The creative spirit:

outside the box
Second of three parts


By RICHIE DAVIS

''What comes next in this sequence?'' Amherst author Norton Juster quizzes an unsuspecting visitor: ''96-50-42-14...''
It's one of those puzzles with no boundaries. But most of us impose them for ourselves, tripping on the limits we've set up.
''Each puzzle tries to force you into a way of thinking which makes it impossible to try to solve that puzzle, but you have to break away from it,'' he explained.
The answer -- in this case more easily guessed by subway-savvy New Yorkers like Juster -- is Bleeker Street.
The classic brain teaser, of course, is that nine-dot puzzle that asks its victim to connect them without lifting pencil from paper.
''You have to go outside the lines to do that,'' said Juster. ''Most people can't do that. They get intimidated by that box. That's the essence to me of creative thinking: you have to break those implied limits.''
Today ''creativity'' itself has jumped the confined realm of the arts to become a buzzword in educational and business circles.
Alan G. Robinson, a University of Massachusetts management professor and author of ''Corporate Creativity: How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happen,'' told the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce a couple of years ago, ''We as a country have fallen down on putting creativity first.'' To foster creative thinking, he said, ''You need to explore. If you dangle money in front of somebody, they get linear very, very quickly.''
An atmosphere of respect for fresh thinking works wonders, though.
''That's an incredibly powerful thing,'' Robinson said. ''If you think about why people hate their work, it's because they're not allowed to think.''
Hampshire College President Gregory Prince told the same group that he's continually asked whether creativity is something that can be taught.
''My answer is it doesn't really matter,'' said Prince. ''My only goal is to unleash it. We must develop in our students the same kind of entrepreneurial leadership that you exhibit in running businesses.... How do you get institutions that grow and become successful to be flexible and entrepreneurial, to continue to grow and change? You promote undergraduate education focused on invention.''
Juster and his former architecture partner, Earl Pope, began teaching at Hampshire from its beginning as an experimental college. Their approach, said Pope, was to get students to become visual learners, to open them up to big ideas.
But though it's in vogue for businesses to look at encouraging creativity, when it comes to management training, Juster said, ''They're formulized creative techniques, as if they're trying to teach you some way to become the kind of person who can run an office and have everybody love you. Everywhere you go in the world today, there are millions of self-improvement seminars, and most of them really have nothing to do with creativity.''
Some businesses too, are tinkering with ways to foster new thinking, said Dale Schwarz and Guillermo Cuellar of the Sunderland-based Center for Creative Consciousness. They emphasize that everyone is capable of creative thinking if they can move outside of their boxes.
''People are really hungry to express their creativity,'' said Schwarz. ''I hear people say they feel stymied, they're unable to express their thoughts and really be passionate in their workplace in the way they'd like to fully contribute. Their gifts aren't fully appreciated, they're squelched.''
When organizations are small, Schwarz said, ''They have a nimbleness about them and are able to respond much quicker and are much more intimate and personal in what happens ... They're able to move more quickly.''
Wang Computer offers a perfect example: ''Wang was wonderfully innovative, but it became fossilized,'' she said. ''At the point at which they needed to tap into people's creativity, they were falling apart.''
Companies and workers alike suffer when creativity is stymied by hierarchical thinking, even if it's an ''internalized oppression'' about how other departments will react to new ideas.
''Bureaucracy kills creativity,'' said Cuellar, whose training is in creativity and organizational development. ''Business has an idea, but then has to produce it, so it creates an assembly line.''
In that way, he said, there's an inherent incompatibility between traditional corporate culture and innovation.
''The more control we want, the more we want people in the box,'' he said. ''The more creative we want to be in the world, the more we want people out of the box.''

Creating a life, a home

Yet finding a voice in one medium, said art therapist Schwarz, opens all kinds of possibilities, and that creativity can be contagious.
''When you're listening, it doesn't necessarily have to be through the ears; it's about opening the heart,'' she said.
Adults who Schwarz has done art with for their first time are like silent children who have begun to speak out.
''You wonder what their voice is going to be like, what the tenor of their voice is,'' she said. ''It's such an amazing moment. What will appear? It's a voice and muscle that hasn't been utilized, and it's underutilized in our culture and our society. ... Freeing one type of expression often frees up others.''
Added Cuellar, ''When I'm painting, I'm dancing, I'm playing music. It's not separate. It's the energy inside wanting to express itself in a lot of ways.''
The boundaries erode further, as art and life merge.
''It seems to me that every moment becomes more and more consciously chosen,'' said Rowe playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie: ''The way I arrange flowers, the way I relate to my friends ... More and more as you live your life, every action becomes a creative action. And the boundaries between your relationships with people and your relationship with your art are no longer. Everything becomes a call on your conscious attention.''
Hypersensitivity in every realm can wear us down, however, warned Juster.
''We're not always attuned in every way in every aspect of our lives,'' he said. ''I have the original tin ear in music. I can listen to a mediocre or even a bad performance of something with a certain pleasure that would drive a musician out of his mind, the same way I walk down the street and might be absolutely outraged or offended at something that someone I'm with doesn't see at all. I can't imagine what it would be to lead a life where you applied that same standard to everything.''
Even in the practical world of architecture, Pope said, ''Creativity is something we do in the act of making.'' And yet, he added, ''It's not only the act of what you do, but how you live your life. I've always thought that it's too bad that we don't have to answer for how we design our lives as a conscious act. It's the whole construct that's your creativity.''
And so the greatest life choice for many artists, of all stripes, is the decision to surround themselves in nature.
Even in the urban-oriented world of architecture, said Pope -- who ''loved every minute'' of the 12 years he lived in New York -- ''I like a place where there's a history. That's why I'd never be comfortable in Florida or Phoenix. Our nature here is an intimate experience. It has a scale most of us can relate to in an intimate way. The villages are where you can find your place, in a way that makes sense.''
It's easy to over-romanticize the connection between nature and art, especially considering how much talent is centered in the cities.
Yet the Pioneer Valley has become a nurturing home to a wealth of creative minds.
''Yes, the urban situation is tremendously stimulating,'' said van Itallie, who moves back and forth between Rowe, Manhattan and California. ''Yet it also causes you to live a lot in your mind. There are a lot of people crowded into one place, and that creates fear of invasion of your personal space. That fear puts up barriers around your art and gut, and you use your mind as a kind of defense, so you tend to live a lot in the mind. Your energy goes into putting up your Star Trek shields. For me, since I tend to live in my head a lot, I need an antidote. The antidote is the country. I'm really nourished by the spectacle and the cycle of nature. I think it has allowed me to survive. It has allowed me to grow.''

NEXT: Art & Healing