In the Blink of an Eye

I admit when I first signed up for Intro to Creativity, I was a bit hesitant. While staring at the ambiguous title on Access, I questioned whether I was “creative” enough to be in a class with the word creative in the title. My roommate, who is now in the creative program and also an art major, took the class last semester. One night, I remember walking into the dining room to see what she was doing. She told me that she was brainstorming ideas for her first creative project, which was to create a mindmap. She told me that you start out by thinking of a central idea that will serve as the anchor for the rest of the assignment. The next step is to think of four related subtopics. From there, you fill the page with words, phrases and pictures that branch out divergently from the center of the page. My first reaction was, “wow, I sure am glad that I don’t have to do that.”

Fast-forward one semester and I find myself sitting in the same chair in our dining room brainstorming for the same assignment. ...Where to begin? I started by scribbling down multiple topic ideas ranging from “Places I’ve Been and Wanted to Go” to “Ocean,” but nothing seemed quite right. All of a sudden it came to me like an epiphany… “In the Blink of an Eye.” I used the same method to come up with four subtopics and I ultimately went with: Snapshot, Vertigo, Kidnapped, and Rainbow. Once I discovered my topic, I ran with it. All uncertainty went out the window and it became a really enjoyable assignment. Despite my initial hesitation, I ended up loving this assignment. It took me out of my structured comfort zone and allowed me to stretch my imagination. It is so interesting to look at the finished product and connect all the dots.