Creators on Creating: Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind

by Frank X. Barron (editor)

This collection of over three dozen essays ponders the essence of creativity. Includes selections from Henry Miller, Federico Fellini, Rainer Maria Rilke, Isadora Duncan, Frank Zappa, and Mary Shelley. A New Consciousness Reader.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Writing

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 1997

About the author

Frank X. Barron, professor emeritus of psychology and one of UC Santa Cruz’s most distinguished faculty, was internationally renowned for his study of creativity and personality. He was a major contributor to the development of UC Santa Cruz and its Psychology Department. Professor Barron came to UC Santa Cruz in 1969 and taught courses in personality and human creativity. He helped establish UC Santa Cruz as a campus where serious courses in the psychological study of creativity are routinely offered to undergraduates, where creativity research is a respected enterprise, and where students and faculty alike understand that human creativity can contribute to psychological health, personal freedom, and social well-being. He was a fellow of Porter College and served as chair of the Psychology Department. Professor Barron died October 6, 2002, at the age of 80.

Professor Barron received his Ph.D. in 1950 from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to coming to UC Santa Cruz, he taught at Harvard, Bryn Mawr, University of Hawaii, and Wesleyan. He developed much of his work as a founding member of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research at UC Berkeley from 1949 to 1968.

His pioneering studies of creative writers, architects, research scientists, and mathematicians still stand as classics in the field of creativity research. His work played a crucial role in helping to shift personality psychology's focus away from psychopathology toward psychological health and personal vitality.

Professor Barron was a Guggenheim Fellow, Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and SSRC Faculty Research Fellow. In 1969 he was awarded the American Psychological Association's Richardson Creativity Award, and he was president of the APA's Humanistic Division from 1989 to 1990. In 1995 he was honored with the Rudolf Arnheim Award for outstanding contribution to psychology and the arts.

Professor Barron's publications included Creativity and Psychological Health, (considered one of the world's major works on the topic of creativity), Creativity and Personal Freedom, Creative Person and Creative Process, Scientific Creativity (with C. W. Taylor), Artists in the Making, The Shaping of Personality, No Rootless Flower: An Ecology of Creativity, and an anthology, Creators on Creating. He contributed to Scientific American, Encyclopedia Britannica, Science, Contemporary Psychology, Journal of Personality, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and other scholarly journals in psychology and education.

Reviews

[Fee Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's a collection of assorted essays from writers, dancers, filmmakers, musicians, scientists and others about the process of creating---inspiration, motivation, self-expression, and going naked in front of the audience.

it's good to pick and choose this essay and that essay. even has a short leonardo da vinci extract.

encouraging for those stuck in ruts.

[Cheryl Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book stays permanently beside my desk. "Creators on Creating, Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind" is everything it claims to be. A source of inspiration, understanding and clarity.

[JP · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why is this world beautiful?
Because it has people who think differently, especially when it comes to creativity.

We always read books on creativity which help-us by telling what are the tools required to be creative but here it was full of  essays written by every creator, what made them think creatively.
It is a casual read because there is no common parameter for the reader to take-away. Every experience is unique hence there is no way this book will be helpful to readers- who want to be creative.
The single message is 
if you pursue your goal or work. In the process, nature may reveal the hidden truth to you to become a creator.
Out of 39 Essays, around 10 will be more useful to read and others are filler.
The reader will find disturbance in reading because every essay differs in the style of expression and writing. 

[Lezlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent book ...!

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this because he sections were short. See Ghiselin's "Creative Process," it is similar. Artists talking about their creative process (Shelley, Zappa, LeGuin, Miller, Housman)

[Wade Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A real mixed bag. Some of it was very good, like the Frank Zappa essay on composition, but much of it was really uninteresting.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the essays. Appreciated the choices made by the editors for inclusion. Learned and found inspiration.