There is often confusion in most peoples minds about what is meant by creativity, and what is the difference between creativity and art; are they the same thing? The answer is no, creativity and art are not the same they are related and over-lapping concepts.
In order to make art you need to express a degree of creativity, the more creativity expressed, the more original or significant the work of art is likely to be. Your creativity, how you express it, and why will be a combination of your unique talents, abilities, and personality, combined with, or diffused through, your social and educational experiences of life.
In general, most people, and art institutions also, equate creativity in art with the degree of "skill" in making the creative art product. You could be a highly creative person with lots of ideas but with with no special practical skill, or you could be highly trained at an art School for instance, have a very high degree of practical skill, but possibly far less persoanl creativity to express your learnt skills in any original art way.
Therefore, it is unlikely that in either scenario art of any worth will be produced, above or beyond the pleasant or pleasing run of the mill art you can see everyday in shops and galleries, which are fine to decorate restaurant walls or hotel lobbies, they may even sell for ten of thousands of pounds. This doesn't necessarilly mean they are great works of art, for those are few and far between; it means more often than not that the artist has been able to position themselves and their work successfully through education, networking, publicity, contacts, and no little luck within suitable art outlets and galleries of the established art market for someone to view the art and like it enough to buy it.
You could be the best artist in the Britain, but if no-one sees your work, your art is in fact invisible, producing invisible art is something I'm rather good at myself. In fact, most of best work has never been by any other living soul. That's just the way it is sometimes.
In short, you can learn the required specialist knowldege of an art form such as photography: "apperture speed" or "lighting" etc, and how to develop your own photographs with the right chemical processes in a dark room, but this does not mean you will take great photographs or produce what could be considered photographic art.
What is clear is that you can not produce great art without great creativity, but you can produce great works of creativity in the whole range of human activity without making "formal" art.
People have a tendency to equate all creativity with art, and vice-versa, only the other day a student of philosophy said to me "I'm not creative" as he has fallen into the trap most people have when thinking creativity is only art. Simply "thinking" is a creative activity, cooking, gardening, learning, playing, writing, conversation, sport, work, driving, in short, all human activity involves some form or degree of creativity; maybe not the highest levels of original creative genius but some level of creativity is needed simply to make everyday decisions, and carry out ordinary tasks, and no-one would considered any of it art.
I am pleased to say, I have had a further conversation with this student since, and he nows informs me that the only creative thing he possibly does is have conversations with people, mainly about his passion for philosophy. Luckily I was photocopying definitions and descriptions of creativity at the time so I gave him the best ones to read.
Creativity is fundamental to "all of human activity, experience, and expression", Art is what human beings make as specific and unique expression "of" our human creativity, and we are the only only species that does this, make art for the sake of it, and no other practical purpose. Even if no-one ever paid money for art, even if there were no art Colleges, and even if we had no formal understanding of art, human being would still make art, as seen by the cave drawing and painting in France from some 20, 000 years ago.
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For those who wish to fully appreciate the definition of Creativity, and its relationship to Art and other forms of human activity I recommend reading the full defining account of creativity by two of the best thinkers, researchers and writers on the subject:
Frank Barron and David. M. Harrington
Univesity of California, Santa Cruz
I will be posting their article online soon as I regard it is the best and fullest account of what creativity is that I have come across in my own ten years of independent creativity research into these issues, and my own experimental social art processes.
References
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"Creativity, Intelligence, and Personality" (Barron, F. and Harrington D.M (1981) Annual review of Psychology 32.
Also Note.
"Creative Evolution" Henri Bergson (1911)
Footnote
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I saw the white frame (Above -Below) poking out of a bin outside a house, and as I collected it, a woman shouted though the window "It's rubbish". I asked several people on the way home if they thought this frame was a piece of rubbish and no-one agreed, and as you can see above and below, her rubbish has entertained me for several hours.
Yet again, the British public are subjected to another bout of humiliating sporting failures from the rich and pampered sports "stars" of football and tennis. It's all in the mind. Although I do have to confess, that as soon as I heard the World Cup was in Africa, I dismissed Englands chances to win as zero, the simple practical fact is that the English game of speed and power is not adaptable nor suitable to the slower skillful style required to play at the highest level in extreme heat of African or South American climates. What about Germany I hear I you say! Germany are lucky, in one respect that they always put a "team ethos" before individual skill is applied, its built into their social heritage and national consciousness, the England team is the other way around. Our social heritage is based upon individualism over collectivism, hence the self-serving egos, and drunk footballers falling out nightclubs and throwing money around.
If the England team only fielded players who had not been photographed either drunk or exiting a nightclub within the past year, hardly any of the current so-called "first team" would have played in the World Cup, instead Engerland would have bee represented by a group of young, fit, healthy, hunger english terriers, and can anyone say that like that like the fearless youth of the German team we wouldn't have done much better?
German progress is also fortunate this time in that as yet they have not come up against another "team" or one with the required number of skillful players to overcome the functionalist German team machine. In Spain they will now be faced with a team, that is both a "team" and a team that has more skillful players. Quite simply, Spain are currently the best team in World football, and I expect them to win the whole tournament.
