place to hang art

My vast readership, ahem, knows that I volunteer as a docent at the Columbus Museum of Art. The Museum is undergoing a long-awaited  much anticipated expansion and remodel. Contained within the new and improved Museum is a ground-breaking component–The Center for Creativity. The Center, to me, is truly the "center" of CMA philosophy. It will be a place for the community, teachers, school groups, families, seniors, juniors–everyone to engage in creative interaction with the museum and their own imagination. The CMA mission, if you will, and i do because it is my blog, is to connect and commit the community to the importance of the museum and instill a sense of collective ownership or guardianship. A sense of mutual commitment.  The Center for Creativity is a "creative" way to establish  community outreach and connection and an embraced understanding that without creativity there is no future in art–or anything else.

To launch the Center, the CMA is hosting a 4 day Creativity Summit, the first day of which, Creativity in Your Life, October 14th, is open to the public. Keynote speakers for that session include author Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys, Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and Liz Lessner, CEO of Betty’s Family of Restaurants. See the bottom of this post for more sign-up info.  "The Creativity Summit will "kick-start" conversations with multiple audiences and partners to introduce CMA as a vitally important resource for teaching and learning initiatives that reinforce twenty-first century skills in our schools and the community." Skills we are falling behind in nationally. I want to sustain creativity in my life-and encourage and facilitate creativity in my children’s lives. This, to me, is an opportunity for personal and professional development.

Without Creativity there is no innovation. No moving forward to capture ideas in business, art, science, which of course includes constant changes in technology in our homes and throughout our daily lives.  All that makes us passionate and engaged in life requires creativity.

What is creativity? As defined in the July 19,2010 Newsweek article, Creativity in America, "to be creative requires divergent thinking, (generating many unique ideas)and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result)."

For 50 years children GLOBALLY have been given CQ (creativity quotient test) and, much like IQ tests, children have shown a steady point increase due, as the article states, "enriched environments are making kids smarter." American test scores might argue this but…more frightening is that measured CQ tests for American children show that creativity scores are falling. And have been falling since 1990. American ingenuity, what this country was built on, is in the decline. Superpower? Hardly.

This speaks, frighteningly, to future leadership and creative political solutions. "Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others." (Newsweek article)

Yikes.

To register for Creativity in Your Life on October 14 (8:30-4:00)

Register by October 7 by calling 614-629-5947 or on-line at www.columbusmuseum.org

cost is $45 includes lunch, $30 for students and seniors

Hope to see you there.