Creativity in small sparks

Joyce Wycoff quotes Robert Genn's newsletter. Inspired by this quote

"While in the process of executing an idea, creativity happens not with one brilliant flash but in a chain reaction of many tiny sparks." -- R. Keith Sawyer
it goes on to relate how the Wright Brothers succeeded where others failed... because they relied on tinkering rather than massive leaps. Genn's analsysis will resonate with Improv fans:
Applying the Wright metaphor to the artistic creative process, we can see that success might come with a succession of adjustments in a series production. In Keith Sawyer's controversial new book "Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation," he explains that these adjustments need not be world-shaking. One does not necessarily have a sense of revelation. Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, uses the Wright brothers' "tinkering" as an example. Indeed, it's the minor nature of changes that leads to progress. To bring this line of thought closer to our easel experience--a progressive process of working from one quasi-experimental work to the next might lead to artistic character. On this path, errors are inevitable, even vital. Failures become the stepping stones to success. By carefully watching and managing a personal progression, a creator stealthily finds his muse.

Johnnie MoorePosted by Johnnie Moore on January 18, 2006 05:29 AM in Improv at work
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Greetings from Dayton, home of the Wright Bros. Maybe this indicates something about midwesterners supposed slowness to embrace radical, cutting-edge ideas (such as, say, improv in business?) Rather than try to leap the chasm, they doggedly tackle problems in incremental steps (e.g., conduct meticulous wind-tunnel experiments rather than fabricate big contraptions with flapping wings), with tiny breakthroughs along the way - and then, when ready, they fly across the chasm.

Posted by: JerryK at January 25, 2006 10:32 PM Permalink for comment