About Creativity

   I had a great conversation with my brother today. I told him about my online class and started barraging him about the importance of a creative life. He is a scientist who has ascended high enough in his life to be able to invent new avenues of research and he has a research team to do the grunt work. He is a "creative".

   Our father was a "creative".  He seemed to always have an art project happening somewhere. I think that allowed him to lose everything three times and completely start over. My brother voiced the opinion that had he had more resources his artwork would have been more refined. I countered with what I felt was the real point. His process kept him sane, centered and curious. What he produced was probably amateurish but there was never a time in his life that he stopped creating.
   Take his draft into the German army. He had a family. Going to war was not his idea. In his journal he writes of sketching his fellow soldiers and being noticed for this skill. Soon he was sketching his officers.
  When he emigrated to America he built a little studio in the back yard. Along with hard physical work, being a husband and father, learning English, he carved out time to paint. The walls of his studio were covered with pictures of his homeland painted on the drywall. I gave little thought to this habit. But, now as I'm filling my life with art and painting I use him everyday as a role model.