Archive for the Category » Creativity Quotes «

21 Creativity Quotes: Creative change leaders and educators weigh in on the role of creativity

“Today, the world belongs to category creators – those who can do what artists and designers have always done: create something that others never knew they
needed but can’t live without.”
Daniel Pink

 “The arts are no longer ornamental. They’re fundamental.”
Daniel Pink

 “When I see our country’s stagnation and economic woes, I cannot help but think that we need a creative revolution that is embraced by business and endorsed by government and educators alike.”
Larry R. Thompson

 “Traditional thinking is not working. I contend that creative and innovative thinking is one of the most – if not the most – critical success factors needed for employees and businesses to succeed in the 21st century.”
Larry R. Thompson

 “In order to reclaim America’s ‘creativity’ differentiator, we must be able to provide businesses with a workforce of imaginative employees who will pave the way to a new future. It is time to transform our educational system in America to embrace and nurture creativity as a core value.”
Larry R. Thompson

 “…the freedom of personal expression, ideas and imagination, working in collaboration with people from diverse backgrounds – is what’s
needed to spawn creativity.”
Larry R. Thompson

 “Creativity is an endlessly renewable resource, and we can tap into it at any time.”
Tina Seelig

 “With enhanced creativity, instead of problems you see potential, instead of obstacles you see opportunities, and instead of challenges you see
a chance to create breakthrough solutions.”
Tina Seelig

 “Creativity allows you to thrive in an ever changing world and
unlocks a universe of possibilities.”
Tina Seelig

 “We are all inventors of our own futures. And creativity is the heart of invention.”
Tina Seelig

 “Everything you see is ripe for innovation.”
Tina Seelig

 “While the arts lie on the margins of most people’s lives, creative process is central to who we are as humans.  Learning, growth, and transformation are creative processes, and it is the act of seeing connections that
forms the heart of creative consciousness.”
Kim Hermanson

 “…enhancing creativity is not only for enrichment; it’s a vital resource for meeting the challenges and dangers, as well as the opportunities of the accelerated-change climate of the twenty-first century.”
Shelley Carson

 “Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality.  The vehicle of self-expression.  The engine of progress in every human endeavor.”
Elliot Samuel Paul

 “The construct of everyday creativity is defined in terms of human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life. It is seen as central to human survival, and, to some extent, it is (and must be) found in everyone.”
Ruth Richards

 “Creativity is an electrifying force that defines, shapes, and initiates new ways of being, seeing and transforming the world.”
Laine Goldman

  “In the midst of rapid technological change and global economic and social transformation, creativity and innovation have replaced physical labor and organizational bureaucracy as the key source of economic success.  Companies and communities of all sizes are looking for the ‘next big thing’ that will be the key to growth. Increasingly, economic development experts agree that
the next big thing is creativity.”
Marcene Sonneborn

 “In a world where lifelong employment in the same job is a thing of the past, creativity is not a luxury. It is essential for personal security and fulfillment.”
Sir Ken Robinson

 “Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them.
A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.”
Sir Ken Robinson

  “Creative thinking is more than just coming up with new ideas. It is about living life in a way that is open, authentic and curious. It is a mindset and
approach to everything we do.”
Cyndi Burnett

 “Anyone who longs for more creativity and innovation inside their organization has a fundamental job to do. They need to look carefully through the organizational processes and ferret out the places in which the implicit rule of engagement is ‘prove it.’ Fix those and you will unleash a mighty wave of positive change!”
Roger Martin

Have a quote you believe fits in this collection? Share it with me via Twitter @ QuoteJoy or on the JoyofQuotes Facebook page. For tons more creativity quotes visit: JoyofQuotes.com. Your comments are always welcome. Today’s creativity prompt is: start a conversation about creativity. Anywhere. Anytime. Just go up to someone and ask: “How are YOU creative?” or “How do YOU define creativity?” and journal (or draw out) your experience! Create a fabulous day…

Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Fun Creative Inspiration

Blue toenail polish in honor of Dr. Mary Murdock

We all have the power to create!  Today’s first creative prompt is:  follow a child’s example. Invent a new world using markers and colored paper. Turn your handprint into a work of art. Make a book out of pictures you’ve torn out of magazines. Transform trash into a treasure. Take your imagination out for a ‘play date.’ Invent something fun and functional (like lizard sandals – my newest fashion statement!)  The only limits are in your mind…and I invite you to practice ignoring them;)

“When we live our life as art we make room for creativity, flow, connection, synchronicity, and magic.”
Heather Ash Amara

The 2011 International Children’s Art Festival held June 17-19th on The National Mall in Washington D.C. brought together children, parents, teachers and performers from around the globe to join in a transformational celebration of creativity. I was there presenting along with 9 other students from the International Center for Studies in Creativity - under the guidance of Dr. Cyndi Burnett. Together we created opportunities for children to exercise their creative spirits and play with possibilities. 

“Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth.”
Abraham Maslow

Witnessing spontaneous bursts of creative inspiration can be contageous!  A young girl named Dilnoza came half way around the world (look up Tajikistan on the map and you’ll see just how far she traveled to get to Washington DC) to share her talents at my table by creating the flower-filled lizard land shown above.  It was fun watching many new worlds being created out of the fertile imaginations of children from 2 to 12 who spoke different languages, yet shared a universal appreciation for different forms of creative expression. I noticed adults looking longingly at the art supplies – and in some cases – taking the markers out of their children’s hands and taking over the creative process. This is a big ‘creativity craving’ clue.  Adults: if you get the urge to take over/improve(?)/direct/guide a child’s art, it’s time to give yourself free access to the same supplies, as well as your own ‘creative play time.’  When children visited my presentation table, they were invited to select and ‘adopt’ a (rubber) lizard. Their creative ‘task’ was to create a ‘world’ the lizard would love to live in. It could take any form – from something on the moon or in the desert or anywhere in a child’s imagination. The most wonderful part was hearing the children’s ‘lizard land’ stories! Magical!  You ARE encouraged to try this at home!

