Articles & Links: Library of Creativity Development

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Site Updated : 3 April, 2008

Pablo Picasso. Violin. 1912. Color paper. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia. (Image courtesy of Olga's Gallery).

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Creativity Development

Are some people just naturally more creative than others?  If you aren't a creative person, should you just accept it and sit down with another sudoku book?

We've all learned about right brain-left brain distinctions, and the concept that different parts of our brain control different physical activities and bodily movements.  We've also heard personality gurus apply the same concept to thinking skills and we may have come to some inner conviction about which side of the brain is dominant in our own thought processes.  Imaginative and creative people are supposed to be "Right-Brain" thinkers, while those who excel at logic and detailed analysis are believed to be "Left-Brainers." 

These long-held conceptions are now considered misconceptions in scientific circles.  Research indicates that the hemispheres of the brain differ only in their styles of processing information rather than in the type of information processed.  In other words, both sides of the brain engage in creative work as well as logical work, but the left side may have a bias toward the "local" or detailed aspects of the work, while the right side is biased toward the "global." Scientists are still trying to nail down the details, but the important aspect to understand is that we actually use both sides of the brain every time our mind is engaged.  Just as every physical movement on the right side of the body usually requires a compensating movement on the left side and vice-versa—it takes both sides of the brain to complete and understand a thought.  Just as we don't use our right hand when we cook and our left when we eat—our brain doesn't dedicate entirely separate sides to different functions.

The trick to expanding the abilities of our own brain, whether for creativity or any other function, is in exercising the ability we want to develop. The more scientists learn about neurogenesis, the more hard research they have to back up this seemingly obvious point.  We exercise our biceps to strengthen our arms and, in the same way, we can develop our creativity (and other mental skills) by exercising those skill centers that exist on both sides of our brain. We no longer have to believe ourselves "left-brainers" who are incapable of creativity. 

Of course, before we can exercise the creativity that lies latent, waiting for us to use it, we have to give ourselves material to work with, in the form of knowledge. This underlines once again the importance of developing ourselves as complete persons.  Michelangelo Buonarroti, the great Italian renaissance artist, is credited with saying, "A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." Modern experts would concur by saying that creativity is the ability to make interesting and unusual connections between the bits of knowledge we accumulate. In other words, we can't just "be creative."  We have to constantly add to our store of knowledge so we have the materials to spark our creativity.

Another piece of the whole-person development puzzle that contributes tremendously to creativity is the concept of taking time for relaxation and renewal.  When we slow down our lives and build time into our schedules for ourselves and for our families we not only contribute to our health and the health of our relationships, but we also allow our mind the time to process the information we've collected. The brain occasionally needs space to play around with making new connections between the facts and ideas stored there, and it may do this while we are consciously reflecting, or even when we may be engaged in physical activities that require very little concentration, such as gardening or swimming.  Often people will say their best ideas come to them while they're in the shower, for instance. 

Conversely, time constraints can also be a boon to creativity.  Frank Lloyd Wright commented that, "The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest and therefore when most was required of imagination to build at all. Limitations seem to have always been the best friends of architecture."

In any case, when we are faced with constraints to our creative resources, whether time, money, space―the number of crayons we have―we are forced to use our knowledge in imaginative ways to accomplish our ends.  But there has to be knowledge there in the first place in order for that to happen.

So, can you become an exceptionally creative person, even if you've always thought of yourself as a "left-brain" thinker? Absolutely, you can.  And you don't even need to put down the sudoku book to do it.

Of course, there are many more aspects to explore about creativity, and we know you'll enjoy the articles, links and quotations in the Library of Creativity Development pages. Read on and open your mind to the possibility that you have far more creative potential than you may have believed.

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