On Creativity and Eight Habits of The Creatively Intelligent

By Orna Ross

Why You’re Not More Creative

We’d all be more creative if we paid less attention to the surfaces, our doings and achievements, our ambitions and desires; and more attention to the depths, the hidden forces and faculties that lie within ourselves and others, within all things and all experiences.

We insist on burnishing our worries and wants and wishes, until we are blind to what’s in front of our eyes. We insist on resounding our opinions, until we’ve drowned out the whispers of our hearts.

So we fail to see the true visions, to hear the sound of other spheres.

And the eternal stream folds back into the infinite nothing, from whence it came, having flowed past our skin instead of through our blood.

Eight Habits of The Creatively Intelligent

Creative Intelligence is not a “given” but a process, a practice. An approach to living.

Here are habits of living that all creative people have fostered in themselves:

1. Ask Questions
   What if? Why? Why not? How? How many of the world’s great inventions or artworks would never have happened if their creators hadn’t asked.
2. Embrace Change
   It’s happening, whether you like it or not. Might as well love it.
3. Don’t Pre-judge
   Discernment is important — but only at the end. Let the beginning be a field of open possibility.
4. Look on the Bright Side
   Does being creative make you positive? Or being positive make you creative? Contrary to popular opinion, the research says: both.
5. Welcome Problems
   Creative people see problems as natural and normal — they’re drawn to them, wanting to fix them, to “make” a solution.
6. Confront Challenge
   Becoming more creative means stepping out of your comfort zone — aka your stagnation pool — and s-t-r-r-r-e-t-c-h-ing yourself.
7. Stick at It
   Successful creatives are all agreed: resilience and persistence were more important to their success than talent.
8. Be Flexible
   Go with the flow, the flash, the flux: they are the stuff that brilliance is made of. •

© 2009 Orna Ross. All rights reserved.  Original site http://www.creativity-portal.com/cca/orna-ross/8-habits-creatively-intelligent.html

About the Author | More by Orna Ross
Orna Ross is an Irish novelist and creative nonfiction writer. She has taught creative principles, writing and freewriting to many disparate groups — from addicts in recovery to MA students and has facilitated creative and publishing success for many writing students. She lives in London where she is at work on a novel and a memoir, as well as blogging and speaking to groups about Creative Intelligence. Her website is www.ornaross.com.

Herman James of Long Island’s Climate Gallery recently wrote to say he looks forward to having our work shown in the gallery!  The show, “die Zeit of Drawing”, is scheduled from December 5, 2009 thru December 27, 2009 with an opening reception slated for December 5, 2009 from 6 – 9.  

Ten artists of distinction will be jurored by Jeff Mays of the McKee Gallery in New York.  Climate Gallery will publish a catalogue of the work from those artists and each artist will be featured on the gallery’s website for a month.  All of the artists in the show are to be listed in the catalogue, and block photographs of the gallery walls showing all of the work in the exhibition will be included.

Shauna Lee Lange Color Design Studios has submitted the following pieces for exhibition from her circle series.  The three works below focus on financial accountability in accounting ledgers along with green sustainability.  Climate Gallery has taken a very broad interpretation of “drawing” for this show, including digitally enhanced and other technology manipulations.  Lange’s work is all hand-drawn as a self-taught and late-emergent artist.  Lange has operated an arts advisory for the metropolitan Washington DC region since 2006. This is her second showing in the Long Island region.

Well, I turned 46 today and it was Day 1 of my in-place sabbatical.  The “trip” will last one year and is designed to concentrate on three goals, my own art, the intersection of art & spirit, and writing a manuscript for publication.

My 22-year old daughter Lauren came down from Brooklyn to surprise me at my husband’s suggestion!  Here are a few pics of her at the DC Craft Mafia’s event at the Soundry in Vienna.  

I also was able to work more on my circles project for the Art House Sketchbook Library Project – with only a few left to do, I’ll be excited to get this one out the door mid-December. 

As for matters of the spirit, today was the first birthday I was able to spend with both my children, even if the picture did come out very yellowed – here we all are having a great time in Del Ray.

We signed papers today and will be moving in December, so that was a huge present that was both unexpected and much hoped for and anticipated.  No writing or researching today – time has a way of getting out from under you when you’re having fun.  Or when reading the many well wishes from Facebook friends.  

I am beginning The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson.  Here’s a passage:

Let me encourage you, friend, to reach boldly for the miracle.  Your father knows your gifts, your hindrances, and the condition you are in every minute  And he also knows something you can’t possibly know – every single person who’s in desperate need of receiving his touch through you.  God will bring you to that person at exactly the right time and in the right circumstances.

Here are some photo’s of Mixed Up Mosaics designs for the Takoma Park Metro Underpass project as unveiled on November 19, 2009 at the DC Takoma Park Library. The firm is out of New York City.  

Here are some photo’s of Myklebust and Sears designs for the Takoma Park Metro Underpass project as unveiled on November 19, 2009 at the DC Takoma Park Library. The firm is out of Wisconsin.  

Here are some photo’s of City Arts (Byron Peck’s) designs for the Takoma Park Metro Underpass project as unveiled on November 19, 2009 at the DC Takoma Park Library. The artists writes, “The long rolling wave on the west wall of the underpass is symbolic of Sligo Creek and the hilly nature of Takoma Park.”

Here are some photo’s of Cheryl Foster’s designs for the Takoma Park Metro Underpass project as unveiled on November 19, 2009 at the DC Takoma Park Library. The artists writes, “Included in the information below, community writers, artists and poets will have an opportunity to have a short message fused into the sculpture.”

Here are some photos of Sam Gilliam’s designs for the Takoma Park Metro Underpass project as unveiled on November 19, 2009 at the DC Takoma Park Library. The artists writes, “The piece is not merely a mosaic of color, it is a draped work for the station.”

Applying peak performance principles to art endeavors brings us the following…

1) Clarity.  Have a clear view of the position(s) that you’re looking for.  High performers tend to know what they want to accomplish in their career as well as in every area of their life. Clarity is power as the focus it gives enables you to save your most valuable resource, which is time.

2) Visualization.  Visualize yourself in the role. Top performers use visualization techniques and imagine themselves being where they want to be.  They imagine themselves achieving things they are yet to achieve.  The brain reacts in a very similar way to events that actually happen and those that are vividly imagined. Get used to the feeling of being where you want to be to get there faster.

3) Belief.  Have an unstoppable belief in yourself and your ability to get to where you want to be. High achievers believe they can in advance of the event. Believing that you can often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Two people can go to the same college, university or training program yet one makes things happen while the other watches things happen.  The answer I believe is within the individual’s belief system, and more specifically a rock-solid conviction that he or she can do it.  As Henry Ford once said: “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

4) Responsibility.  Take full responsibility for your art results. When you take accountability for everything that happens in your art career, you empower yourself to be able to change the results you’re getting.

5) Relationships.  Top performers build relationships. There is just too much to learn and things are changing too rapidly for someone to make it alone. Build relationships with everyone you meet!

(adapted from jeff appleby’s executive trumpet article on peak performance for job seekers dated 11/17/09).