The nature of creativity

New baby set made for a PTA silent auction.

I have been pondering creativity for a while so thought I would "think it out loud" here and see what people thought.

I recently heard an interview on the radio with a composer/conductor. The interviewer asked what instruments she played and the composer replied that although she came from a musical family she had never stuck to one instrument. She was frequently inspired to take up and instrument but never stuck at it. She had never enjoyed playing other peoples music preferring to make up her own.

This thought mulled around in my head for while. I am a creative person and have always found it difficult to follow others instructions. At some point in the process I change something because I don't agree with the design or the technique. Sometimes it works and I have created my own short cut and other times it doesn't and I end up with something I am not happy with. I have always imagined that this was part of my "bloody mindedness" rather than an aspect of my creativity. Maybe it is that I don't want to make a carbon copy of someones elses, it has to be mine even in a small minor way.

The flip side of this force to make something individual is that some people are happy to produce exact replicas. I have friends who feel no need to move beyond cross stitch. I had put it down to a lack of confidence but maybe that is the nature of their creativity? In a similar way that many people play musical instruments but never have any urge to compose, feeling that the slant they put onto the music is enough.

Maybe this is why I never able to conquer the violin! or maybe that it is the lack of any musical ability and I never really practised!

If I wasn't cleaning the house tomorrow I would be doing this!