Perhaps I should have posted this list on Sept. 17, which is Constitution Day, but posting a bill of rights on Independence Day seems pretty American to me.

I believe creativity is an inherent part of being human, but it also fits closely with the American spirit. A lot of the positive “can-do” actions that our fellow citizens have taken throughout our nation’s history have been innovative or paradigm-setting in some way–in short, they were creative acts. Exercising our creativity is vital to building healthy hobbies, careers, relationships, communities.

I believe the following rights to be self-evident … and I hope you will too.

The Creative Person’s Bill of Rights

1. You have the right to express your creative vision in responsible, constructive ways. Even if you express skepticism and contempt in your vision, you have the right to make something out of it. Sharp creative criticism can lead to greater societal self-awareness.

2. You have the right to receive quality, non-shaming instruction to improve your creative work. No matter your level of expertise, healthy mentoring can boost your work.

3. You have the right to experiment and break the rules for no apparent reason. Art or innovation that doesn’t diverge from the expected can’t very well be called creative, can it? After learning what a medium’s conventions are, it’s appropriate to start calling them into question.

4. You have the right to learn from and enjoy the support of a community of fellow creatives. Despite the popular stereotype of the “lone genius” as creative kingpin, Keith Sawyer and other researchers are documenting that creative collaboration is the norm in the history of innovation, not the exception. Your creative peers can be your shortcut to a new insight or mastery of a key technique, or simply a major source of emotional solace. Treasure them.

5. You have the right to see your creative output as valuable and worthy. This is true, regardless of whether you ever earn a dime from your creativity … whether you ever move past what others might label a “beginner’s” level of mastery … or even whether you share your creative projects with anyone else.

6. You have the right to create for fun AND for money. It’s OK to make your creative passion your career. Or keep it strictly an avocation. Or do a little bit of both. Regardless of what you choose, your work can add value to its environment and be appreciated.

7. You have the right to play with/in multiple media. Even if you’re a professional in one area and a fledgling in another, your experience in all media or disciplines feeds your best/most accomplished work. And vice versa. If by chance you’re criticized for doing this, tell them you’re not a jack-of-all-trades but a dedicated interdisciplinarian.

8. You have the right to consider yourself “creative” even if your mode of creative expression falls outside the art world. Parenting, cooking, building bridges, coaching soccer … all these can be approached creatively. And many of us have experienced a so-called “artistic” event or work that felt like it was created by rote. As Abraham Maslow said, “A first-rate soup is better than a second-rate painting.”

9. You have the right to take a break from constant creative output. While many creative types struggle with the opposite problem–how to get started and stay started on a challenging creative project–it’s important not to let one’s creativity become mechanistic or another thing to cross off an already too-full to-do list. Deliberately cultivating “incubation” time is essential to facilitating those priceless insights we can’t “force” into being, but which happily follow us home if we take time to go for a walk, sun ourselves at the beach, play with our children, etc.

10. You have the right to define yourself as “creative” and to decide what “creativity” means to you. Many researchers and writers have come up with definitions of creativity, but you get to decide what it means for you and your life. That act of self-definition is in itself creative–and a wonderful starting point for a life filled with discovery, challenge and fun along a meaning-making path!

A new viewpoint for photography projects, a provocative set of poems and an essay about living in the creative shadow of one’s parents round out our gathering of links from the creative blog-o-sphere for this week. Let’s go!

1. Pete over at My GPS Camera Phone blog can always be counted on to write quirky, thought-provoking posts. In the last week, he posted about letting his daughters photograph things using his camera phone and his other cameras.

He notes this trend was started one day as he picked his children up from Montessori school.

“I noticed a lot of interesting black-and-white photos hanging on the walls. They looked so artfully done that I started to wonder about the photographer. Then I realized a common trait shared by all of them: the perspective was about thigh-high. Kids, I thought. What a brilliant idea.

“Since that day, I have always let both girls take photos from the day they could hold a camera enough for me to trust them. There’s something about a photo taken by a child that evokes a feeling that no adult can capture. Kids take photos of things that the average person wouldn’t think of shooting. A television while it’s on, a toilet, a ceiling fan or the family pet while they’re eating. They bring a real-life quality to photos that professionals work to perfect over their entire careers.”

I like Pete’s post on two levels. First, I think he’s right-on letting his children learn early how to handle the tools of an artistic discipline with care and responsibility. Secondly, his emphasis of the freshness of the “kid’s-eye view” is a wonderful chance for adult creative folk to experiment with the viewpoint of a child.

