Judy Bruce
In my last column, I promised to discuss elaboration as a part of creativity. It is the ability to fill in the gaps, add finishing touches, embellish, and answer “what else.” Elaboration is often the easiest creativity skill for teachers to teach, and parents, and most students to incorporate into their lives.
Adding details and embellishments to ideas already accepted by peers and authority is safest. Risky but original ideas are hard! We must be careful to recognize quality over quantity of detail; more is not always better. Elaboration can turn into “glitz”. As folks become more fluent in generating ideas, they will also want to embellish and explain an idea or concept. Humor is always an essential aspect of all forms of creativity.
Elaboration can be an exciting part of group work, as it carries an idea to fruition and adds details to make something more real, more understandable, and even more important, aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes, the details can really help finish a creative task successfully!
All subjects can be made more creative, for instance, in writing or doing a piece of art, variations on a theme, completing a drawing or musical phrase, or manipulating filters in digital images are all aspects of elaboration.
Foster a creative environment at home by encouraging yourself, your children, and your grandchildren to think outside the box, use elaboration, and incorporate it into your/their lives. This can include setting up a corner to exercise their creativity for engaging in activities such as building with LEGOS, drawing, painting, sculpting, cooking or even coding, writing, free dancing, decorating the house or garden.
In my next column, I will discuss “Flow” and Curiosity, which are other very important components of a creative mind. In the meantime, enjoy a class in art at the Sonoran Arts League studio or visit the gallery in Carefree or at the Library to see some very creative works and look for the ways various artists use elaboration. The photos below show Max Ernst, who once lived in Sedona. He is one of my favorite artists and one who uses elaboration beautifully!
See if you can use elaboration in your world today! Try it, you will have great fun!
Remember, “You Gotta Have Art!”
