Creativity – The Simplest Art of All

As the school year is upon us, crafty tutorials, creative lesson plans and learning- centered art projects are floating around the Internet, in parenting magazines, printable worksheets, and toy stores. Everyone’s looking for ways to make learning fun for their kids. If you’re not a parent, teacher or kid who’s taking the initiative, you’re not spending your day making arts and crafts unless you are an artist, art teacher, or crafter.

Art and creativity cure a problem that we all share at times – boredom. I’m not just talking about commercial breaks, a meeting at work that never ends, or traffic lights. Creativity is a mindset, a way of seeing the world. Creativity puts the magic back in life; so not only are we never bored, we are constantly inspired, present, empowered, and – dare I say it – happy.

I’m going to assign you an “art project”. Don’t be scared. This is the simplest art project you’ll ever attempt. The glue sticks and crayons are only required if you want them to be. This project teaches you how to see.

Let me explain with a little backstory. As a kid, I used to complain to my older brother, “I’m bored!”  I was always darting about from activity to activity. My mind was racing and I was antsy with ideas.

His response was always, “Why are you bored?”

I didn’t know.

Then I’ll never forget what he got me as a birthday present that year. His card was a simple, little handwritten Post-it note that said,  “This is so you’ll never be bored again.”

I opened it, hoping it was some kind of toy or exciting little gadget, but it was just a softcover activity book for me to fill out. I had that natural let-down that happens when you get your hopes up and end up with . . .  a book.

Then, I looked at the cover and it said, “Things I Can Be Happy About.” It was a workbook for me to fill in. It was filled with a bunch of blank, numbered lines, broken up into categories like “Outside”, “School”, “Friends”, “Activities” etc. I don’t think I ever filled it out, but I got the idea.

My brother was trying to teach me my first lesson in gratitude. If you realize what you can be happy about, it’s hard to become “bored.” Instead of getting “bored”, he wanted me to feel “appreciative.”

A lot of times when we’re bored, we’re just unhappy and it might just take too much energy to think about what inspires our happiness. So, I have a little exercise I like to do. I also think it’s a great idea to try with kids, who tend to tire of things quickly, or might not always remember how much there is to be happy about.

Sometimes kids are the ones who remind us to be happy about the simple things. Kids can be miniature adults, and grown-ups can have the fearless abandon of a child. That’s how we all balance each other out. With that in mind, this is my exercise for kids, adults, and the kid-adult in all of us.

Today I invite you to see things differently. All it takes is a little mind-bending. We’re never too old to create fantasies. These are some out-of-the-box ways to view any ordinary, boring moment in life and bring it to a completely new dimension.

When we elevate the every day, we can’t become bored. We’re struck by every laughing tree, every popping color, every breath of sunrise.

Even better, that whimsical fascination with the world around us might even inspire us to create and with a project to do or an idea in our heads – how the heck can we get bored???

These are some ideas to view the world differently. Try each one on for size, then share it with someone else!

1.) View the world as an artist studying a scene to paint a picture from, like everything is made of a different fabric.

2.) Imagine every object is actually alive and talking to you! What would it say?

3.) Spot the biggest risk you can take in that specific moment.

4.) Do something totally spontaneous right there and then, don’t plan anything.

5.) Pretend like you are in an adventure movie, fleeing from a monster, but trying to keep your calm composure to the outside world.

6.) Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.

7.) Ponder “How is what I am seeing before me a microcosm of the whole?”

8.)Ponder “How am I like the objects I see before me?”

9.) See the human face in everything – does that tree trunk remind you of a friend’s face?

10.) Be curious: ask childlike questions about the world around you. What makes the sky blue or the clouds look the way they do?

11.) Be a poet and describe the world around you in haikus!

12.) Take a walk and only make left turns – a lot of them!

13.) View everything solid as liquid and everything liquid as solid. How does it feel to walk on liquid grass?

14.) Put a word to every sound you hear – every gust of wind or squish in the dirt.

15.) Imagine the world is a giant gingerbread house and everything is edible – is that eggplant on the roof shingles?

I could go on and on with ideas, but go ahead, create some of your own! Do it just for the sake of adding a spark to your day.

Share it with a friend to give them a reason not to ever be bored – I’m sure they’ll fire back with 15 of their own ideas!

And if it comes naturally, see if it gives you an idea that inspires you enough to create – anything! Art, music, an idea, a conversation, or a moment – every moment is a chance to create something new.

That’s the greatest part about being alive. It’s the ability to give back, and to have my work serve as a lens, a mirror, a window that others can look through, or look into, and see themselves or whatever they need to see at that moment; to feel whatever they need to feel. That’s how I connect with my world – that is my aliveness. As a member of this human race, it’s how I can contribute. Isn’t all we ever want to make a mark on the world? Cause a ripple, maybe even a chain reaction?

Art empowers me with the ability to create a ripple of happiness. As a human who can make “art”, I know that I have the power to make this happen every moment, with even the smallest of gestures.
A random act of kindness, a tender word, a brush stroke – whatever works. How will you make your mark on the world?

Start with a scribble.

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This post was written by Amy Oestreicher exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC.