Planning for an Arts & Culture Facility Last week, I had the opportunity to give a presentation to the Tri-Sites Advisory Group about the need for an arts and culture facility for Cochrane. I must admit I am excited to see this possibility back on the table with the Town of Cochrane. One of the things I shared is that arts and culture in our society has unfortunately too often been seen as frivolous and unnecessary and so it is often the first thing cut when times get tough financially and economically. I think that is a very shortsighted way of looking at the arts. Part of that I think comes from the focus in our Western society of seeing reason and logic as far more important than what is often called the right-brain skills of sensing, intuition, emotion, creativity, innovation and so on. Unfortunately, we have lost out on something very special by focusing so intensely on the left brain skills. As businesses especially are starting to realize, in today’s fast-paced and fast-changing world, creativity has become a highly needed and sought-after skill. Speaking of creativity, I came across a study a few years ago that really shocked me, made me angry, but also made me excited! In this study, five-year old children were tested for creativity – and they tested at 98 per cent Genius Levels of Creativity! Read that again! 98 per cent Genius Levels! What excited me was I realized then that all of us are not just born creative, we are born intensely creative. That is how we are meant to live in every area of our life. The scientific studies being done on brains and creativity are confirming that over and over again. Our brains come totally equipped to be creative all our lives long – and that is hugely healthy for us mentally and emotionally. There is a problem though. That same study tested those kids at 10 years of age – their creativity level had dropped to 30 per cent. At 15 years old it was down to 12 per cent. And adults aged about 30 were at only two per cent. So thanks to our school and work environments, most average adults have had up to 96 per cent of the creativity they came equipped with literally trained out of them. The waste of potential in that is beyond thinking about. That made me angry! The good news though is that we can relearn how to be creative. It doesn’t need to take much to start getting above two per cent - but the difference that can make could be incredible. Just to be clear here – you do not need to be artistic to be creative. While the word creativity has unfortunately become almost synonymous with arts and crafts, it actually encompasses far more than that – you can, and should be creative in every domain of life. That’s how we are meant to be living. That’s what provides the passion, wholeheartedness and joy in life. However, while you don’t have to be artistic to be creative, I think the arts are one of the best ways of developing creative skills. And those skills are what they call transferable. So you can learn a skill in the arts and then use that skill in other areas of life. For example, as an artist, you learn to see things in deeper ways. Normally, you can look at a flower and just see a beautiful flower. But if you want to draw or paint that flower, you have to starting seeing it in a new way. You have to pay attention to the lines and shapes and colors of each petal and leaf and stem and so on. You start to see and judge how lines and shapes connect, how colors are affected by surrounding colors or shadows. And so on. You can take those same skills into your business or at work. Instead of just seeing a whole business, you can learn how to “see” the various and individual parts of that business, how to “pay attention” to details you might not normally see. You see how the individual parts come together, how they affect each other and that makes it possible to be more innovative and creative in what you are doing. So to see the arts as unimportant or useless is very shortsighted and unfortunate. To throw them out when things get tough economically or otherwise is simply because people are not understanding how hugely important they are. When things get tough is exactly when you need your arts and creativity skills the most to be able to problem-solve, innovate, see new possibilities and so on. Communities who have the wisdom and foresight to see the value of the arts are the ones who build far better and more cohesive communities. I definitely want to see that for Cochrane. This is my home. I love it here. And I want to see Cochrane become all that it has this amazing potential to become. To do that we need our arts and creativity to flourish. Next week, I’ll share some of the other ideas I presented. Like how and why communities benefit from arts and culture. And what we need to start doing to build that here in Cochrane. In the meantime, I would like to ask for your input. If you have thoughts or ideas about what should be included in an arts and culture facility, or how to promote the growth of a strong and united arts community, please contact me and share that with me. I want to put together a list of these ideas that we can all think about, dialogue about, and get creative about. You can reach me at [email protected] or 403-510-9091. Thanks!
