Where I live there are many markets springing up where home grown produce and home made goods are the attraction and they are very popular - people almost craving the 'authentic' or the organic product over the mass produced. There has even been a rise in some of the older artisan activities like blacksmithing.

The lack of creative products in the shops has spurred a whole new activity in markets and with imports many people are choosing to shop at markets to help local producers.

I am a bit of a dabbler in the creative arts doing a bit of writing, website design and art mainly oils and drawing with plans to undertake a mosaics course soon.

My biggest and most regular creative pursuit is the garden and the kitchen. We have too many fruit and veg to name here including some exotics and heritage varieties. The chickens have free range and a large coop/run and the eggs are delicious.

I even tried to grow a red dragon fruit (pitaya) in our cold climes but it was not a success. Jackie French was an inspiration there having grown warmer varieties in her cold garden using micro climates, but alas my efforts failed (although still thinking about trying avocado in a pot).

David f,

The women on the General Electric production line probably weren't getting much of a creative kick from their jobs. they were, however, socialising, which is in itself enjoyable - especially as they were being paid to engage their brain only marginally in their work. (I presume repetitive testing would become an almost automative response after long enough)

Your wife, though, knows the satisfaction of fashioning something useful or beautiful from inspiration to actuality.

Squeers,

After I started this thread I remembered that my daughter had written a magazine article on the subject (she's creative) - she called the act of creation a form of alchemy in that it transmutes something of lesser value in one form to something of greater value in another - interesting.

I haven't read "The Anatomy of Melancholy" although I've read excerpts quoted here and there. I do think the creative act is strongly connected with our sense of purpose relating to the utility of our environment. Burton, I believe, thought that melancholy was part of the deal - these days we think its something haywire - we call it depression and take pills to mask its presence.

I'm fascinated by human adaptation in the modern world and the ways we have altered our creative instincts to match the technology - although I suspect it is fundamental that we should continue engage in some form of material creativity.

Pelican,

Your place sounds resonant with opportunities to create. A vegetable garden is not a static entity, but a thriving environment where you become part of the process.
(We have chooks too.)

As I mentioned, I'm quite good a drafting, but have trouble with original concepts. My sister, however, has in the last few years taken up painting and is shortly to open her second exhibition - she seems much more spontaneous about the whole thing. My daughter is also artistic and has her own style...they both have the thing that I've always struggled to find, and yet each of us gravitates to the pictorial representation of life.

Dear Poirot,

the women testing the products weren't getting any sort of creative kick from their jobs. After talking to them it was obvious that they were not disappointed since that wasn't what they were looking for. I suspect you are a very creative individual. I also suspect that you think others have the same impulse, but it is often stifled in them.

We are so conditioned by society that our impulses that we think are spontaneous are really impulses we are conditioned to have.

I think we all have the instincts of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. For the survival of such a society it is necessary that most people not question too much. In New South Wales there is an Aboriginal cultural centre which my wife and I visited. One of the Aborigines took us on a tour and told us about their culture. teenage (I can't make a capital t on this computer) Aborigines who asked too many questions were unlikely to survive the initiation ceremonies. Other tribal cultures probably are the same. Although we don't live in a tribal culture and stifling of creativity is not a good thing in our culture I think we still to a great degree have that tribal mindset which is fearful of and uncomfortable with questioning and creativity.

Dear David f,

I could be more creative - I tend to spend a little too much time thinking.

I was just tossing over in my mind your example of the women on the production line, and I compared it to indigenous peasants sitting in a group weaving baskets. Both are social acts and both are contributing to or are creative acts in a repetitive mode.
Then there are the weavers of beautiful oriental rugs who are often of the peasant class - some are nomadic and carry their simple portable looms with them. Their children learn the designs of such rugs almost like a language, in that they instinctively absorb the perennial patterns handed down from antiquity.

Creation in a human sense is an act of transformation and a tool for the exaltation of the spirit

creation takes place ..in the perceptive mind
after being created..is only is truelly appriciated in a receptive mind

thus is it with gods creation
he thought it and behold it is

many minds will speculate how god did it
and get it wrong..prefering to watch cooking shows

they will never know ..the how ..or why of it..
yet still appiciate ..[or not]..its having been created

[if only in the privacy of their own minds]

here is my latest creation

its worth a reading the source
http://www.openaustralia.org/debates/?id=2011-03-24.30.1

""The Carbon Credits Bill 2011
fulfils an election commitment*
to give* farmers,forest growers and landholders
access to carbon markets.""[foreign carbon credits]

that gives a con-text

""This will begin to unlock the abatement opportunities
..in the land sector which currently..""

the creation/then the reasoning

which currently..*make up 23 per cent
of Australia’s emissions.""

then the kicker

""*Australia has amongst the highest
*agricultural emissions..*/of the developed countries*""

now my creative joinder
of facts

mainly via their generating..*nitrous oxide..[not taxed]
[300 times worse..than carbon dioxide][taxed]

joining more dots

from nitrogen[see previous posts]
and landline link

BUT THATS NOT BEING TAXED...
now you know why

we made a promise

thus we talk of greenhouse gasses
but only tax carbon..lol

it might not be very creative
but its about getting the NEW info created
[inspirated/inspirwed]..into the other mind's

oh never mind

go back to sleep

even dreaming ..*is creation
if only in ya dreams