                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                

“Moment after moment we are creating something, and this is the joy of our life.”
Shunryu Suzuki

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to play with your creativity?  ‘Everyday creativity’ researcher, Dr. Ruth Richards reminds us this type of creating is , “…one of the most powerful capacities we have, bringing us alive in each moment, affecting our health and well being, offering richness and alternatives in what we do, and helping us move further in our creative and personal development.”  (From Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature , 2007, page 25).

“The creative process includes exploring, experimenting, messing around with materials, being playful, entering into the unknown.”
Natalie Rogers

 
 
 

Marta's "Wish 2B Creative" Collage, 2011

Currently, my favorite forms of creative self-expression are collage, photography, and Latin dancing.  I also have a dream to create an Art Play House in Sarasota, Florida, based on the work of Shona Hammond Boys, an art educator/advocate extraordinaire who lives in New Zealand.  We connected at the International Children’s Art Festival and discovered we share a passion for promoting creativity worldwide. She showed an amazing video which I highly recommend viewing, which tells the story of the Opotiki, New Zealand Children’s Mural Project (and the coolest view of a whale tail as well as children catching big fish with their bare hands).  When  you have a half hour to get inspired, click the link above. About 15 minutes into the movie, Shona speaks to the dramatic, positive outcomes of this project. It is nothing less than transformational. To learn more about Shona’s Art Houses in New Zealand, visit: www.arthouse.org.nz . I love the simple truth of this child’s view of creativity. View the video by clicking here.

One of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is listen to each other’s stories.”
Rebecca Falls

 

Fun creative inspiration comes from trying new things, playing with materials,being around children creating, and sharing stories. Creativity lessons are all round us. Listen for laughter. Follow your joy. Be curious and take some risks. It’s the recipe for making magical moments. The photo of my friend Carol (in blue) and I in front of a wrought iron re-creation of Cinderella’s carriage demonstrates the creative result of acting on inspiration. I saw the carriage and, like a couple of kids, we decided to sneak over and capture the moment, just for the fun of it!  Creativity prompt #2 is to do something just a little  bit daring (or ‘out of character’)…and take a picture! I recruited a ‘partner in crime’ to catch me in a few fun poses and discovered I enjoy being a ‘creative director’ in photo sessions!  Both photos were taken at The Art Center in Sarasota, Florida.  They have a great exhibit of scanned objects from nature which is jaw-droppingly beautiful which will be showing until the end of July. It’s a great place to visit!

I hope you enjoyed this ‘fun creative inspiration’ blog. As always, you’re invited to visit www.JoyofQuotes.com daily for positive, encouraging quotes and inspiration. We’ve added some new subject categories – including a page of quotes to use on Twitter. I’ll be adding ‘tweetable’ quotes weekly, so keep stopping by. You can also help support our website by clicking on the ads posted by our advertisers. Even if you don’t make a purchase, your click helps offset the costs of keeping our site up and growing.  Thanks, in advance, for your help! I also love hearing from visitors to this blog and hope you will feel inspired to share your comments. 

July is ‘birthday month’ for three of my very dear friends: Tamara on the 22nd, Carol on the 25th, and Janus on the 26th. I hope this is the year each of  your happiest dreams come true!
Thank you for all the ways you bless my life!  And if your birthday is in July, too, I wish you nothing but wonderfulness;)

With peace, joy and smiles….Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Photo Credit:  A special thank you to Tamara Williams who treated me to a fabulous photo session which resulted in many new ‘favorite photos’ – including this professional ‘head shot.’
She made it fun being photographed. If you are ever in Sarasota and need a wonderful photographer, Tamara comes highly recommended! E-mail: magicalmarta@aol.com for details.

Teaching Creativity Creatively

Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.”
Sir Ken Robinson

 

Happy Spring everyone! This week’s blog is dedicated to every person who recognizes the importance of nurturing, inspiring, and encouraging creativity.  Our 10-week journey into unlocking creative potential and the expressive path to personal growth ends – officially – with the next post.  The time has come for me to gather feedback.  Over the past two months I’ve shared my creative process so that you could follow along.  Now it’s time for you to grade my efforts.  Have these posts inspired you?  Did I encourage you to believe in your creative potential? Did I nurture your confidence to try? Did you follow any prompts?  Did you try something new?   Did you connect with an old or new joy?  Please e-mail your evaluation of my effectiveness to: magicalmarta@aol.com Thanks for your help!

Cricket Creativity

 “In today’s rapidly changing world, people must continually come up with creative solutions to unexpected problems. Success is based not only on what you know or how much we know, but on your ability to think and act creatively. In short, we are now living in the Creative Society.”
Mitchel Resnick, MIT

 Something I found very amazing about publicly sharing my creative process and products is how much acceptance I felt. It turns out the world IS a safe place to share our creative experiments.  I have also noticed each topic I feel inspired to research, shows up in my in-box five minutes later.  Is this intention, intuition, or just magic?  Whatever it is, this morning, right after thinking I wanted to find a scholarly study on creative ideas and inspiration, I discovered the work of Mitchel Resnick, Research Group Leader at the MIT Media Lab.  Google “Sowing Seeds for a More Creative Society” and print out a PDF copy for free. You can also access the work through Learning and Leading with Technology, 2007, http://www.media.mit.edu/ . This article introduces a ‘creative thinking spiral’ which tracks the process in a beautifully simple way. First – people imagine what they would like to do, next – they create a project based on their ideas, then they play with their creations and share their ideas and creations with others.  In the final step they reflect on their experiences and then imagining starts the process over again.  This process works well with children and adults. The report also cites exciting examples of creative learning inspired by Cricket and Scratch technology.  Sound interesting?  Explore the possibilities!

