The Definition of Art: Perspective

Big Heart of Art - 1000 Visual Mashups by qthomasbower through CC Licensing 

A girl tells me she isn't an artist...
...but she coordinates her outfits each day.
...but she paints her nails.
...but she has legible handwriting.

...but she puts on make-up.
...but she spends an hour on her hair in the morning.
...but she makes her own lunch.
...but as far as I'm concerned she is art.

The introduction pretty much sums up my whole point: perspective. Timmmmyboy was a  guest speaker for ds106 where he gave a sort of editorial on creativity. While listening to his editorial, I took some notes and took in my reactions. Instead of a normal blog post, I'm going to give these quips and reactions to things that were suggested.

Hungry therefore creative.  Skinny therefore creative. What happens after someone gains weight? Do they lose their creativity. Also, skinny people aren't always hungry. Us fat guys are. So, the claim doesn't quite seem logical.

I was a night shift worker for five years and I did tend to be more creative at work than at home. In fact, the main reason I made a twitter years ago was so that I could save song lyrics. I would often think up lines while I was working and not be able to keep them. After getting twitter, I could quickly tweet them and they'd be there when I got home to put into whole songs.

I tend to be creative when I'm emotional. It could be very common. I think that's why there's so many songs about love and heartbreak.

We tend to define it as drawing, painting and sculpting, but there's also culinary arts, martial arts, make up, singing, dancing, music, writing, and even thinking.

As soon as you generate a thought, you are creative. Even if you don't know how to express it, you've made art. If you can't express it, you can still enjoy it.

When I was 12, I used to fake how long the sound of my voice was. I thought girls would be more attracted to me if they thought I was going through puberty (I'm not joking, that was completely logical to me 16 years ago). Now, Justin Bieber shrieks like a banshee and middle school girls love him for it. The difference? Perspective. If only I had a YouTube channel back then I could have not screwed up my voice.

My personal art styles: martial arts, 3-d painting (as in painting miniatures, statuettes and so on), singing, clarinet, saxophone, a little piano, I own a guitar and bass but I suck, dancing, writing, lyrics, culinary arts, and unfortunately a whole lot of thinking.

I think one thing that is important to do is to make a link in your brain between creativity and problem solving. Sometimes I feel like we're in the great age of giving up. I don't know how often I have seen someone get stumped by something and then just give up and leave things unfinished. I know people who have left blank answers on multiple choice tests. A little creativity is quite useful for finding solutions, even if on total accident or by chance.