I’ve learnt a new word… ‘A Creative’ …It’s an old word used in a new way. ‘A creative’ is an artist – a painter, musician, actor…
When we apply for grants for the Seagull Theatre we describe ‘working with local creatives’… ‘providing employment for creatives’… ‘ensuring that our community benefits from creatives’…
We provide opportunities for ‘local creatives’… writers developing new plays, musicians setting up singing groups, actors going into local schools, dancers running exciting new classes…
Musing… looking back… teaching days… I was privileged to work with some wonderful ‘creatives’ in school… artists, dance and drama teachers, musicians… inspiring the children to paint, perform, enjoy being creative.
I worked with amazing ‘creatives’ outside the arts… history teachers who enacted battles, imaginative science teachers who created excitement, maths teachers who enabled numbers and shapes to be interesting and fun…
Yesterday I attended a meeting… ‘The East Suffolk Cultural Strategy’… Some was as dull and boring as it sounds… bureaucracy and jargon… a ‘critical alignment of vision’… ‘integration in diversity’… I realised again; I’m glad I’ve retired!
Then we talked with and about ‘creatives’. (That word again!) Local artists bringing bright murals to dark areas… film makers planning a festival… sculptors explaining their dreams… poets writing about local issues… writers working with children… The atmosphere changed. Creatives brought passion and enthusiasm!
Musing… I’ve discussed ‘God the Creator’ many times… a scientific, impersonal discussion, about fact and fiction, time and space… astronomy and the chemistry of the universe, evolution and the biology of life… A God of power, control, analysis, order…
But ‘God the Creative’ is different… a God who creates the new and exciting, something out of nothing… doing the unexpected or apparently impossible… producing beauty, display and performance… creating inspiration, enjoyment, fun…
Made in the image of this God we‘re made to be creatives, unique individuals, developing gifts and talents… not quite fitting into any box… seeing the world differently from others… creating, inspiring, appreciating beauty… bringing enjoyment and fun…
malcolmsmusings.org 
“creatives” I like that word. Writing a new song, trying to photograph things differently, woodworking and building a rustic cabin in the woods….that stuff revitalizes me. Some day I might try to get good at one of them.
LikeLike
Me too… I like the idea that ‘I’m a creative’, that I have the potential to be original, do something in a different way… it’s not just about skill or capability, it’s part of the way I’m made – like the Creative who designed me.
LikeLike