I’m reading a book at the moment (and apparently there’s a blog as well… 😀 ) – Living Artfully – Sandra Magsamen
It’s about creativity in everyday life; about how we box creativity up as only relating to “artists” or “musicians”, or whatever else you envision when you think “art”. She states that the root word for “create” means “grow” – that anything we do in a day that is growth is creativity.
I had thought that I would skim through the book, get a few ideas, take it back to the library… I’m enjoying actually reading it….
So far, there have been three stories that have been interesting to me…
The first is about a woman called Mierle Laderman Ukeles , an artist known for her feminist and service-oriented work .
From 1978- 1984, she travelled across New York City, shaking hands with 8500 sanitation workers (then still called “garbage men”) and thanking them for keeping the city clean. She documented her activities and conversations, including the workers’ stories, fears and humiliations associated with public perception of their job, in an attempt to challenge negative stereotypes. She believed that sanitation is not the same as garbage, and that “Sanitation creates order out of chaos, and in that way, it’s artlike.”
The second “artist” 😀 was a woman called Tressa “Grandma” Prisbey, who, at the age of 60, began transforming her home in California into what is now called “The Bottle Village” Over the next 30 years she completed 15 structures in and around her home from bottles and found objects secured with mortar. She created a whimsical, slightly odd, and often beautiful home that many others have enjoyed over the years.
Finally, a man named Samuel Mockbee, who worked with his architectural students to create houses made from materials discarded by local companies in Georgia. They built beautiful, but inexpensive, homes for people in poverty from old bricks, carpet samples, and used tyres. His work has been called “an architecture of decency”.
Where does that leave me? I believe we are all creative – after all, we are made in the image of the Great Creator! And if that is so, then I can “create” everyday, whether it’s a painting, or a recipe, or a great way to make a bed…..
What can you create today? 😀
1000 Fields of Roses 