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When we first began this semester, I believed I understood what creativity was. However, a question arose very quickly that made me question my thoughts entirely. The question: What is creativity? Many students, including myself, went to online dictionaries. However, we quickly learned that there was no good of creativity. This timeline will show the progression of my realizations and thoughts on creativity throughout the semester.

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In this first Art Assignment, we were to use a clean black screen to capture a scene through its reflection. This, like many of the Art Assignments to come, challenged me as it required a new perspective. At the time, I believed I was being creative.

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My thoughts on creativity after the first week can be shown from our first journal in the class. These journals were intended for us to express the development of our creative metacognition over time. In this journal, I express that I believe I am a creative person and that I believed creativity could exist between a group.

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In this second Art Assignment, we were supposed to use paper weaving to create a design. While I did do this, I took a different approach than the rest of my classmates. While my peers made variously colored patterns, I created a scene. This scene reflected my desires. At the time when I had made this, I wished I was in Florida as I had been unable to go there since the COVID-19 pandemic began. As such, I created an island in the ocean with a lone palm tree on it. At the moment, I had believed I was being creative. However, looking back on it now, I am able to see how I drew inspiration from previous experiences which we learned contributes to "creativity" further in class.

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Art Assignment #2 “Paper Weaving” Parker Grover

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After the second week of class, I once again reflected on creativity. My thoughts had not changed too much over this time. However, I did express some opinions on creativity. I believed, and still do believe, that much of our current education system stifles creativity. Children seem to be more creative than adults, and over time this creativity tends to decrease. Although we discussed it in class and read about it in "The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World" by Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman, I realized something later on. Perhaps part of the reason children tend to be more creative is because they make connections more often than adults. As adults, we learn new information. But, that new information only connects to a few topics. As children, we are learning so much and making so many new connections to so many various topics that making a few other connections is nothing more than normal. Revisiting the material we have covered in class is providing me with new insights.

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For our third Art Assignment, we were supposed to take a piece of trash and turn it into something beautiful or useful. Knowing I needed an art supplies holder, I looked for a container that could hold what I needed. While beautifying the container, I tried to make it work with the design and coloring of my room. I accomplished such and I am still using it to this day. It also allowed me to learn more about the constraints of creativity. Not necessarily the constraints that creativity itself has, but the constraints with which I was limiting my own creativity.

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Art Assignment #3 “Artistic Alchemy” Parker Grover

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At this point in the semester, we began discussing growth vs fixed mindsets. In this journal, I discuss expressions of creativity and how I specifically express creativity. I also discuss mindsets and how I believe I have a growth mindset. I go on to describe my classifications of what makes me have a growth mindset and then I relate it back to creativity. I consider that maybe humans are creative all the time since our decisions impact the rest of our lives. Its at this point that I acknowledge that creativity cannot be easily explained since we do not know its limitations. However, as I will explore further in this reflection, I do know limitations to society's understanding of creativity, but not genuine creativity.

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The goal of this Art Assignment was to create a landscape out of materials other than what was in the actual landscape. As you can see, I used the same tropical appearance for this landscape as I did for Art Assignment #2 "Paper Weaving." At the time, I believed I was being genuinely creative, however I no longer see it that way. I realize now that I drew inspiration from my Art Assignment #2 and from my desire to be in Florida as I had previously expressed. Using my understanding of creativity now, I would say I was being creative according to society but not genuinely creative. I also intended to have the container "blend in" with my room, but stick out at the same time. Through such, I was embracing contradiction, one of the tasks of the course.

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Art Assignment #4 "Constructed Landscape"

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Art Assignment #4 “Constructed Landscape” Parker Grover

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In this journal is when I recognize that my thoughts on creativity have actually changed since the beginning of the semester contrary to my prior belief. I also recognize that I am starting to view the world through a new lens. I feel as though this was the big turning point for me during the semester. This is when I believe I actually began to have a growth mindset on the topic of creativity. As a result, I believe I began to take more risks in terms of my art assignments and my own art.

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The intent of Week 5's Art Assignment was to show emotion through furniture. As previously mentioned, I began to take greater risks. Rather than using standard furniture such as chairs, tables, or something more common, I decided to use swing-arm lamps. This required research on what classified as furniture, testing the boundaries of limitations and definitions that we place on words, much like my thought process on creativity this semester. Once again, in the moment, I believed I was being creative, but according to my belief on creativity now, I do not believe I was. While I do believe that I was taking greater risk, I believe that my work drew inspiration from previous experiences. This previous experience being the Pixar lamp.

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Art Assignment #5 “Emotional Furniture” Parker Grover

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As a result of the video "Brian Johnson on Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, I began to ask many questions about creativity. I believe this video was truly a great catalyst for my creative metacognition to develop further. I asked many questions, but the most important one in my opinion was, "...what does creativity really mean?" Considering this course is focused around creativity and the creative process, I would say this is an extremely important question as it could impact my views down every step of the way for the rest of the course. I specify my change in beliefs and that I am not really sure what creativity is anymore. At this point in the course, I believe I am completely open minded to creativity and its interpretations. This was also the last mandatory journal for this course. I did however, jot down my occasional thoughts on creativity during the following weeks through what I called "Reflections" which you will see take "Journal's" place in this Final Reflection.

