Category: Unit 7

1. Spirituality is something that is hard to define. For me spirituality means having a connection to the world around me. This is more than just feeling that I am an individual interacting in the world, but instead I am an individual whose actions affect the world around me. I think that having a spirit is something that all living things have and no one of them is more powerful or important than the others.
2. Religion is much different than spirituality. Although in many religions there is still the same idea that there is a spirit, I think that religion in many cases hurts the idea of spirit for those that are not human. Religion is not based on having a spirit, but is instead the rules or guidelines that are used to control what the spirit does. In the best sense religion is a useful set of tools to help guide people through tough times, but in the worse sense religion is one of the worst tools in the world.
3. Creativity to me is the idea that you as an individual can come up with something new. I do not define creativity as someone who can make beautiful art or do a great dance, but to me creativity is the ability to think for yourself and have ideas that no one else can have. Even young children who create imaginary friends or can put blocks together are creativity to me. But it is more than that, it is also the college student who can write a paper about a book and come up with their own thoughts and not just parrot back what others have said. These are all things that I find to be creative.
4. I think that creativity comes from the brain. I am not sure if I would then categorize that as the spirit. I know that some people separate the two, but the more I think about it I think that when people say the spirit of someone it is their brains that they are talking about. I then think that creativity comes from the ability to use your brain to think about things and come up with your own ideas. Even if the ideas are way wrong at least it is your own thoughts. This I think is where creativity comes from.

This week’s videos were some of the most interesting so far this term. I liked the first woman on the Art:21 who thought that the line of thread was much like the line of writing. She had some good ideas about the art she was creating and her works were very unique. The more interesting part of the video was John Fedorov. His work with the spirituality made me think more about how different cultures try to tackle the idea of the spirit world. I found it most interesting that he made the teddy bear toys that he sold and used them as representations of how society tries to buy into the spiritual world. It is as if the cultural idea of money is mixing with the natural world. The way that he talked about it made me think almost as if the people trying to buy these items of the spiritual world are trying to buy a connection that they are lacking. If someone feels like they are missing something the natural response is to be able to buy it. Our culture is so focused on monetary gain and not on what is actually important that there are many issues with the world. This lack of realization that money is not actually important and is just a creation of society is hurting the world. If there was more connection between the spirituality of the world, however someone chooses to do so is fine, and less focus on the monetary world then there would be a better world. Fedorov uses his art and videos to try and connect this in the minds of the audience and I think he does a great job. I also really liked his painting of the CEO as a religious figure. Again this juxtaposition of the monetary society that we all know and the spiritual world really makes me think about the world in a new way.