Creative Materials for Art

Have you ever thought about what you could use around the house for your art? I'm not talking about traditional materials, but something, well creative. Creativity involves taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary.

(Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Maestre)

Artist Jennifer Maestre uses pencils, which she cuts into small sections and threads like beads to create beautiful sculptures based on sea urchins. She started her work using nails but couldn't get them to create the effect she was looking for. She started looking at other pointy objects to use and found pencils worked best.

(Photo Courtesy Avon Heritage Duct Festival)

Another interesting use for a household object inspired an entire festival. The Fifth Annual Heritage Duct Tape Festival runs June 13-15 in Avon, Ohio. Besides the practical uses of this versatile tape, you can see sculptures and parade floats created using duct tape.

• Can you come up with a new use for a common household product?

Creativity Loses Value

The appeal of creativity has exploded during the last several years, with everyone from schools to CEOs proclaiming its importance. So does this eliminate the value of true creativity if everyone is seen as a creative thinker?

Possibly. Thinking creatively is a skill that should be taught and learned by everyone, but are we also learning how to apply that thinking for every day solutions? Probably not. Most creativity books and classes preach expressing our creativity but few help us to use it constructively.

The Arts Column in the Telegraph (via the Applied Imagination blog) recently explored this topic emphasizing the need to learn more skilled crafts or at least a practical use for creativity as this, not solely ideas has sustained humankind.

• Agree or disagree?

Creativity Quote

This is one of my favorite quotes about creativity:

“When I can no longer create anything, I’ll be done for.” - - - Coco Chanel

• What's your favorite creativity quote?

Design Principles for Self Improvement (Part II)

While I was thinking about this post last night, I was also watching one of my favorite shows, The Big Idea on CNBC. One of the guests was Ty Pennington that hyper yet creative carpenter on those home improvement shows. He talked about how the principles of home design can be used to create our dream life. For instance, he talked about choosing colors and objects for our homes that reflect our personality.

Karim Rashid, a designer and author has a similar philosophy in his book design your self: rethinking the way you live, work, and play. Rashid is best known for his innovative home product, furniture and interior design. Early on, he writes that humans are here to create and that living in such a mass produced world entitles us all to use design, not only to create our environments but also our lives.

Covering topics ranging from life, love, work, and play, this colorful book also includes a section at the end with a yearly guide to getting the most from your life. Despite loving this book and it's advocacy for leading a creative and individualized life, I found it odd that it was also filled with prescriptive lists and Rashid's own strict guidelines of how that life should be lived. Still, it's a must read book to learn how this contemporary creative genius lives and works.

• How are you using design principles in your daily life?

Design Principles for Self Improvement (Part I)

Is it me, or have other people noticed the trend of applying design principles to personal growth? As a visual person I am intrigued by the possibilities of exposing these ideas to more people. Why? Because we live in a society that is increasingly visually based and are inundated by millions of images on a daily basis. Why not understand these principles and use them to our benefit?

The first time I encountered this idea of design as a means of self-improvement was in Lucia Capacchione's book, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams. Capacchione's background is in design and art therapy and she blends her experience in both to inspire readers to create vision colleges to help them attain their dream life.

Her 10 design steps for visioning are:

1. Make a wish

2. Search for images and words

3. Focus on the vision

4. Compose the design

5. Explore and find order in creative chaos

6. Create the collage

7. Articulate the vision

8. Reinforce the dream

9. Embrace the reality

10. Celebrate the dream come true

• Now, create your own collage.
  

Bean Mosaic

Spring is finally here, or so the calendar says. After a long winter, this time of the year is a good time to refresh our creativity and maybe explore some of the ideas that have been germinating during those long cold months.

Here is a fun project I did while volunteering at an elementary school's Cultural Arts Day. It's a flower mosaic created with, well beans and other assorted dried foods, including rice and pasta glued onto cardboard.

• Unleash your inner artist and play like a child using finger paints, chalk, or beans!

Think You Are Funny?

Cleveland-based American Greetings wants you to prove it then. Simply provide a caption for one of 3 images on their website, and if they like it you could be a $1000 richer. Plus, they might print and sell your winning card too.

• Enter here.