CREATIVITY





I recently read an excellent article titled "Pushing the Creative Process," by Anita Luvera Mayer in Handwoven, Sept/Oct 1999. The author defined creativity as bringing something into being and discusses that dreaded time between getting an idea and actually realizing it. She talked about how we learn to express ourselves creatively and how we can jump-start the process. (My method is to keep a knitting/fiber notebook with all sorts of notes and color ideas and interesting techniques.) Here is a quote I wrote down from the article.



"Creativity involves learning the process, doing the work, and letting go of fear - whether it is a fear of failure, fear of not doing it "right", fear of looking foolish, fear of being different, or fear of wasting material... When we're being creative we have to learn to trust our own responses and ideas. We go past fear by taking action, trying out ideas, and not giving up."



Yesterday I achieved that wonderful state of flow you sometimes get when working on a project. I was knitting away on the cashmere Meida's mittens from Folk Knitting in Estonia and I was completely oblivious to the world around me, just enjoying the pattern and the different colors I chose. I'm up past the thumb and should finish mitten 1 today. I'm hoping to finish the mittens by the end of this weekend and the Sirdal cardigan by the end of the month.