It’s about

exploring.

Dictionary.com defines creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas… to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness or imagination.”  Merriam-Webster defines it as “the ability to make new things or think of new ideas.”

In neither of these sources (or any of the others I read) does it say that only artists are allowed to use the creative process.  What they do infer, is that when creativity is present, so is the imagination and the fertile soil of the New.

Creativity has the potential to unlock places in our mind and soul that we keep hidden, even from ourselves.  And when we use the creative process to explore our feelings, ideas, questions and concepts, we open up the possibility for a new understanding, a new perspective. When this happens, a space is carved where truths are discovered, and buried wisdom is unearthed.  This sacred space gives us a potential to find clarity and healing. It can be a powerful tool.

We seem to have contrived a natural bias that only artists or creative people can use the creative process to express themselves. This bias can temporarily obstruct our ability to see the gift that the creative process can become in helping us to discover our own souls. If we can pry that bias out of the grasp of our psyche, we have the opportunity to use the creative process to bring the New to our old questions or pain.  A new understanding, a new insight, a new landscape. Because with the New can come the expansive terrain of hope.

Photos by Hannah Gentiles Photography & Caitlin Diamond