AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
One man’s adversity can be another’s gain, goes the saying. But the same man can benefit from adversity too. American academics and researchers who have lost jobs or funds due to Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) measures may land plum jobs here.
This is thanks to Government plans to co-fund their salaries with universities in a bid to attract creative talent here.
That got me thinking about the value of creativity, something we have in spades here in many forms. Creativity is that ability to bring into being something new: whether it be a solution, in the field of arts of a product. It produces the kind of novelty that makes the world go around, maybe with a ground breaking cancer treatment, best-selling book or an appliance to make life easier.
Summer – what we are enjoying now could be it! – seems to bring focus on creativity to the fore. Creative Brain Week is coming up next month at the Naughton Institute at Trinity College with discussions of brain health on activating kindness and including the benefits of creativity. This month there is design week, May 19 to 25 featuring architects and interior designers and the International Literature Festival May 16-25 has numerous events from poetry to film, never mind all the festivals throughout the summer celebrating different aspects of creativity.
One of the plusses about creativity is that it doesn’t have a sell-by-date, you can be creative at any age, Mozart composed his minuet in G major aged five and architect Frank Lloyd designed his monument to modernism with Guggenheim Museum New York at 75. As US poet and activist Maya Angelou (86) puts it: “The great thing about creativity is that you don’t run out of it. The more you do the more you can.”
It does seem to require certain characteristics and conditions though, the Journal of Creativity lists four main elements, the personality of the individual, the type of thinking involved, if the environment is conducive to creative thinking and the solutions produced. Rather than fitting in, creative thinkers may be non- conformists, who engage in non-divergent thinking. In other words they can think out of the box, and don’t engage in the that form of madness –sometimes noticeable in politicians- where you keep doing the same thing but expect a different result. Mastery of a subject and curiosity are other attributes that make for creativity, think of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak whose knowledge of computers led to the creation of Apple III.
Do we have the kind of environment which encourages creativity? The answer has to be yes, in relation to the arts: film, writing, music and painting. But maybe we aren’t so inventive when it comes to practical solutions, like how to solve the housing and health crisis for instance. It seems that school doesn’t foster creative talent according to American psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, many creatives he studied, rated their school experiences critically , they tended to find their inspiration elsewhere. Albert Einstein’s enthusiasm for science, for instance, was kindled by two uncles rather than the class room. Csikszentmihaylyi is known for his definition of ‘flow’: the total absorption experienced by creatives when engaged in a pursuit.
One of the things that seems to encourage creativity is being around other creatives, think of pre-war Paris which fostered talents like Pablo Picasso, James Joyce and Earnest Hemmingway. Kilkenny artist Elizabeth Cope paints in her studio in medieval Shankill Castle and her work is currently on show in the group exhibition ’Staying With The Trouble’ at IMMA until September.
Elizabeth, whose work spans five decades, is about to reopen her offer of artists’ residencies at the castle; author Peter Somerville-Large, once wrote two books while he was there.
“Yes, I do think it can be helpful to the creative spirit,” Elizabeth tells me.” There are so many different layers of creativity, a huge broad spectrum now.” People are inclined to think that they can’t draw or paint Elizabeth says, “But if you can write your own name you can draw.”
Creativity is also about leaders finding solutions. Couldn’t Pope Leo, President Donald Trump or EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen find imaginative time to create a solution to the genocide in Gaza?
