Contesting Creativity: Chatting with Catherine

Catherine is one of my best friends and my walking-buddy, my therapist, my meditation guide - I think she’s had every role under the sun in the years we’ve been friends (and I’m so grateful!). I wanted Catherine on the newsletter as she has a unique perspective - we can talk for hours and I am forever wanting to listen; not only are her ideas interesting, but her delivery of them also grabs me. Thank you for taking part!

Catherine is a human interested in other humans: their ideas, their thought processes, their emotions. She began her career in business, then weaved into primary teaching, before working in higher education, but has grand plans to break free in the next couple of years into psychotherapy so she can really get into people’s brains, which is her favourite place to be. Catherine has recently been described as a ‘creative’, as she turns her hand to any craft available, most recently it has been acrylic painting and pyrography (minds out of the gutter, it’s wood decoration). It means that if you get a gift from her it is usually homemade (feel free to be disgusted). She likes collecting animals, and is often referred to as the dog whisperer. Her aim in life is to build connections with all creatures, fur or no fur.

I really want to dig into this idea of creativity - what do you believe is creativity? What function does it serve?

Creativity is using tools in a manner that you have not used them before, whether the tool is your brain or a paint brush. It could be coming up with an idea you haven’t had before, or trying to follow a devised pattern but ending up doing it in your own way, accidentally or not. Creativity is the key to everything we have in life, but for me it has enormous therapeutic connotations. It helps me to focus, relax, understand myself, and understand others. It gives me a purpose.

How do you approach creative blocks, in whatever form they may be?

Usually with time and being creative in another form. An example of this was when I had writing block, I started to paint scenes from my work and it helped to enhance what I had already written, which led on to deeper content for the following sections. Although, this could be as simple as giving it a day and cooking something you’ve never cooked before.

In terms of creative academic thinking, do you think the technicalities, such as references, formatting etc, restrict a person’s creativity?

My automatic response was to simply write “Yes”, but then I thought about the creative outlets that may give you rules or patterns to follow, e.g. crocheting. I wouldn’t say they were any less creative because they have those in place. From an academic point of view I think they may restrict a person to begin with, but not once it became second nature.

Out of all your creative hobbies, which is your favourite and why?

I genuinely can’t answer this question because it changes from month to month, which makes it interesting. Cooking is a consistent hobby that I always make time for and try to make something new each week.

I know you love a little bit of true crime. I go through about 3 or 4 true crime podcasts a day, some would say I’m addicted, I would say dedicated! What has been your most interesting case to listen to and why?

Dirty John. I know it’s a popular one, but it was the first I listened to and it got me hooked. There was another about the heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum because it was interesting to see how many people could be involved in a crime like that.

Do you think these ideas may influence your creative writing?

Possibly. I have thought more in depth about the personality traits of my characters since listening to more true crime, but personality disorders have been on my brain for a little while anyway, so I’m probably picking out the traits of the suspects and diagnosing them.

Thank you so much, Catherine!

TTFN!