April 2010
20 posts
Designing a space for innovation.
There’s something big happening over at the Stanford d.school.
For the past six years, students and faculty of d.school have tried to figure out what it takes to design a space for innovation. The school wondered if creating a place to inspire creativity and making ideas happen was even possible.
Starting May 7th the school will finally get to test their ideas for an...
Bird Watching, an interview with Paula McCartney →
How can creativity improve on the already stunning beauty of nature?
Rosecrans Baldwin did a short interview with book artist and photographer Paula McCartney to find out.
In the interview, Paula talks about her experience and what inspires her to photograph beautiful environments with artificial birds. Paula says:
When I lived in New York City, I photographed the bird aviaries at the...
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Motivation Monday: Perception of the artist.
What is art? How do you define art? An even better question: what is the purpose of art?
Towards the beginning of the first World War, two painters were experimenting with a simplistic, African‒inspired painting style. Eventually what began as an experiment in art form by Picasso and Braque would ultimately become a cubist art movement, producing tremendous amount of unique works.
At the...
Insights from Creative Something's past
It was a little over two years ago that I started this blog.
Initially Creative Something was created to be an exploration on creativity, inspiration, and motivation. This blog turned out to be a remarkable source of creativity for thousands of people and continues to help people like you find creative inspiration daily.
Today I want to look back at the past of Creative Something and share...
The Ever Present Artist.
OK, this is cool. You’ll at least want to take a look…
Marina Abramović is performing (or putting on a display? or exhibiting? or something?) at the MoMA in a very unique way.
Abramović is seated in [the atrium] for the duration of the exhibition, performing her new work The Artist Is Present for seven hours, five days a week, and ten hours on Fridays. Visitors are invited to sit...
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Improve your cognitive thinking with meditation.
Want to improve your cognitive thinking? Do you have 20 minutes a day to dedicate to improving it? You’ll be interested to know that new research has shown how easy, mindful meditation for a few minutes every day can improve cognitive abilities.
Fadel Zeidan, a researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and former doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, along...
The past, present, and future of creativity. →
This presentation about the past, present, and future of creativity is remarkably fun to go through.
It only takes five minutes, but you’ll learn a lot about where creativity has come from, what people are doing with creativity today, and what the future holds for creative thinkers. Take a look and be inspired.
Motivation Monday: Beautiful Losers
Not too long ago there was a cultural movement that began to change the art world.
There is no title for the movement, no Wikipedia page, and definitely no real studies done around it. All we have is the culture and the art that was produced.
Beautiful Losers takes a look at this powerful and creative movement of the early 1990s, a movement that has created an entirely new world for a...
It's world creativity and innovation week! →
This week is world creativity and innovation week. Put your thinking caps on and make something happen.
World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 - 21 is a celebration of our ability to get new ideas, use imagination and make new decisions to make the world a better place and to make your place in the world better too.
Creativity and astronomy. →
Tatiana Ouvarova talks creativity and astronomy. Must read.
Now, you might be wondering what does creativity have to do with astronomy? Well, it turns out that creativity is an extremely broad characteristic present in all of us – not just the artists – and can be manifested in a variety of ways, including in astronomy classes!
Curiosity makes the difference.
“One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
It’s easy to be average. Anyone can wake up in the morning, follow a routine without thinking much about what it is they are doing, go to bed and then repeat the process the next day. It’s easy for most of us to live without trying. We can follow a routine, do as...
Feelings are facts.
“Feelings are facts”, the result of a first time
collaboration between danish-icelandic artist olafur eliasson and chinese architect ma yansong / MAD, which challenges our everyday patterns of spatial orientation.
This exhibit in Beijing was designed to misguide and confuse visitors. A beautiful ‒ albeit artificial ‒ fog filled the museum and created a surreal experience for anyone...
Motivation Monday: Everyday creativity.
When you listen to a musician who creates music not only with their hands or voice but also with their minds and heart, you are in the presence of a creative genius.
When you find an artist that lives and breathes art, you had better pay attention so you can learn a thing or two.
When someone truly lives their creative work, it’s inspiring. The musician who practices making music for...
Creative art with Nicole Dextras
When you see a sheet of paper, what possibilities do you imagine?
You could use a pencil or marker or pen to draw on the piece of paper, that’s a given. You could fold the paper over several times to create something resembling an airplane or frog or swan. You could even turn the sheet of paper into a hat, if you know how.
What about a shirt? When you see a t‒shirt what’s...
Learn Something Every Day →
Looking for random ideas to fuel your creative thinking? Try Learn Something New Every Day, a website of illustrations ‒ some silly, some not ‒ that are informative and very, very random.
Be warned, however: the website is addicting and you are likely going to spend the next 30 minutes browsing the random facts and insights. Great for creative inspiration, not so much for productivity.
25 Talks to Ignite Your Creativity →
Here is a great list of 25 remarkable talks “to ignite & unleash your creativity.” Some of my all‒time favorite talks are listed, including Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity, The Fringe Benefits of Failure by J.K. Rowling, and Do What You Love by Gary Vaynerchuk.
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Motivation Monday: Comment-Box Poets
Online comments are often profane, crude, idiotic, or downright jibberish.
If you go to YouTube and view a humorous video, or visit your favorite blog, or literally go to any popular website that has comments enabled, you are bound to find scores of public comments that make you wonder where humans went wrong.
The expected nature of awful online comments makes it even more surprising to...
Childish creativity →
In this article author Jonah Lehrer looks at why we tend to “grow out” of our creativity. Jonah writes:
Why does age make us less mature? [What] accounts for the infamous 4th grade slump in creativity? One possibility is that we trade away the ingenuity of our youth for executive function. As the brain develops, the prefrontal cortex expands in density and volume. As a result, we’re able to...
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Capturing fur and tails.
Sharon Montrose is a photographer, but not the kind of photographer you’re probably used to.
What Sharon specializes in ‒ what she wakes up every day to do ‒ is take pictures of animals, with an emphasis on dogs. Really.
You’ve probably seen some of the photos Sharon has taken before, featured in magazines or prints, on websites and maybe even in a commercial or two. The thing...
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Searching for true inspiration.
If you are an artist the last place you should look for inspiration is in a museum or art gallery.
If you are a musician you should avoid listening to mainstream music or music of your same genre when trying to find inspiration.
If you’re a web designer searching for creative inspiration, the millions of web galleries that exist online today should be the very last place you look for...