Learning and Creativity Reflected Essay
“Art making is a way to explore our imagination and begin
to allow it to be more flexible, to learn how to see more options” (Allen 1995).
In a constant tug-of-war between managing the logical and practical aspects of life and the inherent joy hidden in the treasure of aesthetics, the latter is likely to win eventually, “Old-fashioned logic and linear reasoning clearly have their place, but the creativity inherent in chaos suggests that actually living life requires something more. It requires an aesthetic sense … Making a pact with chaos gives us the possibility of living not as controllers of nature but as creative participators” (Briggs & Peat 1999).
I started my creative learning by attempting to draw my face with eyes closed and trying to capture my mood with all sorts of colors – blue, red, yellow, orange, indigo…..the entire gamut available. My thrust on exploring the ways to adhere the images of disembodied parts of my face, like eyes, ears and lips seemed too logical and discreet embodiment of myself devoid of ethereal spheres of aesthetics. The disembodied parts do not represent the experience of body and mind in learning. The learning and knowledge is an experience of the whole body as we don’t learn neck-up (Camden-Pratt 2009) in absorbing knowledge. My approach of depicting the whole person in painting is buttressed with a superior sense of realization of how we learn in the form of learning as transformation. The salient feature of it is the knowledge explosion infiltrating the heart and spreading to all parts, creating an embodiment of feelings, passion, life force and body connection via the painting of the picture I had drawn. My feeling of déjà vu of possessing a pure heart and warmth surrounding it, is framed in the painting with bright yellow and orange colors indicating hot, bright and glowing. By painting my head and hands with yellow I tried to reflect a desire of soaring to great heights and glory. At the same time, I painted my feet with green as I don’t want to be swayed from my roots and stymie the link of my earthy soul with the ground beneath my feet, in the quest for magnificence. The bright colors brought life to my work, the artwork of my ‘person’, the learning of self through my creativity and help becoming me.
In learning my inner-self through creativity, I stepped into a spiritual process of striving to realize my full potential on the conjecture of knowing what I am as a person. In classroom we discovered the meaning of learning place in group, taught by our tutor. In my first tutorial we commenced with a game so that we can get over our queasy feeling and become cheerful and relaxed. It worked wonder for us as our tutor proceeded by asking us to remember a time of our childhood learning place. I closed my eyes and visualized my days in kindergarten school, all sitting on the floor and looking at the board. Then our tutor asked us to think of a recent time when we were learning and the only thing I could visualize was the game we just played. In doing so, I got my first lesson of how to study and learn with my peers with the realization that each of us is unique individuals with a mind of our own. In the second tutorial, our tutor taught us about Kolb’s learning style (Kolb 1984), explaining the importance of individual preference in home learning for each of us. By playing a simple game he showed the kind of learners we are. I played the game too and found that I am a Reflective Observer and a Concrete Experience learner.
I learned from my tutor to be ‘true to myself’, in bringing out the best creativity out of me. I made a flower in the class, effusively displaying my fondness with nature and an airplane, reflective of my unswerving desire of spreading my wings and fly. The creations brought smile on my face as I found a stream of creative energy flowing through my veins and in my whole body.
We made a college in our visual learning class displaying pictures of vivid and bright colors and pasting them in a mosaic of magazine cutouts, resonating my overactive imagination. By doing it, I knew I have learned the visual artistry in using a medium I had not reflected upon before. A flow of contentment and a feeling of vibrancy were overwhelming when we were finished with it juxtaposed with a self belief of creative achievement.
The creativity is a flow of experiences manifested in various ways. And the experiences are marked by mental and emotional chains based on the ecology we live in and characterized by the personal, social, spiritual and environmental relationships. While, human intelligence (IQ) represents a scope that is far too narrow to shape our destiny, the emotional intelligence is the real headwind in framing thoughts, decision making and individual success (Goleman n.d.). Understanding the complex relationships of the emotions and by identifying, understanding the causes, redirecting attention, and managing emotions laden in different moods; a person with high emotional intelligence develops relationships and benefits from being taught and modeled in home, at school, through literature and creative arts. Emotion is a great motivator in creativity characterized by flow of experiences. A person with high emotional intelligence can channelize his/her tractable emotional flows in reaching greater creative heights.
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