeper pools of awareness. Engage in fasts of various sorts, removing certain objects or […]