Try this:

Got a camera? Walk around for a few moments on your knees (or squat!) and take photos at thigh-level. What do you notice from that height about your photographic subjects that you miss standing all the way up? Try this with sketching, or videography. Even writers can experiment with writing something from this viewpoint!

2. Writer and photographer Dave Bonta, who is the creator of the Via Negativa blog, has created a delightful 12-part series of poems to be placed in public places. Most of them are droll, with a touch of seriousness and respect when appropriate. If you’ve ever wondered what words really sum up the experience of a library, a hospital waiting room, a city bus, an abandoned factory or the urinals of a men’s restroom, Dave has something apt to say about each of those places, and a few more.

If you find his series on public places compelling, check out his series of poems that are odes to tools. I absolutely love a poet who can bring out the extraordinary in the ordinary, or even the banal.

3. Finally, Elaine over at Musical Assumptions has written a very well done post about growing up in the musical shadow of her father, Burton Fine, former principal violist of the Boston Symphony. Although Elaine has certainly become (from the looks of her blog!) quite an accomplished musician herself, her experiences have definitely shaped her development in music.

She writes,

“I certainly knew from a very young age that (my father) was the principal violist of the Boston Symphony and that he was an important person. He wasn’t like other people’s fathers. He kept different hours from the other fathers I knew, and other people’s fathers didn’t spend hours in the basement practicing. Other people’s fathers wore suits to work, and mine wore tails…Other families went to the cape in the summer, but our family always went to Tanglewood…

”When I came of musical age it became important to me for grown up people to appreciate me for what I could do, and not for who my father was, but it was not really possible.”

I can relate to Elaine’s predicament, if only slightly. My father and sister have carved out semi-professional careers in music, and it was clear to me early on that as much as I loved (and continue to love) performing in musical ensembles, I was better off focusing my professional artistic aspirations elsewhere. I don’t think my family members intended this, but I believe dealing with this shadow Elaine talks about is an issue any artist’s child must face and overcome.

If you enjoy Elaine’s post about her dad, you can also hear the other side of the story, as she has also posted an interview with her father,conducted by Brian Bell of WGBH.

A lot of the time, we think about “clearing away the clutter” in our creative lives by acting on something external–asking our spouse for an hour in the morning to write before we go to work, cleaning our hit-by-a-paper-bomb desk so that we can write, sketch or do some beading, or by starting a one-sentence journal to document our creative process and gain some momentum.

But let’s face it–many of the obstacles that we have to dodge on the road to being consistently creative are internally generated. The key to rolling many of these bits of “clutter” out of the way involves assessing how we view ourselves and our abilities–our general mindset.

Several years ago, Carol S. Dweck, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, wrote Mindset, a brilliant book on the effect of personal outlook on success, and documented something that successful artists, teachers and entrepreneurs have known for decades: that those people who feel that the hand life has dealt them is just the starting point for their success, tend to be better able to adapt to the challenges thrown their way and come out on top. Those who feel that basic qualities such as intelligence, talent or creative are fixed tend to be less able to thrive on many levels: education, relationships, business. She says that people who fall in the former group have a “growth mindset,” and those in the latter have a “fixed mindset.”

Why should creative people care what their mindset is? Because, as Dweck says,

“[Mindsets] guide the whole interpretation process. The fixed mindset creates an internal monologue that is focused on judging: ‘This means I’m a loser’ ….

“People with a growth mindset are also constantly monitoring what’s going on, but their internal monologue is not about judging themselves and others in this way. Certainly they’re sensitive to positive and negative information, but they’re attuned to its implications for learning and constructive action: What can I learn from this? How can I improve?”

In other words, by cleaning up your mindset, you can focus on what needs attention in order for you to master your craft, instead of cursing your physical or mental shortcomings that render you (in your own mind) permanently unfit to succeed as a painter, musician, writer, etc.

Dweck isn’t the only researcher touting a retro-fit of mind set. Psychologists
Martin Seligman and Angela Duckworth at Penn State University report that when they’ve studied the successes of people of a variety of ages and in a variety of settings (work, school, etc.), only about 25 percent of a person’s lifetime success could be attributed to intellectual or physical ability. Persistence (and just plain luck) accounted for the other 75 percent. This ratio of persistence-over-ability is supported by other researchers, too.

