Creativity: ISP 5660 and AGS 3340, Winter 2003
Notes from class on January 24
Link back to course Welcome...

During class, we pretty much stuck to the Agenda, emphasizing the following points:

III D. You must periodically empty or clear your list of new messages; otherwise it becomes unusable. It is very important, however, to refresh or renew the list, and work through any remaining messages before emptying the list. Here is the problem: if you log in, and work through your list of new messages, other new messages may have been posted by others during the time you are working. If you empty your list of new messages, you will also empty these other new messages, and therefore fail to see them. So first, either use the "REFRESH" button or the button "MARK ALL MESSAGES READ" and then the link at the bottom "Show new messages." You may need to repeat this more than once before finally using "Mark all messages read."

IV B 5 and 4. It was clear from discussing this hypothetical assignment for a reporter ("write an article on the most creative artist in the five-county area") that everyone would start with some part or other of the field. Museum curators, art dealers, some artists, other arts reporters, and so forth. Here is the point - creativity is not an election where everyone has an equal vote. We all would look to the field to judge who is or is not creative. In fact, if Big C is changing the culture, there is no way to permanently change the culture (a) without an external creative product that can be taken to other places and times, and (b) without changing the field, since it is the field that will preserve and carry that creative product. Many people view this influence or power that the field has as unfair. But can creativity really be something that is unconnected to other people? And fair or not, there is no other way that a lasting influence can occur.

Now, without the field, the place and time of creativity will be more limited.

Also, as Cskiszentmihalyi and Gardner will point out, the field took the creative person to the point of their creativity. They educated that person in the domain (say, art and music teachers, other artists), created opportunities (managers and promoters).