One of the reasons I chose Manal to interview is because I am always in awe of her creativity and I always think “I am not a creative person”. This also explains why this class was so attractive to me. I want to be a teacher who does things that are novel, effective and whole. I don’t want to depend on the book for content and I don’t want to spend my day lecturing. When I asked Manal if she thought people to could learn to be creative she said “find your passion”….be patient and think beyond the obvious. Sometimes I think teachers don’t have time to be patient when it comes to content and planning. I’ve been teaching for five years and this is the first time I’m teaching something for the 2nd time around, it’s the 2nd time I can actually improve upon what I did last year. But the time and patience I need to be hit with creative ideas is not realistic in my day to day life. My hope is that through this class and the assignments I will find my own spark of creativity and will be creating things others are in awe of.
For my interview I chose my friend Manal Kadry, who I worked with in Detroit for three years. She is an artist, an art teacher, the lead of the art department and has her own design business based around interior design. I chose her because she is probably the most creative person I’ve ever met and I am always in awe of what she creates. Manal believes that creativity is a form of expression, being able to have an innovative mindset and coming up with solutions no one has thought of, essentially, it’s problem solving.
Her creative process starts with finding inspiration and what she sees as “successful examples”, then tweaking it to make it more unique. She spends time researching and questioning others so she can understand what has worked well before. She believes you must listen to find the needs of your client, whether that’s someone she is designing a kitchen for or perhaps her own personal enjoyment. I love what Manal said about measuring creativity. She said if you are being creative for yourself, you can’t measure creativity, but if you are being creative for someone else then the creativity “is measured by their surprise and awestruck reaction to what you have created.” I have seen Manal create different mediums of art work, gift wrapping that will blow your mind away and a bouquet made of bows from my wedding shower gifts. I am always blown away, and awestruck, at “how” she came up with these ideas. When I asked her how creativity fuels her life I got my answer to this burning question. It’s perception, something we’ve talked about in this course. She says that she sees the world a little LONGER than most people, she looks at things a second longer and it allows her to see whole new levels. I think this is a gift she was born with, so does she, and I think it’s a wonderful gift to have. |
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