In a nutshell, those who realize that raw talent has to be supplemented by continuous learning and daily practice to live up to its promise go much farther than those who regard their inborn abilities as the sole arbiter of their success. Effort matters as much as, if not far more than, ability.

If you want to work on changing your mindset to a more growth-enhancing one, Dweck provides several tips for getting started. The cornerstone of this act consists in coming to see your evolution as an artist as precisely that: a continual process of adaptation and learning.

I would add that, in my opinion, it’s also crucial to this mindset-resetting process to make sure you have sufficient support for your development. Do you need the guidance of a teacher to help you move forward in your technique? A trusted group of peers to bounce ideas off of? Access to library books or other sources of “test driving” books and media that will contribute to your mastery as an artist?

The greatest gift that changing our mindset can give us is simply the power to keep on going. David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their book “Art & Fear,” said it best: “Those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue—or more precisely, have learned how not to quit.”

An encouraging look at the lives of older artists, an important reminder about what life (and art) are all about, and a great place to discuss (and publicize) great ideas are this week’s gleanings from the froth of the creative blogosphere!

1. “Artists don’t retire,” says Joan Jeffri, Director of the Graduate Program in Arts Administration at Teacher’s College at Columbia University. They just keep reinventing themselves. And now, she has concrete evidence that artists in New York City, one of the United States’ creative meccas, are superlative in finding ways to adapt to aging and stay connected to their art and supportive friends and allies.

Late last year, Jeffri released an in-depth report, “Above Ground,” that surveyed 213 visual artists ages 62 to 97 across New York City’s five boroughs. The study documents the survival skills and social supports of aging artists in the city.

Jeffri, who produced the report for the Research Center for Arts and Culture, which she founded and brought to the Teacher’s College in 1998. She says that the artists she spoke for the study with can act as role models for anyone wanting to age succesfully.

“Contrary to the stereotype, Jeffri has found that artists are not typically depressed or suicidal and are, in fact, a better bet than most to stay out of nursing homes.

“‘Older artists have a great deal to offer us as a model for society,’ she says, “especially as the workforce changes to accommodate multiple careers and as baby boomers enter the retirement generation.’”

You can read an informative article that features four of Jeffri’s survey subjects, as well as a thumbnail sketch highlighting the adaptiveness that Jeffri has brought to her own vocational path through the arts. Or you can download the full 213-page PDF version of the report.

2. If you’re caught up in the rat race, and don’t want to end up as a rat, you may want to take a moment to view this charming video, originally posted at Neticons.net, that blends the recorded words of philosopher and author Alan Watts with simple illustrations and music that reinforce that life, like music, has meaning in and of itself.

As a teenager, I was quite taken with Watts’ writings on Zen Buddhism, Taoism and eastern philosophical systems, but this short video is free of brand-name spirituality. It goes directly to the heart of what makes up the creative moment!

3. Got an idea you just can’t help but share? Consider posting it to the Global Ideas Bank, not-for-profit website that describes itself as “part suggestion box, part networking tool, part democratic think-tank and part inspirational entertainment!”

The site has its orgins in the the Institute for Social Inventions, which was set up in 1985 by Nicholas Albery, social inventor and visionary extraordinaire. This site was set up in 1995 and is intended for what site owners define as a “social invention”: a non-product, non-patentable, non-gadget idea, although truly ground-breaking product ideas are featured in the site’s Product Bin section.

Registering at the site allows visitors to rate ideas, offer their support to see the project come to fruition, and track their participation and the success of their “team” of ideas through an MyGIB interface.

While the site has a Web 1.0 feel to it in some ways, the site is a great example of how creative people can share ideas in a collaborative atmosphere and get feedback and support for visions that will take many hands to bring into reality.

Today I interview Jana Bouc, a visual artist from the East Bay Area in California. She has been a watercolor artist for a quarter-century, and as branched out to a number of other mediums, including oils, acrylics, monoprinting and more.

Jana has a lovely Web site for her finished works that also lists classes and some great resources for aspiring artists. She also posts work-in-progress and finished works regularly at Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog. She recently started the whimsical blog A Postcard a Day, which she describes as a series of illustrated postcards sent to anyone she chooses, whether dead, live or imaginary. As she puts it:

“Instead of Googling for answers to questions I send virtual postcards into the blogosphere and channel the wisdom of the recipients to send myself responses. Some days it’s just a ‘wish you here’ note and picture from my world. Other days it might be a dream message. Who knows? Anything goes…”

The images accompanying this post are some of Jana’s fabulous work. Enjoy!