TLC: Cool 'Creators' School

My next discovery was a blog from 2008 about Teaching Creativity with TLC.  TLC stands for The Learning Connection, a school for creators (no matter what road they take in life) located in Wellington, New Zealand.  I so love the idea of “a school for creators” – aren’t we ALL creators?  Of course we are!  This school is the creation of Jonathan Milne. His wife, Alice Wilson Milne, is the school’s administrative genius.  Together they’ve built a school which teaches art in a way which grows entrepreneurs who have learned creative strategies through their art which can serve them in other life endeavors. They reach out to individuals beyond the arts with an interest in enhancing their inventive and entrepreneurial know-how and use a pioneering approach to teaching which puts self-choice learning in the driver’s seat. I just purchased Milne’s book: Go! The Art of Change. Visit The Learning Connection’s website: http://www.tlc.ac.nz/  to read about the miracle ‘success stories’ this school has stimulated.  I am in awe of the many creative gifts of communication, collaboration, and connection offered by the internet. I feel so blessed to be sharing this information within seconds of discovering it. We truly live in an amazing creative age.

 

Last week talked about our creative brains and started HOW ARE YOU CREATIVE? conversations with people as part of World Creativity and Innovation Week.  Did you make any interesting (creative) discoveries or take part in any creative events?  I participated in a Creativity Week dance party in Dr. Cyndi Burnett’s office (disco ball and all!).  Dr. Burnett set things up so that people she’d invited from all over the world could dance along with us via Skype.  A great time was had by all!  Dr. Burnett has been mentioned in previous posts. She is one of a handful of professors who have made my experience at ICSC (International Center for Studies in Creativity) at Buffalo State College extraordinary! 

 

Showing off our Creativity Week collages!

I’m happy to share photos from the World Creativity Week Grad House Collage Party Open House, Wednesday, April 20th.  Our visitors included a visiting professor from Taiwan, students from Colombia, Italy, Korea, China, India, and an assortment of creatives from the United States.  If you decide to have your own collage party – all you need is magazines, glue sticks, scissors, poster board or scrapbook sheets to use as backings.  Let people know collages are optional.  It’s more about exploring your interests and taking time for creative play.

 

My parting gift to you today is an inspiring collection of 100 Creativity & Teaching quotes.  Just scroll past the end of this blog and you’ll come to it.  If you feel this information is valuable – please share it via Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail. I really appreciate it!

 

New links in the Grad House creativity chain.

Create a beautiful week! 

Marta Davidovich Ockuly

100 Creativity & Teaching Quotes

“Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.”
Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.”
Joseph Campbell

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds most grow.”
Rachel Carson

“We are all creative. Creativity is the hallmark human capacity that has allowed us to survive thus far. Our brains are wired to be creative, and the only thing stopping you from expressing the creativity that is your birthright is your belief that there are creative people and uncreative people and that you fall in that second category.”
Shelley Carson, Your Creative Brain

“You are in possession of one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, one that has virtually unlimited potential not only to change your life, but also to change your world.”
Shelley Carson, Your Creative Brain

“Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that comes from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.”
Deepak Chopra

 “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
Leonardo da Vinci

“I do not teach children. I give them joy.”
Isadora Duncan

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Albert Einstein

“Information is not knowledge.”
Albert Einstein

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
Albert Einstein

“Most people see what is, and never see what can be.”
Albert Einstein

“Not everything important is measurable and not everything measurable is important.”
Eliott Eisner

“My chief want in life is for someone who shall make me do what I can.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I call the age we are entering the creative age because the key factor propelling us forward is the rise of creativity as the primary mover of our economy.”
Richard Florida, The Flight of the Creative Class

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
Henry Ford

“Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.”
Anatole France

“Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.”
Anatole France

 “Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”
Anna Freud

 “Your ability to act on your imagination is going to be so decisive in driving your future and the standard of living in your country. So the school, the state, the country that empowers, nurtures, enables imagination among its students and citizens, that’s who’s going to be the winner.”
Thomas L. Friedman

 “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”
Robert Frost

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”
Galielo Galilei

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”
Khalil Gibran

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”
Kahlil Gibran

“Every act of creating is an act of power, an act of hope.”
Pam Grout

 “Ability and increased potential grow hand in hand. As we grow, as we move, as we learn, the cells of our nervous systems connect in highly complex patterns of neural pathways.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“It is our movements that not only express knowledge and facilitate greater cognitive function, they actually grow the brain as they increase in complexity.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“My college students have commented that just having clay available to manipulate during a lecture allowed them to more easily take in information. Whenever touch is combined with the other senses, much more of the brain is activated, thus building more complex nerve networks and tapping into more learning potential.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Neural connections can be altered and grown only if there is full attention, focused interest on what we do. In three weeks we can get ten times more proficient at anything if we are emotionally engaged with focused interest.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“No matter how abstract our thinking may appear to be, it can only be manifested through the use of the muscles in our bodies – speaking, writing, making music, computing, and so on. Our bodies do the talking, focus our eyes on the page, hold the pencil, play the music.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Research in the neurosciences is helping to explain how and why rich emotional development is essential for understanding relationships, rational thought, imagination, creativity and even the  health of the body.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Self-initiated movement, exploration, interaction and physical experience for the joy and challenge of it, facilitates neurogenesis (nerve growth) for a lifetime.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“The human urge to create comes from the play impulse.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Thinking and learning are not all in our head. On the contrary, the body plays an integral part in all our intellectual processes from our earliest moments in utero right through old age. It is our body’s senses that feed the brain environmental information with which to form an understanding of the world and from which to draw when creating new possibilities.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Thought, creativity and learning arise from experience.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

“Touch is a strong anchor in behavior and learning. If children are gently touched on the shoulder while they are reading, the brain connects the encouraging touch with the reading and helps to anchor the positive experience.”
Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head

 “Creative teaching requires moving from a focus on imparting knowledge to knowledge acquisition, providing opportunities for the learner to engage in deep thought and productive action.”
Susan Keller-Mathers, Encyclopedia of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent

“Educators must ask themselves, ‘To what degree do I deliberately promote creativity?”
Susan Keller-Mathers, Building Passion and Potential for Creative Learning in Higher Education

“To fully nurture the creative potential of others requires modeling the behaviors, attitudes and actions consistent with a creative learner. Development of one’s creative expression is therefore first.”
Susan Keller-Mathers, Building Passion and Potential for Creative Learning in Higher Education

“Creative activity is not a superimposed, extraneous task against which the body, or brain protests, but an orchestration of … joyful doing.”
Gyorgy Kepes

