Finding my Creative Voice in Costa Rica

We have now been in Costa Rica for just over six weeks.  The first four were particularly challenging.  We furnished our house with the basics, deciding not to get fancy or spend lots of money.  We learned how to pay our bills, estimating colonies to dollars so we could understand the cost of things in a way we were used to. We are still figuring out how to manage our house and the swimming pool with its solar heating and infinity design which still remains a puzzle to us. During these first four weeks I often woke up with, and experienced at other times, a huge knot in my stomach.  The last few weeks I have begun to get back to painting and that has made a major difference. Particularly the past week I have made it a point to have at least two hours a day devoted to my quiet creative time, mainly painting but sometimes writing.  The knot in my stomach is rarely there now.  Yes, regular meditation helps some too.  For me something additional happens when I am using my creative voice.  Fears, concerns, planning all drop away and I become one with my painting, just as I did with dance.

I am aware that I am experimenting right now, not sure what style, medium, or subject matter will dominate. The views from each room in our house are breathtaking.  When I think about what I want to paint I have tons of choices.  Where to begin… what to key in on… how to simplify and yet capture the spirit of what I am seeing — these are some of the thoughts that are going through my mind.  Of course, at this point all that is important is that I show up and just see what happens — no criticism, just being present and finding the creative voice.

For years I have taught and encouraged teachers to find their creative voice, and guided them on how to help children keep their creative energies, which seem to drop off around 4^th grade. When I lead workshops for teachers I particularly focused on the research of E. Paul Torrance and the wonderful way he defined elements that make up the creative process. He also developed creativity tests.  I am thinking that it will be useful to remember some of Torrance’s ideas as I explore my creative voice in this new chapter in my life.

When I first became familiar with Torrance, he drew on J.P. Guilford’s thinking and defined creativity as having 4 components –  fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration:

Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus. 2. Flexibility. The number of different categories or shifts in responses. 3. Originality. The number of unusual yet relevant ideas and the statistical rarity of the responses. 4. Elaboration. The amount of detail used to extend a response. (From Ellis Paul Torrance – The Father of Creativity by Sergey Markov, June 2017) https://geniusrevive.com/en/ellis-paul-torrance-father-of-modern-creativity/

Sergey Markov’s article is excellent and I learned lots of new things about Torrance.  I recommend reading it if you have a strong interest in creativity theory and testing.  For the purposes of this blog I just want to say I will be exploring and guiding some of my painting by keeping these ways of thinking in mind.  Of course… it will be important for me to not get caught up in an intellectual way but rather to simply explore and not judge.

I’ve completed one 9” x 12” oil focusing on one of the plants in a realistic way. 

Now I’m working on another painting and am approaching it by doing a larger scene but with less detail and looking at it as large blocks of colors. It’s also a 9” x 12” board. 

In an earlier blog I wrote about the encouragement I got from my Mom in being creative, and the model she provided by completing a lovely watercolor of her dog just three weeks before she died at the age of 90. Certainly Genevieve Jones’s creative dance classes were a wonderful guide, as was my work in creative dramatics with both Dr. Barbara McIntyre and Dr. Joe Karioth.

For now the creative time is helping me settle in Costa Rica and truly see and appreciate the beautiful landscape we are surrounded by. Indeed, the beauty of our location was one of the guiding forces that brought us here and it could be so easy to get caught up in the overwhelming process of adjusting to a new country and forget that.  The two hours of my own quiet time, sometimes in writing and mostly in painting (as non-verbal creativity is more target to me), is so important right now.  

End Note (written Thursday night, March 12) This blog was written last weekend. Since then, our community of Atenas has been experiencing major fires due to the heat and high winds. On Tuesday, Murray and I had to leave the house in the late afternoon because the smoke was so intense and large flames were very visible and close to our house.  Luckily so far we have been spared any damage. We returned last evening and most of today was spent cleaning. Creative endeavors sometimes have to be put on hold and I am reminded of Rollo May’s hierarchy of needs. Life is certainly a balancing act.  After posting this blog this morning on Sunday, March 15th I am going to spend several hours painting.  It is not just an option… it is a necessity to keep my balance!!!

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