Tell us about your creative pursuits, paid and unpaid.
Jana: For 25 years I was a watercolor artist and a sometime writer of personal essays. Then, two years ago I discovered the world of art-blogging and web-based art groups like Everyday Matters, Wet Canvas and Illustration Friday, where artists take on creative challenges and then share their work on their blogs.

I found the community and the creative “assignments” invigorating. I made a commitment to sketch daily and began posting images and writing about them on my blog: a perfect marriage for my love of writing, drawing and painting.

Inspired by the work of other artists in my online art community, I began to explore different mediums, including monoprinting, gouache, acrylics and then finally a year ago, oil painting.

Watercolor and oil painting are just about opposites in every way so this past year of studying oil painting has been intense. At first it was hard going from a high level of competence in watercolor to be being a complete beginner in another medium. Eventually I decided to embrace being a beginner rather than being embarrassed by it and try to just enjoy the process of learning and discovery.

Do you have any formal training in your creative discipline(s)? Do you feel training is important in creative development? Why/why not?

Jana: Over the years I’ve studied with many excellent teachers in their studios, in workshops and in college classrooms. I think of teachers as consultants: I’m there to learn something I want to know and they’re my resource for getting the answers and help I need.

When learning a new medium, I tend to study on my own first, using books and/or videos, going as far as I can. When I reach a point that I need in person help I find a teacher who can give me the guidance I’m seeking, and work with them for awhile. I think the craziest example of my learning from books was in ceramics, teaching myself to throw pots with a library book on ceramics propped up on the spinning pottery wheel while trying to keep splats of clay from flying off and ruining the book.

I’m not sure if that really answers the question: Is “formal” training important in “creative development.” I think training is helpful for building skills and obtaining the technical knowledge necessary to perform one’s craft well. However, developing technical skills is different from “creative development.” I don’t think formal training can teach you to be creative. Being creative is about play and having a sense of adventure, curiosity and wonder. Being creative is saying, “I wonder what would happen if I…” and then taking a risk and trying it.

For people who aren’t self-motivated, formal training can force them to do the groundwork. On the other hand, if one isn’t self-motivated to do art….well, why do it? For me, my whole life is built around art making; it’s what I think about, dream about, crave to be doing when I’m not.

What habits do you cultivate to facilitate your creative “flow”?

Jana: I don’t have any specific habits or rituals, other than making a cup of tea or coffee before heading into the studio. As I get older I find that doing healthy lifestyle things like exercise, getting enough sleep and healthy eating make my painting sessions more productive and pleasurable.

What advice would you give to a “blocked” artist in your discipline to free up their creative energies?
Jana: I think the number one advice would be to carefully examine what kind of self-talk is happening in your head. If it’s negative, judgmental, critical, try to turn it around. For example, if you discover you’re saying, “Why bother, you’ll never be any good at this…or as good as so and so,” ask yourself why you’re doing this art anyway. When I hear that ugly voice, I say, “Thanks for sharing, now go away; bye-bye now.” Then I remind myself that I paint for the pleasure of learning and for the enjoyment of the process. I tell myself that I don’t have to be as good as so and so, or make it as a pro, I only have to be as good as I am right now and that if I keep practicing I’ll be better than that tomorrow.

I try to give myself encouragement even when I’m struggling. For example, I just finished a couple of paintings that had successful passages, even though the paintings as a whole weren’t successful (or at least up to my standards). I congratulated myself on the bits that showed how much I’ve learned and let go of the parts that didn’t work, ready to move on to the next painting.

Which artistic project that you are working on excites you the most right now?

Jana: Learning to really see color and be able to interpret subjects in my painting using the relationships between neighboring colors to model and create form.

I’m also loving plein air painting: being outdoors, surrounded by the beauty of nature and the quiet or sounds or birds; seeing nearby towns and countryside for the first time; and trying to quickly capture the view before it changes (which it does, rapidly and constantly).

How do you select your creative projects? What elements of a potential project tend to intrigue you the most?

Jana: I select projects intuitively; either an idea just comes to me or I see something I want to paint or I have a strange dream and it inspires me to draw it which leads to a painting. I’m pretty easily amused, so I can be intrigued by any element of a potential project. Painting a detailed still life of heart-breakingly perfect roses might intrigue me one day and the next I might be drawn to do a wonky ink and watercolor sketch of a hammer or my toilet or a construction worker. There’s really no part of painting and drawing, from selecting my paints, to cleaning my brushes, that I don’t find thrilling. I’m a lucky woman!