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As you can see, Art Assignment #6 is not showing its icon. I do not know why this is, but the link should still work. While this is not ideal, this is a good segue for discussing the topic of "Solving Problems." In the creation of this post, I developed a logical, consistent plan to attempt to remedy the problem of the icon not appearing. Regardless of doing such, the problem was not solved. I then decided to change my approach. In doing so, I was able to get a similar result with a viable outcome. Although I had to sacrifice the initial icon, I made it such that the link worked which was not the case prior. This was a consequence I was willing to accept for functionality. This shows my use of the creative process even outside of course related material. I personally believe that this is a step in the right direction and is most likely the intent of this course.

Now getting to the Art Assignment, we were supposed to create something we have never seen in person and most likely never will. I chose Mount Everest, however this seemed too simple. I solved this problem by bringing meaning to the creation through the use of trash. This drew inspiration from Art Assignment #3 "Artistic Alchemy." While I may have been using trash, the intent was not actually to make Mount Everest beautiful, but rather to make a point. This point was that pollution on Mount Everest is becoming an issue as climbers leave their garbage and supplies on the ways up and down.

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Art Assignment #6 “Never Seen Never Will”

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Art Assignment #6 “Never Seen Never Will” Parker Grover

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This "Reflection" takes the place of the Journals, but is much shorter. It will generally be a sentence or two describing my thoughts on creativity at the end of each week.

"This week, I believe I began crossing together different ideas to create new ones that can convey meaning. I believe that I am gaining a greater grasp on what creativity is meant to be known as for this class."

Through this short reflection, I believe I was starting to understand what this course was intending to define creativity as at least to a degree. It seemed at the time as though creativity was more like forming connections and innovating upon those connections. This is a thought process that follows me throughout the rest of the semester.

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The intent of this Art Assignment was to create dangling cut-outs. While many of my peers made a single-string of cut-outs, I decided to do something more unique. I decided to have more string dangle off of different boy parts of the big main cut-out. I also wanted to bring meaning to the cut-outs through the use of mindsets. During this course, we discussed mindsets many times, but we did not discuss how mindsets can bring happiness or sadness. Through drawing connections to the emotional furniture, I thought of how to best convey the emotions of the cut-outs. I chose through the positioning of their arms and their position on the strings of the cut-outs.

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Art Assignment #7 “Make a Cut-Out” Parker Grover

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"Watching the video 'There is more to life than being happy' showed me that although humans may want to be creative, we do need stability. Maybe creativity is less about the creation and more about the mindset."

I believe this was a very important point in the development of my creative metacognition as I began to question what forms creativity could take.

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This Art Assignment wanted us to take something from the digital world and bring it to the physical world. I decided to make a spinning pinwheel. I ran into a problem of flexibility. The paper I used to create the pinwheel would curve and ended up looking droopy and like paper which was not my goal. I then had to use innovative thinking to consider using carboard as a backer to prevent warping and drooping. This ended up being a valuable idea as not only did it work, but it also gave me a new perspective in that the creation does not have to end in my mind the same way it began. The idea can change over time.

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Art Assignment #8 “Make a Thing” Parker Grover

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Unfortunately, I did not write any Reflection for this week. However, I do know that at this point I was solidifying my understanding that creativity is more like connecting ideas and making innovations based on those connections.

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This was one of my most fun Art Assignments. For this week, we had to blend multiple creatures together to create an "imaginary friend." I used the inspiration of my past experiences with Webkinz, a brand of stuffed animals, to create a chimera that was part monkey, part reindeer, and part pony. In doing so, I blended some of the textures and changed some of the features slightly to fit my desires. So in essence, I was escaping the limitations I had set for myself and was truly creating my own creature.

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Art Assignment #9 “Imaginary Friend” Parker Grover

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"I was able to use the idea of "Edge Effect" for this Art Assignment as I blended the different Webkinz together. This created the most unique parts of the chimera at the blending points. I feel that this is a point which is truly what this class would view as creativity."

Here, I believe I was able to be creative according to this course's undefined definition of creativity. This is the first time I believe I was able to express such, showing my development in not only theory but in practice as well.

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For this last Art Assignment that I completed, we were supposed to copy a copy of a copy and modify these copies each time. Following through this process, I realized that I could not have some of the things I had previously wanted. This meant change to my "perfect" idea. Earlier in the semester this would have upset me, but now I view this as an even better outcome since it is one that was created even out of my control, making it creative in its own sense.

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Art Assignment #10  “Copy a Copy a Copy”

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Art Assignment #10 “Copy a Copy a Copy” Parker Grover

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This course taught me much about creativity and my thoughts on creativity. I learned through my own thought processes that everyone may have a different definition of creativity, but that creativity itself is only limited by the beings that use it. Creativity as known to humans is merely the connection of ideas and innovation based on those connections. As I progress in life, I will consider how my understanding of creativity develops, how I take risks, how I solve problems, how I embrace contradictions, how I use innovative thinking, and how I connect, synthesize, and transform ideas to create new understandings of the world and art within it. Thank you so much for a great semester!