Jess tells us how she integrates Nature into her creative living in a city:
Living in the heart of a large city, I often have to work at making time to interact and explore nature. I grew up in the countryside, think fields and valleys with forests and streams all around, so as a child it was easy, just walk out the door and you were immediately squishing your fingers in the mud and smelling the fragrance of the garden.
I think every urban area has nature to be found, though, even if it does take a little more looking. And interacting with nature is such an important part of creative life that it’s definitely worth the extra effort.
Luckily, my day job is already pretty connected with nature. I’m a florist and own a flower shop, so I get to touch and smell beautiful blooms pretty much daily, and am often to be found with my fingers in soil planting things, all of which I know help keep my brain making new creative connections.
Outside of work, because I’m mostly surrounded by buildings, getting myself deeply surrounded by nature means going for walks to the city waterfront where I often will sit and watch the water as it ripples in the bay, listening to the ducks and gulls. I’m not lucky enough to have a city allotment, but I’ll often ride my bike to them and spend time peering over the fences taking in the mad mess of vegetables and flowers spilling over the plots, all framed within the grid of the city. I’m also obsessed with finding bits of nature that manage to sprout and even flourish deep within the concrete structures, stopping to snap photos of wildflowers bursting out of a sidewalk crack or a bus shelter taken over by vines. These images and this feeling of juxtaposition of nature and city and the tension of that, all seep into things I create. My daily sketch book is filled with colourful scribbles of neon city-scapes that have oversized birds and trees interspersed or crazy spliced human/animals.
When you think of exploring nature, you probably first think of it on a larger scale- hiking a mountain for example, but when you are in a city, sometimes you need to think on a micro scale! Even in the most urban environment, I guarantee you can find moss and lichen, whether on aged buildings or wooden electricity poles or on trees and rocks in a city parkland. Get down close and really look at these little mini ecosystems. It’s really amazing, the structures and colours of these tiny pieces of nature, and taking time to notice everything about them sets off all kinds of creativity in my brain- the texture, the shapes, the crazy colour combinations, how on earth they can grow where they do.
Also important to the conversation is the concept that exploring and experiencing nature isn’t about seeing something and then drawing it, the effect is deeper and further reaching than that. Immersing myself in the trees or lying on the grass in a city park, sitting by the water, all these things give my brain stimulation of senses that are helping it build new pathways that in turn help me solve problems and come up with new ideas. These are things that happen rather easier when we are kids, because rolling in the grass or climbing a tree is to be expected, as a grownup I have to really focus and practice the habit of touching, smelling, seeing and hearing with no “goal” or direct reason other than to experience.
Growing up in the rural West Country of England was like living in a lifestyle magazine or children’s book. Emily and Jess lived in a 600 year old stone cottage that was the former bakery for the farm estate in a thousand year old Saxon era community just outside Bath. As very young children they played under Orange Pippin apple trees, as young girls, they had a treehouse in a crabapple tree and by eight years old, the 200 hundred year old giant beech trees were their hideout. Daily walks along English hedgerows provided biology lessons and botany lessons. Dog roses, honeysuckles, ragged robin and bluebells predominated as the flowers they broke apart to examine reproduction in plants. The neighbouring farm offered Christmas parties in a 500 year old stone barn, pheasant and duck plucking, flowering cherry trees, large and aggressive geese and huge herds of sheep running the lanes each spring and fall. The Adams family regularly visited the local arboretum, learned all the varieties of trees that resided there, and enjoyed long rambles through the soft rolling hills that characterize the area.
Nature is a muse for most creatives, and that comes often from the intimate connection we form with it as children. Our first toys were cups, spoons and dirt. Mud pies, potions and recipes made from every natural element we could locate were among our earliest creations, and forty five years later, Emily can still recall the exact combinations of some of those creations. The smell of the earth, the flower petals, the warmth of the water from the standpipe; all become woven into the fabric of Emily’s earliest creative explorations.