All images in this post are the copyright of Jana Bouc, 2008.

Please take a moment to visit the delightful Positivity Blog and take a look at my very first guest post, 7 Ways to Reduce Stress With a “To-Don’t” List.

The post deals with developing a to-don’t list (the opposite of a to-do list) to clarify one’s priorities. It’s a great way to make room for creative projects, or other important tasks, and de-clutter one’s life.

The Positivity Blog is a joy (even when I’m not posting to it), filled with genuinely useful self-help and self-development articles! Enjoy!

This week’s links from the creative blogosphere include the musical passions of a world-class architect, a report on motherhood and writing, a fascinating new way for scientists and moviemakers to measure viewer engagement, and an article that forms a resounding rebuttal to the myth that great ideas—and great inventors—are few and far between. Plus, as ever, a few extra bon mots have snuck on to the list, as well. Let’s go!

1. The ArtsJournal blog tipped me off last week to an interesting profile of architect Rafael Viñoly’s passion for, indeed, obsession with pianos and piano music. The article in the New York Sun is interesting on several levels, not the least of which is Viñoly’s view of how making architecture does—or does not—have parallels with making music.

“And although he is among the world’s most knowledgeable architects in music, he’s not one to pay glib lip service to oft-recited similarities between the two disciplines. For him, architecture isn’t frozen music.

“’There is no piece of music that could relate to anything else but itself and its world,’ he asserted. ‘It is truly an independent. The one thing coplanar with music is the compositional aspect, the fact that you are composing something. Architecture is essentially a score, and what happens with it depends on the people who play it, enjoy it, use it, or hate it.’”

Whether or not he believes that the two disciplines are interrelated, he does share one thing in common in both fields—he is very, very good. The article was written as Viñoly prepared for his first recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

2. The Boston Globe ran a good article a week or so ago on the motivations and challenges of stay-at-home mothers who forge literary careers while raising their brood. While the article touches upon what mom-writers have to do to mix deadlines with toddlers (hint: they write when the kids are asleep!), for me, the really interesting part of the article covers how motherhood changes their viewpoint as a writer…

“Motherhood can be a powerful formative experience for writers. ‘All mothers go through this period when they’re terrified about what might happen to their child,’ said Lara JK Wilson, 41, a short-story writer who wrote before and after motherhood, and experienced the difference. ‘Feeling that can bring you to a place that’s sharp as a knife. You feel edginess to your emotional state, and you know what ends you will go to, to protect that child. I can imagine the childhoods of all my adult characters, and it’s because I have a multitude of emotional states in my family life.’”

(A tip o’ the blog to the Creative Construction blog, a group blog of women writers who are also mothers as well, for alerting me to this story.)

3. eScience News recently reported on research from New York University that indicates that that certain motion pictures can exert considerable control over brain activity. Even more fascinating, a film’s content, editing and directing style can all influence the impact they have on a viewer’s brain!

To stimulate subjects’ brain activity, the researchers showed them three motion picture clips: thirty minutes of Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”; an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Bang! You’re Dead”; and an episode of Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” To establish a baseline, subjects viewed a clip of unstructured reality: a 10-minute, unedited, one-shot video filmed during a concert in New York City’s Washington Square Park.

The NYU team used two tools to assess the brain activity of the film viewers: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. The fMRI produces a time-series of 3-D pictures of brain activity, and ISC correlates these pictures between the brains of various subjects.

According to eScience News, the results showed that ISC of responses in subjects’ neocortex—which regulates perception and cognition—differed across the four movies:

• The Hitchcock episode evoked similar responses across all viewers in over 65 percent of the neocortex, indicating a high level of control on viewers’ minds;
• High ISC was also extensive (45 percent) for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”;
• Lower ISC was recorded for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (18 percent) and for the Washington Square Park, or unstructured reality, clip (less than 5 percent).

These findings validate one of the popular perceptions in the film world of Hitchcock’s genius as a director, according to the researchers:

“The fact that Hitchcock was able to orchestrate the responses of so many different brain regions, turning them on and off at the same time across all viewers, may provide neuroscientific evidence for his notoriously famous ability to master and manipulate viewers’ minds. Hitchcock often liked to tell interviewers that for him ‘creation is based on an exact science of audience reactions.’”

