A long time ago, I wrote a post about creativity as it applies to me.  Some days I feel really creative, but just don’t know how to express it.  Other times I try being creative and fall so short of the expectations I have of myself and my abilities that I fall into a funk.  Like last night – I had the hairbrained idea to make holiday cards this year instead of buying them.  I plan on posting about them later, but let’s just say that they definitely look homemade.

Today as I was reading all the blogs I love to read, I came across a new post by my good friend Pollyhyper.  For those who are new or who just forgot, Pollyhyper is the one who made my amazing wedding cake topper.  She subscribes to Lee Silber’s newsletter (never heard of him, but I plan on subscribing), which recently included a link to The 10 Dimensions of Creative Complexity (or, “10 Reasons That Creative People Drive Us Crazy”).  As I was reading this list over, it made an awful lot of sense to me.  Check this out:

1. Creative individuals have great physical energy, but they become extremely quiet when they are at rest.  This restful period can lead others to think that they are not feeling well or that they are unhappy, when the truth is they are fine.
2. Creative folks tend to be both highly intelligent and naive at the same time.
3. Creative people are disciplined and playful simultaneously.  In some creative people, this can mean that they are responsible and irresponsible at the same time as well.
4. Creative minds move between a spectrum of fantasy and imagination and a firm grounding in reality.  They understand the present and need to keep in touch with the past.
5. Creative individuals seem to be both introverted and extroverted, expressing both traits at once.  An image to explain this might be that they are shy showoffs, if you can picture that.
6. Creative people are sincerely humble and extremely proud in a childlike way.  It requires ego to have a risky, fresh idea.  It takes self-doubt to hammer it out to a workable form.
7. Creative folks don’t feel as tied to gender roles.  They feel distinctly individual.  They don’t feel the barriers of authority or the rules of what they are “supposed to do.”
8. Creative individuals are thought to be rebellious.  Yet, in order to be creative one has to understand and have internalized the traditional culture.  Therefore creativity comes from deep roots in tradition.  Creative people are traditional and cutting edge.
9. Creative people are deeply passionate about their work, yet can be extremely detached and objective when discussing it.
10. Creative people are highly open and sensitive, which exposes them to pain and suffering, but also allows them to feel higher values of joy and happiness.

If you look at each of those points, you’ll see that they all show two sides of a coin.  I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but I’m a Gemini, the sign of the twins, and Mister will tell anyone that my twins are polar opposites.  He’s gotten used to the way I will contradict myself in a sentence yet manage to make perfect sense, if only to myself.

My point with this whole post?  How in the heck do I tap my creativity to get it out, and harness it so that I can produce something worth showing off, perhaps even selling?  This is a question I ask myself all the time – every time I cruise Etsy to look at pretty stuff, or drive by the craft store, or even read my friend Robin’s blog.  How do I have that a-ha! moment that will unleash all this pent-up creativity inside me?

I went into work today feeling pretty much the same way I felt when I left Friday, except I was a lot more tired. I obviously was not wanting to be there. My brain kept spinning all day, trying to get through my mindless busy work and not have the day last 80 hours. I kept coming back to crafting. When I go into a craft store, I am drawn to the papers. There are such beautiful scrapbook papers, along with all sorts of other bits and bobs that go along with it. I love the handmade papers especially. But I don’t want to scrap. First of all, everyone else is doing it, and second of all, I prefer to display my photos in a more streamlined, less cute manner. Sorry for all you people who love scrapping and cute stuff, but it’s just not me, nor is jumping on the bandwagon. So while I don’t want to create scrapbook pages, I do see a lot of value in the items sold in the scrap stores.

What I have been drawn to in particular, for a long time, is collage. I love how a collage can have so many facets to it, that you can look at it over and over again and still keep discovering new aspects of it. But there’s only so much one can do on a flat surface, and I’d want to do something a bit more interesting in addition to more 2-dimensional things. So that brings me to assemblage art. – basically, collage in 3-D. If you’re looking for examples of it, you can also look up altered art or mixed media. Now this stuff can be interesting. It can also be very garish – does anyone remember the large doll wall art piece that Phoebe had on Friends? Yeah, I’m not looking to go there. But I want to do something. I love collecting little pieces of things, thinking that I could do something with them someday, though I’ve really curbed this habit because I never knew what to do with these things or where to put them in the meantime. But I want to create.

Adding to the inspiration are beautiful pieces that my imaginary internet friends like to create – such as the Convergence that Crowjoy has on her Etsy shop or the Midnight Moon Pendant that Pollyhyper created. I’m not so much into creating jewelry, I just don’t have the patience needed for crafting on such a small scale, but it just gives you an idea of all the possibilities. So I figured, perhaps I should try to make a few things, give them as gifts, and see where it goes from there. At worst, a couple people have some, um, lovely tchotchke handmade by moi. If all goes well it might spur me to put more time into my creations and even open an Etsy shop. But I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself. One thing at a time.

Once the thought of doing a few of these for gifts and seeing how it goes from there got into my head, I was a lot calmer. There’s no guarantee for success, but it gives me a creative outlet. Don’t get me wrong – I love my blog, but it’s not exactly a tangible thing. And you may have noticed that I really enjoy participating in mix CD exchanges, and that’s satisfying, but not on the same level. So crafty it is.

I bought a book and a couple things after work today – some stickers and a sheet of scrap paper – to start implementing the ideas I had in my head. For my lab rats, I have two specific people in mind, and two very different themes, as these two people are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum as far as where their interests lie. It should be fun, and if the ideas work out the way I want them to and I end up with a completed object, I’ll be sure to post photos so everyone can check them out.