As brooding teens both girls used painting, writing and photography of these bucolic scenes to express their deepest emotions and yearning for mystery. There are a LOT of pictures of flowers and valleys still lying around our homes! Every aspect of our life featured nature; holidays in Ireland wading in cold mountain streams, lying in scented heather, prickly gorse and springy Irish moss. and exploring the deep dark rhododendron tunnels at Lough Key park. Summer trips to Devon, Wales, and the Cotswolds to ramble along grassy trails, through ancient woods and along sandy beaches that once hosted the Vikings and Danes. The broad rocky steps of the Burren, the fossil filled coast of Ireland, rock pools and crab hunting on the South coast of England. We learned rocks, geology, went into old cave systems and discovered ancient stalagmites in Wookey Hole. The ways in which nature was present are too innumerable to itemize. This natural world continues to influence our creativity today in both rural Ontario and urban Toronto.
This month we’re exploring how we can continue interacting with Nature in our adult lives, looking at ways to be immersed in it no matter if you live in an urban or rural setting. Check back in through the month as Jess posts about creating space for nature in her urban city world and Emily tells us all about using nature to nurture creativity in a more rural setting.
Make sure you are signed up to out newsletter, as we’ll be sending out a special email each month with ideas on how to use nature to boost creativity in your daily life.
Emily: I want to offer you all some insight into how we became the creators we are- meaning Jess and I, not people in general; that’s a whole ‘nother blog post! It might help solidify and support the knowledge and experience we are sharing with you if you understand the story of how we came to be.
We were born, as people generally are, in the seventies to Mum, Sue and Dad, Mike in a quiet area of rural south west England just outside Bath. It was the most idyllic place to live; rolling hills, fields, roman and prehistoric ruins, farms, and of course flares and long hair. We were exposed at a very early age to creative pursuits as a way of living, and when our parents weren’t doing that, they were taking us to living museums to experience the same thing in a historical context.
Jess: Wow, Em- looking back, we were basically children roaming pretty wild, weren’t we? At the time I wouldn’t have said that, but now as a Mom living in a city in the current age…boy, we were almost feral!
Emily: Dad, although he maintains to this day he isn’t creative, happens to be a creative thinker, doer and problem solver. He is an accomplished public speaker, I learned everything about speaking and presentation from him, particularly from his early involvement in politics (bet you never thought creativity and politics would appear in the same post!). Dad is a great gardener just like his dad, and my sister inherited their love of the green. Our garden always looked like one of those ‘English country gardens’ you see in magazines. Dad also fixed the drystone walls that are a feature of the area, and it is an art unto itself. Dad showed us how to appreciate a wide variety of music, from James Galway to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles to the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones to Dusty Springfield.
Jess: It’s funny to me that Dad doesn’t think he’s creative at all, because when I think about our childhood and how we were surrounded by creativity, Dad’s always there in the thick of it with us. My parent’s group of friends were always having themed dress up parties so we got to see Mum and Dad create amazing costumes out of basically whatever they had at hand. And the village had a yearly Pram race where teams would transform a child’s pram into something magical and basically race from pub to pub along the main street. Mum would usually come up with the concept and creative details but it was Dad who had to think creatively and transform something ordinary into something it wasn’t, AND have it still function and carry a full grown adult inside.
Emily: Mum was a maker. She learned a lot of it from her mother; who grew up in an orphanage after her mother died when she was four. My Nan was a wicked cook, and made the best Barmbrack you’ll ever eat. Mum loves to cook, and we got to experience more variety than the average Brit of the era, from curries to cakes, baking to European stews and her divine Apple Charlotte and pavlova. Mum sewed most of her own clothing as a teen, much of ours as kids, as well as being a good knitter. She learned macrame, basket weaving and quilting for the fun of it.
Mum made our May fair costumes, helped us make Easter bonnets and set up and ran a volunteer playgroup five mornings a week so we would have friends to play with.
Jess: Yes! And remember, all of this was in a rural village in the late 70”s and early 80’s, so there was no looking for ideas and how to’s on pinterest, it was all from peoples creative minds and you couldn’t order the DIY kit on Amazon or anything, people were just using what they had but seeing it in different ways.
