Do Crafts Foster Creativity?

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before -Dieter F. Uchtdor

I completely believe that statement.  I think every single person is creative by nature.  Of course we are!  We are children of the Great Creator - made in His image.  We have that creative drive in our souls.  I do not think that we teach anyone creativity.  We don't need to do brain exercises to help us be creative.  We already are.  We do, however, need the skills and wisdom that will help us express our inner creativity in a way that will be beautiful and true.

It is confusing when people say that we need to foster creativity in our children.  The creativity is already there.  I think what they mean is that we need to make sure they see the joy in expressing that creativity so that they will be motivated to learn the skills required to express that creativity well.

I think this is what people mean when they say that doing crafts or playing with legos and art materials will "foster creativity".  As a child creates something new (a craft, structure, picture or anything else) they will feel the thrill of creating and will want to create more.  There is truth to this - but the problem is that they won't necessarily want to create something better.  

Of course a child's first attempts at expressing creativity are not going to be of great quality.  The fear that many have is that if a child finds that what they create does not bring joy  - they might stop trying to create or give up trying to improve.

There is also a danger, however, in giving a child a false sense of achievement when they are merely making "little junks only a mother would love" as Keri Tibbets puts it. The danger here is that they will get plenty of satisfaction from their haphazard efforts and will not see the need for putting forth the real effort required to gain the skills needed to make something of real beauty.

"Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty.
We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fulness of joy.   Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things." Dieter F. Uchdorf

So, if a child needs to feel the joy of creating, but they don't have the skills to create much - what do we do to encourage them, without giving them a false sense of achievement?  Praise them on their effort?

This is what schools often have to do - grade according to effort.  It seems like a plausible solution.  It gets tricky though.  How are you supposed to know how much mental effort a child put into something and how much of it was skill (or lack of)?

It seems like this would be easier if you are a parent and you are familiar with what your child is capable of, but there's an inherent problem with this as well.  All of your child's creations require some effort.  How do you know how much effort is worthy of praise and how much is not?  I never knew.  I just praised any effort in order to keep encouraging effort.   The problem with this was that I did give them a sense that anything goes - it doesn't matter what you make - it's all good - so why put in the extra effort?

I think there is a different way.

We were reading about Monet the other day.  In his time, paints were very expensive.  Artists often had to make their own paints - this was difficult and also costly.  When an artists painted a picture - he tried very hard to make it nice and not waste his resources.  Was it always a success?  Of course not.  Artists paint a lot of pictures that they are not happy with.  Is this a waste of resources?  I don't think any of us would say that the pictures Monet painted, and discarded, were a waste of resources.  They were an important part of his becoming a great artist.

This is why I am no longer giving my children loose paper to waste to their heart's desire.  I am also limiting their art supplies.  Keri gave the example of a child with lots of smelly or glittery markers.  The child spends their time making lines to see what the marker does.  In contrast, if a child is given a few crayons and some paper.  They will draw something.  Then, they will draw something different because it would be boring to draw the same thing again.  After a while - they learn to draw!

So how do I keep up their enthusiasm for creating when they do not get the immediate satisfaction of giving it away or of experimenting with what all of the different art supplies can do?  I don't have to.  They keep their enthusiasm because they see themselves improve!  They are able to draw things that they couldn't draw previously.  I don't need little gimmicks to trick them into thinking they are good at something.   They will feel the real joy of actually becoming better.  They will improve much more quickly if they don't have all of these distracting things to experiment with and a ton of resources to waste.

I have a wonderful book called Drawing with Children.  The author suggests that children learn to draw with nice pens so that they can not erase their mistakes.  What is the purpose of this?  To teach them to be careful and to draw slowly from the beginning.

Anyone who has learned to play a musical instrument knows that practicing a song very slowly at first and then speeding up, yields faster results than practicing the same music wrong over and over again.  This is the benefit of limiting resources.  A child will be much more careful with what they are given.

This analogy can be applied to all other areas of life.  Creativity is not limited to the arts (thankfully!)  I would go more into this, but my original intent for this post was to write about what we actually need, besides skills, to truly have the ability to create real beauty.  Most people know that mere skills will not be enough for someone to be able to express their inborn creativity.  There is something else.  However, this post is getting long enough so I better save the rest for the next post.

Gospel gladness can give us a precious perspective about all things and can spur us on to share that beauty which God helps us to create. It is a process that should not trouble itself over much, initially, with questions of originality and utility but, rather, with quality and excellence. - Neal A. Maxwell