4. Finally, Innovation Tools blog recently posted about a well-written Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker debunking the myth that great ideas are scarce.

Gladwell tells the story of Intellectual Ventures, a company founded by Nathan Myhrvold that is dedicated to the principle that great ideas can be cultivated in abundance if the right people and the right conditions are present. Myhrvold holds invitation-only “invention sessions,” from which he is regularly harvesting scores of usable ideas and bringing them to market. Currently, the company is filing 500 patents a year and has a backlog of 3,000 ideas.

The article features Gladwell’s signature writing style, as well as a healthy dose of innovation history woven in. All in all, a terrific read for anyone who thinks that there is nothing new under the sun or that the lone inventor always comes up with better ideas than teams of really, really smart people.

Bonus Links!

Chris Csikszentmihalyi is the son of famed psychology researcher Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, an artist, a programmer, as well as an inventor and professor working at MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media. World Changing reports that his projects focus on the interface between political action, art, journalism and technology. The article mentions a few really neat examples of using creativity and the new online social media tools to further social change.

Talk about old wine in new bottles! An article in the online version of the UK’s Times newspaper reports on Nonclassical, monthly classical club night run by Gabriel Prokofiev, DJ, producer, composer and grandson of the great Sergei. The event mixes live performances from instrumentalists and singers with sets from electronica DJs. Talking during the performances is encouraged and drinks are served at the bar throughout the night.

I thought I’d share several batches of creativity-related books and media with readers this summer, and this starting trio is fabulous. One has intriguing research about creative discovery, one has dead-on advice about advice about your creative work, and one is a nourishing brew that slakes the creative person’s spirit.

Toxic Feedback, by Joni B. Cole, aims to help writers deal with one of the most treacherous, yet necessary elements of the craft: handling feedback from others. Although aimed at writers, and in particular fiction and memoir writers, the book really addresses two much deeper issues that transcend artistic mediums–how to handle criticism of one’s creative output and how to revise one’s work in an authentic way. I love Cole’s use of humor throughout the book; whether she’s gently exaggerating the scale or absurdity of certain feedback situations she’s encountered or they really happened as she recounts them, the tone helps to reinforce one of her key points, that

“You are the boss of your own story. Not the other writers in your critique group. Not the famous author whose workshop you were lucky enough to get into at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Not even your mother-in-law, who comes into your house while you are at work and vacuums the mattresses because someone has to protect her grandchildren from dust mites. When it comes to applying feedback, you–and only you–are the one who gets to determine what stays and what goes in your story. And that is a good thing.”

Toxic Feedback, which has a companion website, is a great read for anyone struggling with the tension between staying true to one’s inner creative vision and being open to the opinion of one’s audience.

Group Genius, by R. Keith Sawyer, is a wonderful contribution to what I like to call the “evidence-based creativity” section of my book collection. Sawyer is a professor of psychology and education at Washington University in St. Louis, who has also worked as a video-games designer for Atari and a management consultant and who has been a skilled amateur jazz musician. His love of jazz and improvisational theater have formed the foundation of his research on creativity. Creative breakthroughs, he argues, far from being an act of solitary genius, are almost always the end-result of collaborations between webs of like-minded and like-purposed individuals.

Calling on examples as diverse as the true origins of Monopoly, the creation of the mountain bike, and the development of the telegraph, as well as more recent innovations such as the Linux computer operating system and automatic teller machines, Sawyer is persuasive in his argument that cultivating “collaborative webs” of individuals and organizations are key to creative successes.

Especially intriguing are Sawyers’ 10 rules for “group flow.” As a graduate student, he worked with Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi at the University of Chicago, and has expanded upon his mentor’s concept of individual “flow” states to include conditions that encourage group excellence and creative performance.

“Group Genius” is a genius of a book. If you wonder about how to collaborate successfully with others, in the arts, business or elsewhere, this is a lively, accessible introduction to current research and thinking on the topic.

Finally, The Creative Fire, a 3-CD set from author and Jungian therapist Clarissa Pinkola Estes, is audio refreshment for anyone who makes art. Pinkola Estes uses myth, poetry and story to help listeners revive the “ember” of their own creativity. I especially loved her interpretations of the Demeter and Persephone myth and the “Corpse Bride,” a Russian folktale.