Emily: I believe the part of our upbringing that has the most impact on who we are today is the experiences our parents let us have. We did not come into our talents solely through genetics (that’s the other blog post); I draw and paint but neither of my parents ever really engaged in that. So creativity also cannot be put down to what I was taught, because most of my education in drawing was self taught using books, pictures and a lot of mistake making. I think the most important aspect of our creative lives was that we were allowed to give it all a go BECAUSE WE WANTED TO. Not because we were looking for someone to admire what we did. Not because we were particularly good at something (hey, I tried dance class), but because we just wanted to give it a go. Modern kids spend most of their childhood being told that every scribble they bring home is ‘beautiful’, that every effort gets a ribbon and that everyone will love and admire all they produce. This is counter-productive. Why try if it will always be brilliant? And why learn and grow when it’s always appreciated? Our parents supported our every effort; they let us dance with mum’s blue and orange nylon sheets to James Galway in the kitchen, they let us climb the 200 year old beech trees behind the shed, they let us drop rocks on our feet, hammer nails in trees, collect wildflowers and press them, make plaster casts of animal footprints, weave flower crowns, make hay castles, sled in a feed sack, cut their flowers for bouquets, stick our jammy fingers in their biscuit mix and generally have a chance to learn about everything. And through trial….lots of trial, and error we found the things we liked, and the things we are good at. And those are not always the same thing. I loved dancing in the dining room on the lino floor with the flutes playing feeling like a fairy in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I am not a dancer!!. That is creativity. We try, and if it doesn’t work, we accept that, and either try again or move on. Our parents showed us how to do that- and indeed are still doing that today as they help us start businesses (there have been quite a few in the family), decide on career moves and build our homes. When you have someone (anyone) who supports you – and yes that sometimes is only yourself- but does not overdo the false praise, who helps you recognize mistakes and manage them, who offers a whole wide world of experiences just so you can be a creator then your creativity will bloom.
Jess: I agree, they were wonderful at just letting us do things and enjoy things, but also not making it have to define us. If we wanted to dance around the living room putting on “ballet” they encouraged us to enjoy it, but there was no pressure to be “good “ at it or need to learn to do it correctly. Somethings we followed through into later life, somethings we just enjoyed in the moment and then let go. I think our parents allowed us to learn lots of important life skills, but especially they sat back and let us fail at things , but also let us try again to figure it out. Em, remember when we would tramp down to the streams in the valley and figure out how to damn parts up to create bigger pools, and then we discovered the sides were clay and we could make use of that too? We’d play for hours, thinking we’d got it, then the water would overflow and the damn would be obliterated and we’d figure out you need a sluice gate to let off pressure so we’d start again.
Emily: So the lesson here is: support yourself (mental health matters), or go find someone who will do it for you. Make those mistakes. Try something new. Learn and create. Because that is what humanity was made to do from childhood on. It doesn’t die, it’s always there, and YOU have it too!
Jess: Yep! I’m trying to get back to a place of learning for enjoyment’s sake and allowing myself to not be good at things but still enjoy them, to make mistakes and take up the challenge of trying again. I really think that’s where most of the creative magic can happen!
Creativity and problem solving are the lifeblood of every invention, art, business and adventure that humanity has ever undertaken. In my work with children I have a unique vantage point to observe the earliest development of creativity in each child I care for. But in recent years there has been a startling decline in the ability of each cohort of children to be creative. This is an actively researched statistic, measured as ‘creativity quotient’, and research shows that each decade children are measurably less able to creatively solve problems. ‘Standardized intelligence’ scores are rising over the same period, also demonstrating that academic performance is not the same skill as creativity. Dr. Kim of the College of William and Mary has done years of research that demonstrates a clear pattern of decline AND that decline worsens more quickly each decade as well.
The long term effect of this decline becomes magnified- less creative employees, fewer entrepreneurs, less interest in the arts, lowered participation in activities that benefit mental health, which results in a decline in mental health, business systems become less efficient as people stop using innovative thinking, the fall out is endless.
Infants show creative problem solving skills emerging from a very young age. The need to explore objects, people, and their environment means they begin learning how to manipulate things very quickly (haptics). Babies have to decide how to get from one place to another, reach a toy they can see, communicate a need without words – all forms of creative problem solving. As children grow they start to really branch out; climb on counters, swing from branches, stack logs, throw balls, rocks and other objects. They don’t do these actions randomly. Each one has a purpose; if I throw this rock, will it come down here or there? How fast? How hard? Will it break? Will it bounce? The children are attempting to classify their world, and test these theorems regularly and extremely creatively when given space, time and freedom to do so, But society in North America is becoming far more restrained. In general terms we are governed more by fear than say, thirty years ago. Children live in a world where playgrounds must be ‘safe’, school yards should be as flat and grassy as possible to allow for sports, trees shouldn’t really exist in school and definitely not bushland or ‘gasp’ open water!
Somewhere in the past we have begun to slide towards valuing total safety, behavioural conformity and academic intelligence over risk, creativity and assertive behaviour. Risk, creativity and assertiveness are very tricky to promote in group care models, and the larger the group- say at school- the harder it becomes to promote them. Some of the most widely respected (and creative) education models in the world are also models that are considered ‘exceptions’; charter schools, forest schools, Reggio programs, Waldorf and nature based programs. Educators everywhere sigh with jealousy when talking about such innovative programming as New Zealand’s Te Whariki or Australia’s newer mixed age group ‘facilitated learning’ schools- but the North American system still remains mostly unchanged from the 1950s.
Somewhere between kindergarten (which in Canada can be as young as 3 and 8 months old) and the end of high school the majority of children begin to believe such things as ‘I can’t draw’, ‘I’m not artistic’, ‘I am not a creator’ ‘I can’t solve that problem’. Creative arts in grade school becomes a half hour lesson once per week, taught by a teacher who has a math or english degree and a teaching certificate. Problem solving becomes formulaic, applied under certain situations to certain subjects. Even those who are creative are told to have ‘an alternate plan’ for a ‘real job’ after school. Children who are creative in school become labelled and grouped (drama student, art student, music student) as if being creative is not a valued skill in engineering, business, science and mathematics.
One of the most basic reasons that we are less creative today is that the building blocks of creativity are not present in our lives anymore. Children require specific types of input to their brains in order to develop the neural pathways needed to creatively solve problems. Take tree climbing. Do you recall climbing trees? Think about modern children’s opportunities for that now- accessibility, safety concerns, municipal code, child protective services, social views and a litigation minded society, all have a role in ending the likelihood that a child will climb a tree. Yet the action of climbing, specifically a living tree, has immense neurological and developmental impacts on the brain. The decision making process involved in moving your body to find a support is complex, requires vestibular, proprioceptive, touch, hearing and logic processing to achieve. As you move from branch to branch your body is processing more data than at any other time due to the complexities of movement and placement plus sensory input plus environmental and weather information, measuring strength in the various branches, thinking about the path up and back down again. In childhood you have more neural connections than at any other time in your life. As we stop ‘using’ them, they become pruned away, by limiting the types of input we provide we get stronger skills in some areas, but fewer in others. EVERY child has the ability to be creative, but only those in environments that promote and support creativity will continue to be that creative. The others will begin to believe they are not creative. These and other basic building blocks of ensuring a creative brain are being eroded faster than we can make adjustments. From the rise of cell phones, to safety concerns to fears of being labelled a bad parent or worse, having your child removed because you ‘endangered them’; the freedom to explore and create is being largely curtailed.
In essence the journey from childhood to young adulthood is fraught with many dangers…none so great as the loss of your creativity. It IS still there, dormant and slumbering. You have neuroplasticity to thank for that (another blog for another time). You CAN reconnect with your creative self; not by following a step by step how to video on Youtube (although it will help you produce a perfectly lovely piece of something), but by engaging with your inner child. Play, exploration and letting go of fear are the keys to true creativity. Let’s explore them together!
