I was struck by Patti Smith describing her relationship to Picasso's Guernica in terms of gratitude.
In @psychtoday.bsky.social, Pablo Tinio and I explore latest research on why we are attracted to art.
#gratitude #Thanksgiving #art #psychology #creativity
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/crea...

I was personally grateful to be able to hear a conversation between two people who are fundamentally open to coming to know each other, listening and hearing one another, and sharing things in common and those that are not common.

I could feel Ezra Klein's gratitude for being able to speak with Patti Smith, come to be in her presence, the presence that is her lived history of art and culture and personhood.

What if everyone studied creativity?
🥉Knowing that the social side of creativity makes a difference between one success and making creativity consistent and reliable.

What if everyone studied creativity?
🥈 People understanding they need to build skills to help them ride the rollercoaster of the creative process and make it in one piece to its conclusion. Skills that help them come up with new ideas, explore them, and manage the emotional ups and downs.

What if everyone studied creativity?
🥇 “I am not creative” turning into “Maybe I could become more creative”

I was recently asked on a panel what would a world be like if all students had the opportunity to learn about creativity and build their creative potential.

It was inspiring to speak to faculty and students and visit classes reading The Creativity Choice and putting it to use in their projects as varied in content as creativity itself.

➡️ Creative work is a rollercoaster by definition. There will be ups and downs. Good news – it is not just you.

➡️ Creativity is not… art or being artistic… something you either have or you do not have… something you have to wait for… something you have to wait to be confident about

➡️ Creativity is something that is both original and effective. That can be on a personal level (something new and meaningful only to us, especially in the process of learning), in everyday life activities and relationships, or something that takes expertise.

We cannot divide thinking and feeling. To build creativity, we have to understand how to use emotions to inspire and how to manage them when they get in the way.

And we have to become able to harness the power of our social relationships.

We have to build self-confidence and instill value of creativity. These are the fuel, but they do not come pre-formed.

We also have to understand the drive for creativity, both what motivates us and how to focus our attention (useful trick: impose constraints and guides on thinking).

I spoke of the lessons from The Creativity Choice and how to apply them. To build capacity for creativity, we cannot build only thinking skills.

➡️ Curiosity can take us to others; reaching out to people at the edges of our networks will be most helpful when coming up with new ideas and those we are close with when we are building ideas

🤨 We tend to think about emotions as good or bad to creativity, but the reality is more interesting because different emotions are helpful for different parts of creative work