The Science of Creativity: A New Beginning

Ah yes, the infamous blog. The "fad" of the new century, a reformation of the written word. You see, sitting here staring at my computer screen and trying to think of witty and insightful things to say is much harder than what the movie "Julie & Julia" made it seem. Where do I start...

I graduate high school in approximately one week three days thirteen hours and forty five minutes. Upon discussing plans for this summer with my mother we came up with this blog project. Each of us picked a theme and decided to give it a try. Oh yes, I've had my experience with the social networking/blog-type sites, from Xanga to Fotolog to Myspace to Facebook to... all that junk that's out there. I found that ongoing rants about my hormonal teenage life are not only embarrassing upon reflection but of no interest to anyone except the occasional Degrassi fan.

So I've decided to create this page dedicated to my creative process and how it eventually turns into some kind of art. "The Science of Creativity" is actually the name of a course I am hoping to take next semester (yeah college!) but is also an accurate description of what goes on inside my head. I have always been a very expressive, "crafty", and creative person but have also fallen in love with the sciences. Every day I jump back and forth between both hemispheres of my brain connecting things as obscure as the baro-reflex in the carotid artery to aperture settings on my old-school Minolta. And even though I've checked all the boxes on my college application that say "Pre-med" and "Biological Sciences", I want to simultaneously continue being an artist and ultimately find this creativity within science.

Hopefully this blog is like a package deal, serving as motivation to keep being creative (not to mention clearing up the big "to do" list of projects that I currently have on hold), improve my writing, keep me busy during the summer, publish some thoughts, and have some fun. I plan to include photographs, videos, music, and texts that inspire me and hopefully whatever anonymous person happens to stumble upon my page. Most importantly, I am excited to embody creative thoughts in any way possible: photographs, paintings, drawings, doodles, writing, films, food, music, etc.

Enough with the introductions. The photograph above is from a student-led event called "Rock the Arts" which took place in May, 2009. It is a youth empowerment organization that holds an annual festival in downtown Ithaca, NY to promote the artistic expression of teens in the community. The girl standing third from the right is myself, and this was an organization and group of friends I miss dearly. To learn more click here. I include this in my introductory post because I enjoyed attending and participating in this type of event and am on the lookout for more like it. Here's hoping Ann Arbor has the brains to offer this kind of culture.

Previous bits and pieces of my artwork: