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Sadly, our society (perhaps others, too, but I cannot speak to them) often conspires to substitute conformity for creativity . . . the parroting of data handed down, rather than the fostering of imagination.

As a result, in international testing, the US ranks 20th of 38 in problem solving. view link

Not very promising for the future of our country.

An educational focus on the arts would go a long way toward correcting that.

The following are courtesy of Albert Einstein:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world."

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Even in our primitive ancestors, art was done when the society had the time for it. If the society was hand to mouth, they usually had little art time being taken up with simply surviving. I am amazed at the art that comes out of our inner cities with people and young people who are living pretty much hand to mouth and under such dangers. True artist will find a way to be creative. We have a house here in NW Arkansas, build by a man at the direction of his wife. She designed the house during the war (ww2) and he said he couldn't build it because they were at war. So one day she moved the kids to a chicken coop and tore down the house the were living in, thereby assuring they would build the new one. Anyway..the point here is that this woman spent the rest of her life covering her home, and everything around it in rocks. Not just slapping it on, but so beautifully done it shows the artist within her. Even raising four kids and being unable to buy 'art' supplies, she managed to do her art the only way she could...she was German and remembered the old rock covered buildings and saw the art within that material. The place is now called Quigley Castle and is sort of two houses, one built inside the other. She wanted to feel like she was out of doors and had the frame built and then a ceiling within that left three feet all around the house with dirt inside. She planted it with exotic plants and they have grown all the way to the second story so one feels like they are living within a jungle and sleeping in a tree house. Complete with birds and a pond for fish and one whole wall is a set of four windows floor to the ceiling on the second floor. Amazing...truely artisit in all ways.
I ramble...
Astrid