Pinkola Estes argues that becoming estranged from the normal cycles of creativity, with their ebb and flow, can rob us of our birthright inventiveness; trauma can also unleash “complexes” that stanch the creative torrent. The CDs are terrific for listening to in the car or anytime one needs a boost to their creativity, as well as a reminder that often the solution to a creative logjam is for the artist to simply get out of his or her own way.

An essay on supporting freedom of expression for photographers who work in public places, a report on the health benefits of blogging, a look at a breathtaking new form of digital art, and a blog post the use of design to make a better world are all on the plate for this week’s “meal” of tasty creativity-related output.

1. Bruce Schneier has written a deeply thought provoking piece over at the UK’s daily paper, The Guardian, on the post-9/11 suspicions cast upon photographers who do their work in public places. He notes that, despite the increasing concern about photography of large public forums and structures, none of the terrorist plots that have been carried out over the years (or foiled) have revealed a shred of evidence that the perpetrators photographed their targets first.

“The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography.”

So why does the idea that public photography equals terror plot persist? It’s a movie-plot threat.

Bruce explains:

“Terrorists taking pictures is a quintessential detail in any good movie. Of course it makes sense that terrorists will take pictures of their targets. They have to do reconnaissance, don’t they? We need 45 minutes of television action before the actual terrorist attack — 90 minutes if it’s a movie — and a photography scene is just perfect. It’s our movie-plot terrorists that are photographers, even if the real-world ones are not.”

Bruce’s article includes links to photographer’s rights wallet cards, to be shown to those who would squelch the right to point and shoot for unclear or unfounded reasons.

(A big tip o’ the blog to The Online Photographer for posting links to this article to their blog first.)

2. Finally, after the spate of articles on the “health risks of blogging” spurred by a controversial article in the New York Times, Build a Better Blog highlights a report in the latest Scientific American that reveals that blogging can have therapeutic value, primarily because of its potential as a tool for self-expression.

Jessica Wapner, writing for Scientific American, notes,

“Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery.”

The article goes on to mention a study in the February issue of the Oncologist, which reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

One of the most exciting tidbits in the article for me was the note that hospitals are now beginning to offer patient-authored blogs on their websites. Nancy Morgan, lead author of the Oncologist study, notes that blogging provides all the benefits of traditional expressive writing, plus the bonus of interacting with receptive readers in similar situations: “Individuals are connecting to one another and witnessing each other’s expressions—the basis for forming a community.”

3. What do you get when you cross the Wii hacking skills of a tech-master with the creativity tools of a great artist? Digital Wheel Art– a wheelchair that uses a hacked Wii Remote to help disabled people make paintings.

The video, which I found by way of the excellent TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) site, features the work of inventor YoungHyun Chung, who showed off the device at the Maker Faire in NYC last week. Amazing!

4. Coroflot’s Creative Seeds blog posted an excellent discussion recently about getting one’s sustainable design ideas implemented.

Post author Carl Alviari notes,

“Much of the discussion within the creative community is couched as if designers don’t know how to make their projects more sustainable… But talk to practically any student or recent graduate, and nearly all of them will attest that they want to improve the world, solve problems of waste and poverty through better design, make a positive impact, make a difference.

“Even kids who want to do nothing more than draw cars and shoes all day will light up when explaining the fuel cell technology that drives their roadster, or the compostable uppers on their high-tops. This was true when I was in school, five years ago, and if you ask someone who studied a creative profession 10 years ago, it was mostly true then.”

Who needs to do more to get sustainable product design ideas enacted? Designers? Management? The public? Go to Creative Seeds and put in your two cents!

BONUS: I was going to call this “dessert,” but it’s more than just tasty, it’s good for you! (My most common dessert is an apple or another fiber-laden fruit, so that should tell you something about my tastes.) Katherine Tyrrell from the Making a Mark blog has developed a Squidoo page dedicated to covering copyright for artists.
Katherine’s comprehensive and informative site includes information on “orphan” works, ones where there is no clear entity to award copyright to (even when the creator is known), which is a hot topic of debate in the legal world these days. All in all, her guide is helpful, and will be a boon to all who create.

I just added three pages to the blog (should appear in the tabs in the blog header…): Coaching FAQs, Services, and Contact Me.

Please take a moment to learn a little more about the coaching and editing services that I offer. If you want to use the contact form to ask a question, go ahead, as that will let me know if it actually works!

I should be updating my bio and adding a few more pages in coming weeks, so stay tuned…