“I affirm to grow as a teacher, I must remain an alert learner.”
Eric Maisel

 “Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.”
Loris Malaguzzi

 “What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?”
Rollo May

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.”  
Plutarch

“True joy is that which gives us more energy and makes us feel more alive.”
Robert Puryear

“Creativity is for us all – it’s about you, me, and about everyday life. It is about the abundant originality we manifest, and our flexible improvisations, whether teaching a class, raising our kids, fixing the car, helping a client, landscaping the yard, planning a benefit, or trying to figure out why we’re on earth.”
Ruth Richards

“Our ‘originality of everyday life’ as is manifested in new products – including concrete creative outcomes, behaviors, or ideas – need only involve two criteria, after Frank Barron (1969): originality and meaningfulness to others.”
Ruth Richards, Everyday Creativity

“Our everyday creativity is not only good for us, it’s also one of the most powerful capacities we have, bringing us alive in each moment, affecting our health and well-being, offering richness and alternatives in what we do, and helping move us further in our creative and personal development.”
Ruth Richards, Everyday Creativity

“The construct of everyday creativity is defined in terms of human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life.  It is seen as central to human survival, and, to some extent, it is (and must be) found in everyone.  Because everyday creativity is not just about what one does, but also how, creative process as well as product are observed.”
Ruth Richards, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity

“We humans are not creatures of instinct who all build our nests the same way. Throughout our day, whether at home or at work, we humans adapt and innovate, improvise fleibly, at times acting from our ‘gut feelings,’ at times from options we imagine and systematically try out, one after the other.  Our creativity may involve anything from making breakfast to solving a major conflict with one’s boss.”
Ruth Richards, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity

“All of our existing ideas have creative possibilities.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Being in your element is not only about aptitude, it’s about passion: it is about loving what you do…tapping into your natural energy and your most authentic self.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Creativity involves putting your imagination to work. In a sense, creativity is applied imagination.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.”
Sir Ken Robinson

 “Creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Creativity is a process more often than it is an event.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Creativity is a multi-faceted process. It involves many ordinary abilities and some specialized skills and techniques; it can be fostered by many different ways of thinking, and it draws on critical judgment as well as imagination, intuition and often gut feelings.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Each of us is a unique moment in history: a distinctive blend of our genetic inheritance, of our experiences and of the thoughts and feelings that have woven through them and that constitute our unique consciousness.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Education and training are the keys to the future. A key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way and you lock resources away; turn it other way and you realize resources and give people back to themselves.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“Finding the medium that excites your imagination, that you love to play with and work in, is an important step to freeing your creative energies.”
Sir Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

 “Helping people to connect with their personal creative capacities, is the surest way to release the best they have to offer.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“Human consciousness is shaped by the ideas, beliefs and values that we derive from our experiences and through the meaning which we derive from them. Our ideas can liberate or imprison us.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Human intelligence is much richer than we have been led to believe by industrial/academic education. Appreciating the full range and potential of human intelligence is vital for understanding the real nature of creativity.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Imagination is the source of our creativity, but imagination and creativity are not the same thing.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Imagination is the primary gift of human consciousness.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “In all creative processes we are pushing the boundaries of what we know now, to explore new possibilities; we are drawing on the skills we have now, often stretching and evolving them as the work demands.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “In a world where lifelong employment in the same job is a thing of the past, creativity is not a luxury. It is essential for personal security and fulfillment.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Identifying people’s creative abilities includes helping them to find their creative strengths: to be in their element.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“Innovation is applied creativity. By definition, innovation is always about introducing something new, or improved, or both and it is usually assumed to be a positive thing.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Life is not linear. When you follow your own true north you create new opportunities, meet different people, have different experiences and create a different life.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Private imaginings may have no outcomes in the world at all. Creativity does. Being creative involves doing something.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Teaching for creativity involves asking open-ended questions where there may be multiple solutions; working in groups on collaborative projects, using imagination to explore possibilities; making connections between different ways of seeing; and exploring the ambiguities and tensions that may lie between them.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Teaching for creativity aims to encourage self-confidence, independence of mind, and the capacity to think for oneself.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Teaching for creativity involves teaching creatively. There are three related tasks in teaching for creativity: encouraging, identifying and fostering.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“The first task in teaching for creativity in any field is to encourage people to believe in their creative potential and to nurture the confidence to try.’
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“The imagination liberates us from our immediate circumstances and holds the constant possibility of transforming the present.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

  “The only way to raise overall standards is to engage the energies and imaginations of every student in the system.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“The rate and scale of change engulfing the world is creating a tidal shift in how people live and earn their living. We now need to be equally radical in how we think of education. Raising academic standards alone will not solve the problems we face: it may compound them. To move forward we need fresh understanding of intelligence, of ability, and of the nature of creativity.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “There is a difference between teaching through creativity and teaching for creativity. Good teachers know that their role is to engage and inspire their students. This is a creative process in itself.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “To realize our true creative potential – in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities – we need to think differently about ourselves towards each other. We must learn to be creative.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

“We have imaginations. As a result we have unlimited powers of creativity.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

When people say to me that they are not creative, I assume they just haven’t yet learnt what is involved.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “Whether in the public or the independent sector, in schools or at home, being creative in providing education and promoting creativity are not dispensable luxuries. They are essential to enable us all to make lives that are worth living in.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
Carl Rogers

 “Knowing a lot…is a springboard to creativity.”
Charlie Rose

“…mere critical thinking without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns is sterile and doomed.”
Carl Sagan

“It’s interesting to reflect, that if all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would end. But, if all human beings were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would flourish.”
Jonas Salk

 “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
Marilyn vos Savant

 “Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true, but its father is creativity, and knowledge is the midwife.”
Jonathan Schattke

 “All truth passes through three stages:  First, it is ridiculed.  Second, it is violently opposed.  Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

“If you want to change the world, who do you begin with, yourself or others?  I believe if we begin with ourselves and do the things that we need to do and become the best person we can be, we have a much better chance of changing the world for the better.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
John Steinbeck

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”
Lau Tzu

 “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
William A. Ward

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
H.G. Wells

“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
Oscar Wilde

“Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.”
William Wordsworth

“Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.”
William Butler Yeats

www.JoyofQuotesBlog.com

http://twitter.com/quotejoy

www.JoyofQuotes.com

© 2011 Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Joy and Creativity

 Welcome!  This week we’re turning our focus from creativity and mindfulness, to joy and creativity.  

