I watched a Creative Mornings {Richmond} video yesterday by an artist called Noah Scalin. It is an interesting talk which I would recommend that you watch if you have a spare 18 minutes. The best bit of his talk for me was at the end and it is about 47 seconds long which you MUST watch. I have extracted the 47-second video clip using TubeChop (below).
Scalin talks about his preferred metaphor of creativity in this clip. He isn’t a fan of ‘creativity as a well‘ metaphor which requires the individual dipping into the creative well within and drawing from it. “I am running dry {of ideas}” will be the language of a person who holds a “creativity as a well” metaphor. Scalin suggests the use of ‘creativity as snowballs’ as an alternative metaphor.
He says in his Creative Mornings talk that “everyone can make a snowball. Kids make snowballs all the time. They are easy and you don’t have to make a perfect snowball. It just has to be a ball. The trick is if you are standing on top of a mountain and start making snowballs and then start rolling them down. One of them is gonna catch and make an avalanche. Who knows which one? The more you roll down, the more likely it is to happen.”
Scalin ends his talk with the slide that says: “Make more snowballs.”
Creativity as Snowballs Video Clip
Full video
One reply on “Creativity as Snowballs”
I like his dedication to work and how it’s his life. It is hard to explain to intelligent people in Nigeria that working everyday brings more work to you automatically like the snowball. It’s also important to note; he said that this work may reach its desired goals when you’re gone. I like that point.