Are you creative?
That’s a very loaded question, because we all have different ideas of what it means to be creative. I firmly believe all people are creative, but often we don’t recognise creativity because we have a limited definition of what that word means.
Creativity, in the widest sense of the word, encompasses all kinds of activities and arts. We can be creative in drawing and painting (often known as the ‘fine arts’). We can be creative in crafts (sticking, collages, mosaics, knitting, crocheting, sewing and so on). We might love papercrafts (origami, card-making, making bags and boxes). We might be good with our hands at making models (woodwork, metalwork and other crafts come into this category.) We might be creative through performance (music, drama and dance, for example) or through writing (poems, stories, articles.) Creativity through photography, technology, flower-arranging and cooking are all different ways we can express our ideas and thoughts, emotions and feelings.
This year, I hope to organise a community arts’ festival in Goldthorpe which champions creativity and celebrates community. There are so many talented people in our communities, people whose creativity has led to some beautiful paintings, objects and works of art. They often take their talent for granted, so they do not see the beauty in what they have created, but it is there, bursting forth!
Organising an arts’ festival is a first for me, and will only work if people from our community are willing to show others what they have created. This is an opportunity to exhibit your work for free, to share your talents, to showcase your group’s work. If you want to know more, please email me on contact@gpcchurch.co.uk or come along to one of the church’s coffee mornings and have a chat. I’ll be working with as many local people as possible – art classes, sewing classes, local schools, local groups, local councillors, funders and so on – to find work which can be exhibited. We hope to run workshops in the school holidays to learn new talents and to have slots for the performing arts at the festival as well. The aim is to hold the festival over a couple of days in September, so there is plenty of time for people to create new work or to dig out old favourites to exhibit.
Spread the word! – let’s celebrate our community, show the world that creativity is alive and well, and give our villages something positive to talk about!