Musings....My Theory of Creativity

To understand my newly created 'Theory of Creativity' two bits of information might be helpful:

First bit of information: you must understand what fluorescence is. Definition: Luminescence that occurs where the energy is supplied by electromagnetic radiation, usually ultraviolet light. The energy source kicks an electron of an atom from a lower energy state into an "excited" higher energy state; then the electron releases the energy in the form of light (luminescence) when it falls back to a lower energy state.

Now understand that I just spent all of last week explaining over and over again how chlorophyll molecules absorb the energy of sunlight which then either passes the energy on to split water molecules into oxygen gas (lucky for us!) and Hydrogen ions (used to eventually produce usable energy for the cell, ATP, and ultimately produce glucose when combined with carbon dioxide (hurrah for plants once again!). OR the energy absorbed is remitted as red light (fluorescence).

Second piece of information: I watched a short video clip speech presented by a writer who has published a best selling book (never heard of it). Briefly she was explaining how she was approaching the daunting task of continuing to create despite the fact that she may never produce another book as widely acclaimed as her best seller. She haled back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who felt that creativity was sent from the 'gods' as a 'gif't to selected mortals - so if you wanted to be creative I guess you needed to beg the gods and you could also blame your lack of creativity on them as well. This gave you a scape goat if you weren't able to produce so you could avoid the depression often associated with creative folks.

Okay, so I pondered this for awhile and I think that a better analogy of the source of creativity would be that being creative is like fluorescence. You need to surround yourself with the sources of inspiration - if want to create art - surround yourself with fellow artists, go to museums, look at art - you then 'absorb' all kinds of ideas in that vein with your brain which then remitts this absorbed energy as a newly created project! Viola! Fluorescence!!! The same would be true of work in science - surround yourself with all the myriad branches of science - the bits and pieces of information and your brain can remit that as a brand new idea! Fluorescence ! The energy is absorbed and part of the energy is emitted as something brand new. Introducing my theory of creativity!!!! Don't you feel enlightened?

Make it good day!

First attempt

This is my first attempt at creating a fused art quilt. This one began in a quilting workshop with quilting artist Laura Wasilowski that I took on Wednesday of this past week. I certainly learned a great deal while making this (and made lots of mistakes!). My fingers are sore from the hand quilting bits and I definitely have a lot to learn about machine quilting! I have many ideas peculating for future projects.

Introducing "...then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils." (with apologies to Walt Whitman).

Make it a good day!

I played hookey from school today....

...and finally remembered to take my camera to the quilt show. They have my name spelled correctly now on the note on my sweater. I attended a quilting workshop all day today. My finished project won't be appearing for several weeks I think, but it was fun! I sure learned a lot and my head is swimming with ideas. It was a little intimidating since everyone in the class of 8 but me were very experienced quilters - belonged to quilt guilds and the like and had entered the quilt show many times. They were all very nice and creative and the day flew by!

George got two walls in the bathroom wall papered tonight while I worked on the eternal grading of papers. We are going to a Mardi Gras party Friday evening which sounds like fun. Meanwhile...back to work!

Artificial Birds' Nests

Above are knitted artificial bird's nests I made for the Wildlife Rehabilitation unit at Penitentiary Glen. One of my colleagues at work sent out the instructions and these are the results. She is collecting them from anyone that knits or crochets for the baby birds. It was a fun project.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our electricity is back on and we got a full night's sleep, so life is good! We were kept up most of the previous night by a horrendous wind storm! It culminated in knocking out our electricity for most of the day yesterday. Thank goodness for our generator.

The quilt show exhibitors reception was very nice. There were 7 items in my category and 249 quilted items displayed in total. Gorgeous, hard work! They managed to misspell my first name on my crazy quilt sweater but promised to fix it before the show opened today. They got it right everywhere else - including the last name!

I'm paying the price for my flexible schedule this weekend as I have a mind numbing pile of papers to grade....

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Are you on Facebook yet?

Fun! If you haven't investigated - joined Facebook yet, I'd encourage you to check it out.....great way to connect with your kids, nephews, friends, join groups and make new friends! Fun! It allows more of a "conversation" than a blog does.

OK. Here are my 2nd pair of finished socks (Anya's) and I'm on to the next! I also finished making a "tote" I designed to carry my supplies to the quilt workshop I signed up for February 18th (see above). I've even got it all packed and ready to go (can you tell I'm excited about this!). It's big enough for the kitchen sink! Thursday of this coming week George and I will attend a reception for the exhibitors at the Lake Farm Park Quilt Show. I hope I still have some energy left for the evening after 6 hours of lab classes that day!

Yahoo! It's supposed to reach 48 today!!!!! We'll see.... We have been invited to a dinner party this evening which I have to get inspired to make a dessert for ..... maybe a cheesecake. Maybe after I grade some papers, do some knitting, sewing.....

I'm praying for Uncle Johnny who went through hell yesterday when they penetrated his esophagus while doing an endoscopy. It collapsed his lung and they had to do surgery to install a tube to allow him to breathe easier with less pain. He may be traveling to the Cleveland Clinic today to repair the esophagus. How horrible!