CREATIVITY IS GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE BY CHARLOTTE TENNANT

Architecture is envisioned, planned, and executed. Gardening is attentive, responsive, and fluid. But what does gardening and architecture have to do with creativity? Well if we think about creativity as gardening, you’re planting something and seeing how it grows rather than trying to completely contain it and know every detail of it. Creativity sprouts from well-tilled ground, not blue prints. Having a solid foundation of clear sensibility and ethos, as well as a strong creative press allows for sprouts to transform into something greater than ever imagined.

Disrupting your way of thinking helps to train the creative muscle to select and nurture creative buds. Personally, crossing a border and leaving my comfort zone forced my mind to explore new territory. New stimuli and soil helped me to grow my creative persona.

Humans are an inherently creative species. Growth of an idea or of an individual is something to be nurtured, worked on, and prioritized rather than planned out from beginning to end. Surprises, both positive and negative, unfurl from the process of growth not structure.

So think like a gardener, not an architect. Design beginnings, not endings.