Sheila Bean
Not long ago, I met a woman who wanted to move to a community with a greater concentration of“ creatives.”
I had to look that up. Here’ s one definition: A professional in a creative job, such as design, art, writing, or advertising.
But what if you have an imaginative side-hustle or an unpaid project? A hobby? A pastime? Maybe you’ re a creative, too.
When a calamitous windstorm uprooted a gigantic tree, a friend of mine didn’ t chop it for firewood. She imagined woodworking projects. Not that she, herself, was a woodworker, at least not yet. But she saved the wood and embarked on a journey to learn woodworking. Because she had ideas. The resultant furnishings and bowls are now both useful and beautiful in her home.
Another friend browses through a thrift shop, finds a wool blanket or sweater, and envisions a felted tea cozy. Discarded jewelry is deconstructed and arranged in a frame as a“ painting.” Embroidery or Japanese-style visible mending gives new life to a tired shirt.
The arts are creative, for sure, but so are a bunch of other pursuits: plotting a cross-country road trip, renovating a bathroom, decorating a cake, planning a family reunion. All start with a rough direction or specific idea and gradually become a finished product. Like the invention of poutine, they might be completely original, or like jazz improvisation, they might riff off an existing idea.
Some creations solve problems. Big outcomes: insulin, the goalie mask, and the outer-space Canadarm. On a small scale, consider my footrest, which my dad MacGyvered out of old cupboard doors so I could sit comfortably at an office desk. I’ m using it right now.
My father-in-law warded off future problems by organizing a“ death binder” of information that would be needed when he died: banking, insurance, contacts, etc. Over the course of twenty years, his original idea was perfected, and he repeatedly explained it to my husband with countless chuckles and anecdotes. Upon his death,
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