Let’s talk a bit about the nature of joy.  Psychiatry professor George Vallant reminds us, “We can laugh from either joy or happiness, but we weep only from grief or joy…Without the pain of farewell, there is no joy in reunion…without the pain of captivity, we don’t experience the joy of freedom.”  Happiness is cognitive (a state of mind), where as joy is affective (an emotion).  Joy is the least studied of all the emotions – but that is changing with better technology and being able to look more specifically at brain function. While happiness is not joy – often we can use happiness clues to lead us to our joys.  Happiness is a choice we make. Joy appears when we are deeply moved or when we accomplish something deeply meaningful or fulfill our natures as human beings. Humanistic psychologist and classic creativity theorist Rollo May’s writings link the concepts of joy, creativity, and human potential with anxiety.  Joy almost always shows up when we’ve overcome a challenge or worked hard to make a discovery or create something original. None of those things are easy – even when certain people feel they have ‘a gift’ – it does not bear fruit unless the ground is plowed and the seeds are planted and tended for a long, long time. Does this mean joy is out of reach for most of us? Absolutely not. In fact, doing something very simple – daily – can turn you into a virtual joy magnet. It required making joy and creative action a priority. You must also be willing to take baby steps in the direction of what you love – a dream, a project, something you’ve always felt a desire to do. By giving yourself as little as 10 minutes a day indulging in some ‘positive pretending’ and small actions you can see joyful syncronicities showing up where you least expected them.  A link will be provided later in this post to walk you through the process if you so desire.

Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings.
It is based on the experience of one’s identity as being of worth and dignity
.”
Rollo May

Have you been practicing mindfulness for 15 minutes a day?  Are you seeing some benefits from journaling? I’d love to hear about your experiences. For me, mindfulness plus movement triggered great creative results.  Keep that in mind as you begin to explore your joys and use them to direct your creative play activities for the week ahead. Given the disaster of the earthquake and resulting trauma in Japan – we are reminded to be grateful for this moment and the blessings surrounding us – seen and unseen.   In times of emergency – we reach out to help others in our global family.  Life is precious precisely because there are no guarantees.  No one is promised a tomorrow. We have an obligation to ourselves and the world to use each day to the fullest doing what matters most to us. Joy and gratitude always appear together. It is simply impossible to feel waves of joy without being drenched in gratitude.  I invite you to reflect on what you may be taking for granted in your life right now.  Then as part of your creative actions for the coming week – reach out and make a positive difference in your world. By sharing a smile, a hug, a hand written letter, or a compliment  or encouragement – you will open doors to your own potential.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only
this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake
.”
Marie Beyon Ray

What does love have to do with it?  Decades of research led E. Paul Torrance, the man many call the father of creativity, to conclude: “One of the most powerful wellsprings of creative energy, outstanding accomplishment, and self-fulfillment seems to be falling in love with something – your dreams, your image of the future.”  Harvard researcher Theresa M. Amabile’s studies also show: “The best way to help people to maximize their creative potential to to allow them to do something they love.”  So what is your creative dream?  What would you do if you knew you could not fail?  Part of the reason you are on this planet right now is to pursue that passion. The dream and the dreamer are always matched. You would not have your particular dream if you did not have the means – right now – to begin walking in that direction.  This is not to say the dream will turn out exactly as you imagined, but I will assure you it will lead you to the place you need to be to find joy and meaning in your life.

 Did you know dancing with joy literally builds new brain cells? 

Biologist Carla Hannaford, PhD, reports:
 ”Self-initiated movement, exploration, interaction and physical experience for the joy and challenge of it, facilitates neurogenesis (nerve growth) for a lifetime.”

 In her fascinating book, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, Hannaford makes it clear new brain cells (neural connections) can ONLY be grown if we’re totally focused on (and enthused about) an activity.  What makes us most excited?  JOY!  Creative projects offer a great mix of challenge and joy.  If an idea gives you lots of energy – it has the potential to bring you joy.  What are you inspired to try?

Can you tell me 10 activities which bring you joy?  Before getting out of bed in the morning, spend 10 minutes thinking about what brings you deep joy. If you’ve never made a joy mandala, check out this link:  ActivateJoyPower .  Many people find this technique transformational. With a little practice, you can move joy into your ‘top of the mind awareness’.  When that happens you’ll begin attracting more and more joy.  My life is filled with joy because I use it as my GPS in life. My current ‘top ten’ creative joys are:  1. Zumba classes 2. Nature walks 3. Journaling 4. Making collages 5. Reading & researching 6. Being a creativity catalyst 7. Finding great quotes 8.  Creating and sharing inspiring ‘tweets’ on Twitter 9. Taking a trip to Ukraine with my kids 10. Latin music & dancing.

I’m happy to report I had my most creatively productive week since starting this project.  I give the credit to my joyful Zumba instructor, Tammy Davis, at Terries Workout Center in Buffalo, NY.  Her classes are sing-out-loud fun and energizing.  I love the results so much I’ve decided to commit to doing 40 Zumba classes (5x a week) between now and May!  If Zumba is too big of a stretch for you – commit to taking daily walks or swimming laps. It doesn’t matter what you do – as long as it makes you smile and fills you with energy.

In addition to making more art, I experimented with different processes. Normally, I create my collages inside my journal, but this time I painted a canvas board hot pink and used it as my ‘joy collage’ base.  How many of my joys can you find?  After completing my ‘joy collage painting’ – I painted facing pages inside my journal and then collaged them, too! 

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
Albert Einstein

Creative Prompt #1:  Think about what brings you joy and start a joy list in your journal. Spend the next few days looking for small ways to experience your ‘joys’. You’ll get extra brain cells for trying something new. What creative project have you been wanting to do?  What’s stopping you?  

