Here’s the funny and inspirational Brazilian artist Vik Muniz talking about creativity and how getting shot helped him get to the US. He has a lovely clarity on the distinction between creation and creativity.
Creativity is how we cope with creation, while creation sometimes seems a bit ungraspable or even pointless. Creativity is always meaningful.
Muniz sees what we “see” artistically as creativity and what nature, the world gives us, objects etc. as creation.
Which explains inspiration again, in that it’s something that we “see” spontaneously, differently, when others don’t “see” it all.
The art critic and novelist John Berger talks a lot about ways of seeing in his book of the same name saying the process of seeing
is less spontaneous and natural than we tend to believe.
The book was based on a BBC 2 television series where Berger compares “the stillness and silence of a painting” divorced from the “religiosity” or what “people teach us about art.”
So, the link between creativity and inspiration is to make the distinction for yourself of creativity and creation. It would seem that creation is where inspiration lies, not creativity.
Next up, How does coming to La Muse lead to Inspiration and Creativity?