Creativity

Dictionary.com defines Creativity as:
the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination

Wikipedia says:

An alternative, more everyday conception of creativity is that it is simply the act of making something new.

As a new graduate student, creativity has begun to hold an entirely new meaning for me. People often say that there is no such thing as an original idea. We are at a point in time where most things have been done, most ideas addressed, and most techiniques discovered. How then, is it possible to be creative in a world where everything has already been done? This is something that I am currently struggling with. It seems everytime I think I have a new and fresh idea, someone points out to me that it is being done by so and so. Are our thoughts ever actually our own? Everthing we think and feel is influenced by our experiences with others. Others words, others actions, others thoughts. What I am thinking right at this moment has likely been thought already by someone else somewhere in time. Yes, I have my own unique set of experinces and outlook, but it is likely that someone with entirely different experinces will possibly have ideas similar to my own. George Kneller said, "Creativity, it has been said, consists largely of re-arranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know." I have come to realize that while it is important to research the work of other artists, and also to be aware of what is going on in the art world today, I need to pursue my thoughts and ideas without being afraid of not being completely original. My ideas can be similar to someone elses while still being my own. My new advice comes from Joseph Chilton Pearce who says, "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

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(The image above is something I am working on in my Intaglio class.)