What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?”
Rollo May

I was inspired to combine oil pastels, paint, and collage elements to this piece.  A friend e-mailed this beautiful  quote and print by visionary artist Gordon Wood.  His piece is called “Birth of Awe”.  Visiting his site was a joyful experience for me.  The background is a ‘scribble drawing’ I did in the dark with the oil pastels. It was a fun experience. Ihighly recommend it if you are stuck in ‘critical mode’. Closing your eyes, reaching for colors blindly, and drawing out emotions can be incredibly freeing.  I did it a month ago. It’s just been sitting and waiting for me to get the inspiration to finish it. Last night – I worked madly until nearly 5am to finish all six art projects and this blog.  This burst of creativity came from all the connections I’ve been making. Reading books, coloring, clipping images, dancing, taking walks, doing things outside my comfort zone, and most of all – letting all those elements blend in the big creative cooking pot called ‘incubatation.’  Inspiration comes from working at something daily – not waiting for the muse to move you.  Just do something – then relax.  Practice mindfulness, be silly and playful.  And get over your ‘old stories’ which sound like “…nothing sounds fun to me” or “I can’t do that” or “I don’t have time”.  Those are all just excuses.  Change your thoughts, take action, change your world!

 

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody by oneself.”
Virginia Woolf

I created this ‘positive self-image’ collage to help me visualize my new mantra:  NOW to WOW!  It was triggered by insights I picked up from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch (I reviewed it in last weeks’ blog).  Their ‘form an instant habit’ prompts are working for me.  A second book which also influenced me this week was the 365 A Daily Creativity Journal.  I’ve been thinking about something fun I’d like to do for a year – and Zumba came up as my answer.  As mentioned earlier – I’m going to try 40 classes in 2 months first – if it’s still joyful I’ll commit to the ‘long haul.’  What’s really exciting about all these insights and art projects is this:  the mindfulness and movement combination is working like magic.   I set an intention to unlock my creative potential and stimulate personal growth and I’m really experiencing the results.  Just a month into the process, I’m genuinely excited about the possibilities.

The next image shows all the creative projects I was inspired to complete this week.  It’s alot!!!! I’m happy I broke through my resistance to using acrylics and watercolor paints. I also played with Mod Podge and a variety of brushes. I let go of criticism and simply played with possibilities.

This is a crazy amount of creative expression isn’t it???  I tripled my usual output.  If you are really ready to break through blocks and get into the creative ‘flow’ – try movement and mindfulness – with a dash of joy.  There is no way I’d do any exercise class daily (for love nor money).  But joy makes it a fun thing so it’s a double win.  Your job this week is to find what turns you on in terms of creative, joyful actions.  Experiment. Play. Pay attention to your energy.  All this information will point you in the direction you need to go.

Creative Prompt #2:  Play with paints – buy a tube of white acrylic and another color that feels joyful (I picked magenta and bronze). Now flip through magazines, keeping your eyes open for images and words which catch your attention. Tear them out and keep them in a big envelope until you have enough to create a collage. Think about adding in collage ‘scraps’ – things like receipts, ticket stubs, or ideas scribbled on bits of paper make interesting additions. You can even Google a topic and find images to use – simply right click on an image, and do ‘save as’.  Stretch yourself.   There is no one grading you on your work. Just make a personal statement.

Even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Creative Prompt #3:  Basic – buy a coloring book (they have a great selection at Target starting at just $1!) Coloring will get you relaxed.  It’s a non-threatening way to get your feel in the creative waters.  Color mindfully. Have fun with it! Advanced – create a coloring book.  Sit for a few minutes in silence, or take a 15 minute discovery walk and jot down  ideas which pop up, and start drawing.  A good book for drawing prompts is: The Confident Creative…Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind by Cat Bennett.  Cat suggests starting an artist’s sketchbook as a way of documenting your journey into deeper creativity. If you are interested in this topic, it’s a book worth having.

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
Henri Nouwen

This is my first watercolor in ages.  I played with colors and swirls and then decided to place my new ‘creativity button prototype’ in the center.  It’s very much simpler (less cluttered) than my usual collages.  I used a mat board backing which ended up warping a bit. Oh well.  It’s not my favorite – but this blog is my record of all the pieces I produce week to week – so here it is!

Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.”
Carol Welch

My dear friend Ann (shown below)  developed a practice she calls ‘gratitude dancing.’  She dances her joy on Siesta Key beach in Sarasota, Florida, to the delight of passers by.  Her creative actions have stimulated wonderful ideas and connections.  If you’d like to give spontaneous dancing a try – this Friday, March 18th at noon is the perfect time!  It just happens to be global:  ’Dance Anywhere You Are’ day.  For details visit:  www.danceanywhere.org

True joy is that which gives us more energy and makes us feel more alive.”
Robert Puryear

I am thinking of creating a pin with this message. What do you think?  Do you prefer this message or the one which asks “What did you create today?”  Your feedback is important to me.  Please leave a comment.  I got my new FLIP camera, but can’t get it to work, so hopefully I’ll be able to debut a video next week.  I also want to report my Arthur Murray (dreaded) dance lesson was actually fantastically fun!  Thank you Myron – my cha-cha master at the Buffalo Arthur Murray Studio on Bailley.  Our hour together was pure pleasure.  I appreciate your patience and your affirming comments about my ‘club style’ dancing abilities.  Yea!

If you’d like to share art you’ve created on this blog, send it to magicalmarta@aol.com  Visit www.JoyofQuotes.com for our complete selection of creativity, risk, courage, and self-expression quotes.  The world is waiting for your unique contribution – that’s why it’s important to find your joy!  Create a wonderful week!

Marta Davidovich Ockuly
(Dancing with joy!)

 

It’s creative play day!

