A visit to Marlene Wylie and the Creative Arts Fellowship (CAFe) she and others run at their church in East London. Amongst the knitting needles and crochet hooks – including the beautiful sight of young Joe learning to knit on five-foot long needles and saying proudly after a row, as he pointed disparagingly to the ladies busily clacking away with their intricate patterns: ‘How come they’ve been knitting all this long time and they’ve only done that little bit when I’ve done all this already?’ – we managed a fruitful conversation about what’s going on when people are being creative.
I think what came over for me most was something about the way creative people take risks, are ready to ‘waste’ materials and ideas in pursuit of the best option, rather than taking shortcuts, the value of putting unlikely ideas and concepts into juxtaposition to arrive at something original and new… and just the sheer fun and playfulness of making things. It might not make money or even appeal to anyone apart from the person who did the making but it is still worth doing: treasuring the process rather than just the product.
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