Art word of the week: Creativity.
Creativity: The ability to see things in new ways. Boundary breaking and going beyond the information given. Thinking unconventionally. Making something unique. Combining unrelated things into something new.
I have always felt that the best fitting term for "creativity" is the ability to do - or make - something that is nonconforming, innovative - but also purposeful. I also believe that someone and their newly invented "something" is not creative until they give a reaction to a general public audience, either good or bad. It doesn't have to be an audience audience; it can be one person... But I say this because I do not believe someone is creative if they shelter their inventions. If someone is too scared over what others will think of them for what they made, then they are allowing themselves to go through life just as anyone else who didn't think of their idea would. In this sense, they are conforming, and this is the adversary of being creative.
The creative types may be shunned by their peers, because they pose different ideas, and change can be hard to handle... Then, a creative person may feel like they are different, and the only way to become accepted is to create something wonderful, memorable and meaningful. This is the goal of many dreamers, and inventors. I bet you've encountered a dreamer before, they are represented quite frequently in fiction. Allow me to present an example of a dreamer:
This is a movie trailer for Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994). The movie's description is best put as: "The mostly true story of the legendary director of awful movies and his strange group of friends and actors". It is true that Burton's film was based off true people, including the infamous Edward Wood - the man behind some of the most poorly reviewed movies of all time, like Glen or Glenda (1953), and the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), which has been given the semi-official status as arguably the Worst Film Ever Made. According to a biography of Wood, "All of his films exhibit illogical continuity, bizarre narratives and give the distinct impression that a director's job was simply to expose the least amount of film possible due to constant budget constraints". But it has been made evident that despite the poor reviews, and the nasty titles and awards, Wood had always been proud of his work, and even called Plan 9 his "pride and joy". despite it being considered an epic bomb!
Of course, no one would want to be made famous for being "the worst" at anything. But that's exactly what happened to Wood. Plan 9 has been considered one of the more popular "cult classics" - A cult classic is a movie that usually does poorly in terms of earning profit upon release, but eventually ends up with a fair-sized amount of die-hard fans. Many fans love the movie simply because it is so bad that it's hilarious.
In my eyes, Wood represents a man of creativity. All of his films are pieces of crude, monstrous art like nothing you have ever seen - or felt! I have experienced one of Ed Wood's movies - The Bride of the Monster (1955), and I can assure you: It was funny because of the poor acting; awkward because of the clumsy writing, and sometimes discomforting and annoying just for how awful the effects were! And evidently, I am not the only one who feels this way, because they made an entire movie about it! In that case, Wood's creations bring forth quite the reaction! Still, Wood's creations (as well as his colourful personality) gave him his infamy, and made him into an individual. Not only that, but Wood displayed a strong pride for all of his creations, and never hesitated to show off his work. In that case, Wood stood out, because rather than being shut down - like most people whom are told they are talentless - he continued to create disaster-piece after disaster-piece. In this case, Wood thinks unconventionally, and is therefore creative.
There was a time that I was told that my creation was not good enough, and unfortunately, I didn't have the passion and pride like Ed Wood did to feel chipper despite it. Let me tell you about it:
In grade six, I and my fellow classmates were studying Native Canadian culture. Our teachers had a grand idea to rebuild our school gym into a map of Canada, and groups of students would position themselves on the map to represent the Native peoples that inhabited a particular region. Each student also had to help create the landscaping of Canada, by recreating natural landmarks across the country.
I was in charge of creating the Rocky Mountains. Being the determined, ambitious young girl that I was, I felt honoured to have such an important job. So I diligently did some research, and discovered that the tallest mountain in the Canadian rockies was Mount Logan. This was the most impacting thing I absorbed about the Rockies, so I was set to designing a really, REALLY tall mountain!
My parents and I collaborated ideas, and we came up with the idea that the mountain had to be tall, and triangular shaped... rock-coloured, with some snow on top... We came up with the conclusion that the best skeleton for a prop mountain would be a ladder, because, well, it's tall, and kind of shaped like a triangle. I thought the idea was BRILLIANT! So we worked with our six foot ladder, and covered it with brown plastic garbage bags, added some white on top for a snow cap, and we were set!
So we drove our makeshift mountain in a van, and with my dad we set it up in the school gym. I felt so proud to see my creation in school, ready to be viewed among all my classmates!
But a couple of hours later, my teacher told me that she had taken down my mountain, and said that "the idea to use a ladder to make one tall mountain was silly", and they used some chairs covered in brown paper to represent a long line of mountainous region. Naturally, being an impressionable, sensitive twelve-year-old girl, I felt shot for what my teacher said to me! I told my parents, too, and they sure weren't happy.
We didn't fight the criticism, and let the teacher make the mountains with some other students instead. After being told that my ideas and creation was not good enough, I no longer felt the ambition to participate. But sometimes I think back to that incident, and you know what? I think that my idea of using a ladder was actually one of the best ideas I ever had.
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