“Our everyday creativity is not only good for us but it’s also one of the most powerful capacities we have, bringing us alive in each moment, affecting our health and well-being, offering richness and
alternatives in what we do, and helping us move further
in our creative and personal development.”
Dr. Ruth Richards, Everyday Creativity

The guiding principles behind this journey we are undertaking are deep and profound.  They are grounded in scientific research and  theory which spans decades. A New York Times article from the ’80 attributes the term ‘everyday creativity’ to Dr. Ruth Richards, my mentor and favorite creativity scholar, and her colleagues at Harvard Medical School.  Here’s what she says about this topic: “It’s strange – many people still think creativity is largely about making art, and is much more relevant to famous people than the rest of us. Not so!”  Dr. Richards wants us all to understand the idea of “originality in everyday life” is about seeing what may seem ordinary as extraordinary – be it creating a dinner from leftovers, to making up songs or stories for our little ones, orchestrating a cross country move, or planning a fund raising event for a cause dear to us. If we are breathing, we’re creative. It is, in fact, an essential life and survival skill. Got it?

“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.”
Abraham Maslow

Play Prompt #1:  Now repeat after me: I AM creative! Louder: I AM CREATIVE. Now sing it:  I am creative…la la la..  Now make up a few more lines to this song… (have fun with this).  There – I’ve eased you into Play Prompt #1 for today. Write a song or poem or even a button/badge which declares: I AM CREATIVE…YOU ARE CREATIVE…WE ALL ARE CREATIVE!  Now – while you’re stretching your creative muscles – please know you are building your brain cells and new neural pathways.  Doing anything different from your routine stimulates brain growth. How’s that for a happy consequence? (By the way – the I AM CREATIVE button in the photo was created by Marci Segal, a graduate of the Buffalo State Creativity Studies program and the founder of World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21.  We will be celebrating that awesome event in a very special way through this blog so stay tuned!)  I took the photo just this moment using my two favorite monster finger puppets as sign-holders!  Do you have toys on your desk?  It might be time to go shopping for some!

“Play is the highest form of research.”
Albert Einstein

Play Prompt #2:  Make yourself a “Permission to Play” poster.  This can be a collage similar to the one in the image shown or a simple permission slip you create and print off your computer.  Dress it up with stickers, glitter or your reprints of your favorite quotes.  Grab some crayons and color it.  Make a mini-version to carry in your purse or wallet. Make it a playful reminder of your intention to make room for creative play in your day.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Albert Einstein

Play Prompts #3 & #4:  Journal your resistance and your enthusiasm – whatever comes up.  Ask yourself: ” how would I most like to ‘play’ today?” and do it.  If you are not sure where to start on your journey into creative discovery, try intuitive inquiry.  Open your journal to a blank page. Date it. Then write out this question at the top of the page:  “What’s the best baby step for me to take to start this journey into creative play today?”  Next – switch your pen over to your non-dominant hand. And write the answer which comes into your mind. Do it now.

“We need to make the world safe for creativity and intuition, for it’s creativity and intuition that will make the world safe for us.”
Edgar Mitchell

Note about intuitive inquiry:  it is best approached in a relaxed state and with an open mind. The answer which comes forward is from your sub-conscious. This is as much a part of you as your cognative brain. It is your body’s GPS, designed to guide you, safely, to your desired destination. Pay attention to it. Resist the temptation to ‘figure it out’.  Trust it will move you in the direction you need to go. Play with it. It might suggest you scrub the kitchen floor. Just do it. Pay attention to your feelings and thoughts while you’re scrubbing. Write down your insights or discoveries. You might even do a second intuitive inquiry after you’ve followed your prompt to ask: “What was I supposed to learn from this?” And use your non-dominant hand to record the answer. This is a powerful tool. Put it in your creativity tool box and carry it around with you. I promise it will come in handy!

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen  hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”
Mary Anne Radmacher

Last week I shared the motivation behind this 10-week experience. This is the week we dip our toes into the water.  I want you to imagine we’re all walking through a beautiful garden pathway leading to a wide river.  There is a canoe waiting for each of us.  We need to take off our shoes and wade over to our vessel.  Be prepared to get muddy.  Any journey into creativity is bound to be messy from time to time. Make room for the mess in your life.  Follow your curiosities. Challenge yourself to explore unfamiliar paths and activities which both excite and terrify you.  The terror is just fear of the unknown.  Remember this acronym:  fear is nothing but false evidence appearing real.  It’s the product of negative pretending.  For this 10-week experiment – promise me you’ll use every fear thought as a trigger to practice positive pretending.  Simply replace your ‘worst case’ imaginings with ‘best case’ scenarios.  It will be challenging, but it is absolutely doable.  Bonus:  you’ll be building brain capacity every time you pull yourself out of old ‘stinking thinking’ ruts and forge new ways of thinking and being in the world.

“The only journey is the journey within.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

Are you feeling excited or overwhelmed?  I am confident you have at least a few butterflies dancing in your belly at the thought of what may lie ahead.  Here’s more good news:  you get to craft your own journey. I will suggest projects and plant playful ‘idea seeds’ – but the choice is yours.  You are committed to taking creative action. If you’d rather explore another area of creativity which spurs your interest – do it.  We can talk all day about how to activate creative potential and unlock doors of awareness and personal growth, but nothing happens unless we take action.  So follow your heart or follow my prompts – just DO something fun and personally playful!

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve shared a photo of the ‘creative play’ nest I built in my bed last week – along with one of the collages I created. I really hope you will share your creative awakenings this week by posting comments. I’d love to see photos, too. Tell us what worked for you and what didn’t.  We will all learn from each other.  My reading list this week included: Everyday Creativity (2007) edited by Dr. Ruth Richards and Switch – How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath (clicking on this link will take you to a free sample chapter of the book!). I want to send a personal “thank you” to Dr. Richards,  professor and executive faculty member at Saybrook University in San Francisco for all her contributions to the field of creativity, and for her generous sharing of insights and encouragement to me personally.  My plan is to apply to the Saybrook Graduate College of Psychology and Humanistic Studies to pursue my PhD in Psychology (they have a distance learning program which will allow me to live in Sarasota).  Dr. Richards – you are a true creative treasure!

Play Prompt #5:  Try something new. This might mean signing up for Twitter so you can follow my inspiration and play prompts all week long. I’m going to take a dance lesson at Arthur Murray Dance Studio – something I said I’d never do. Well – never say never.  My plan is to push past my resistance and have fun with it.  What will you do?  Give yourself permission to be a beginner. That’s a big key to being open to joy in life.  Don’t let your ‘brain’ decide that’s fun or creative based on old information. Jump in the water. Give some new experience a chance.  It just might open a door of awareness that blesses you the rest of your life!

“The very act of creating is an act of power, an act of hope.” 
Pam Grout

 Enjoy the journey my friends!  See you this time next week with a new chapter in our adventure. Don’t forget to visit www.JoyofQuotes.com when you need an extra boost of encouragement and inspiration.  You can also find me at http://twitter.com/quotejoy tweeting my prompts all week long.

“What (the creator) feels…is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one’s own potentialities.”
Rollo May

 (The photo below shows me – far right – with a group of ladies from Columbia who joined in  “Gratitude Dancing” on Siesta Key Beach in Sarasota, Florida. Thanks to my friend Ann who ‘created’ the idea of Gratitude Dancing!)  She was inspired by Matt - a young man who went all over the world and shared his ‘happy dance’ with people. The  YouTube video he created caused an internet sensation. Watching it always fills me with joy. Click here or Google: “Where in the hell is Matt?”  Hope you enjoy it, too. 

Have a fun week!
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Who can I inspire or encourage today? 33 creativity quotes & more…

I am excited about the idea of offering inspiration and encouragement. It’s something that lights me up and fills me with energy and enthusiasm. What lights you up?  The answer (or answers) to that question hold the key to connecting with your true path of joy.

This topic is swirling around my head this morning because it’s the topic of a presentation I’m making at NAGC (National Association of Gifted Children) conference “Creativity Night”  in Atlanta tomorrow night. The title of my interactive talk is: Activate your Creative Potential with Joy. It will be a hands-experience peppered with science, theory, and joy stories.  If you’d like a copy, sign up as a subscriber to this blog and I’ll send you the full report. If you already subscribe, just jot me a note in the comments.

The bottom line is – we all have the power to inspire and encourage in every moment. You don’t need a class or a coach to share a smile or a compliment or to give someone some words of hope you find enlightening. It’s all about getting inspired and passing it on. You need to fill your well first.  I teach the power of joy because it’s my passion. Have you been practicing your passion?  So many beautiful souls are out there sharing their gifts. Find the tribe which speaks to your soul and dive into a new experience.  Stretch yourself.  Look inside for a curiosity or wonder waiting to be explored and take a leap of faith in that direction.

The quote collection I’m sharing today is all about taking action on creativity, possibility, passion and our powerful potential. If you are craving more quotes on creativity (and any other subject), go to www.JoyofQuotes.com I hope you have a magical day…and take time to play!  The photo in this post was taken by my daughter during a playful moment. I couldn’t resist posing next to a fire hydrant on the Michigan State University campus with this cute creativity quote: ”The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” 

Thanks for sharing this moment. I hope I inspired you in some way today!

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.”
Alan Alda

 

“The best way to help people to maximize their creative potential is to allow them to do something they love.”
Teresa M. Amabile

 

 “Listen to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think. Pay attention. Because joy is the universe’s way of knocking on your mind’s door. Hello in there. Is anyone home? Can I leave a message? Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means that you are in touch with your purpose.”
Steve Chandler

 

 “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
Mary Lou Cook
 

 “Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives…and where we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 

“I do not teach children. I give them joy.”
Isadora Duncan

 

 “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”
Albert Einstein

 

 “Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action that man finds his supreme joy.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“…joy is integral to all creativity. Creativity brings joy.”
Mathew Fox

 

“Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you’re going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today.”
Marilyn Grey

 

“Don’t be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That’s where the joy and the adventure lie.”
Herbie Hancock

 

“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”
Mae Jamison

 

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” Carl Jung

 

“Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.”
Helen Keller

 

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“The key question isn’t ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be now why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”
Abraham Maslow

 

“Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity of being of worth and value.”
Rollo May

 

“Joy is the zest that you get out of using your talents, your understanding, the totality of your being, for great aims…That’s the kind of feeling that goes with creativity. That’s why I say the courage to create. Creation does not come out of simply what you’re born with. That must be united with your courage, both of which cause anxiety but also great joy.”
Rollo May

 

“What anxiety means is it’s as though the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, for them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It’s what makes us human beings.”
Rollo May

 

 “…what the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. I use the word in contrast to happiness or pleasure. The artist, at the moment of creating, does not experience gratification or satisfaction…rather, it is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one’s own potentialities.”
Rollo May

 

“Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.”
Bernard Meltzer

 

“That impossible dream you dreamed when you were young but got talked out of, the one you thought you outgrew, might be the key to awakening your genius. That special talent you never followed through on might be an important source of delight, the one you should commit to. That old dream might be the one thing that will bring the magic of meaning to your life.”
Barbara Nichols
 
“Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm.”
Earl Nightingale
 

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake.”
Marie Beyon Ray

 

“Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.”
Mary Lou Retton

 

 “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

 “Joy comes from using your potential.”
Will Schultz

 

“One of the most powerful wellsprings of creative energy, outstanding accomplishment, and self-fulfillment seems to be falling in love with something – your dreams, your image of the future.”
E. Paul Torrance

 

“There must be freedom to pursue what one is in love with, to play one’s own game, to use one’s greatest strengths, not to feel that he/she has to be well rounded, and a chance to learn the skills of independence.”
E. Paul Torrence

 

“Why should we all use our creative power….? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate…”
Brenda Ueland

 

 “Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.”
Alice Walker

 

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde

 

“The greatest crime is not developing your potential. When you do what you do best, you are helping not only yourself, but the world.”
Roger Williams

46 Creativity Quotes & a Theory…

 My theory is, “We activate our creative potential with joy.” As a joy coach with two decades of experience in the creativity field, I have plenty of what academics call ‘anecdotal’ evidence to support my theory. I came to the graduate school at Buffalo State College’s International Center for Creative Studies for the science.  Halfway through my master’s program – I am very excited about what I’m learning. more »