NOURISHING CREATIVITY

Don Gray works with Enterprise third-grader Marcus Lynn on the mural in the school's multi-purpose room. (The Observer/GARY FLETCHER).

By Gary Fletcher

Observer Staff Writer

ENTERPRISE — "I wish I knew how to draw pictures like you do," a professional artist from California recently told a student at Enterprise Elementary School.

It was "a delicate ballet," Don Gray later said of balancing a dozen kids, paint and water buckets on scaffolding to paint a mural on the school's cafeteria wall.

All week there was no horseplay, accidents or discipline problems. The auditorium quietly hummed with the activity of students from kindergarten to 12th grade absorbed in their project.

"It was great fun," Gray said, "Those kids couldn't have been better. It was a testament to the significant importance of creativity in people's lives."

Gray was back in Northeast Oregon at the request of Enterprise School, which through reduced state funding has lost its full-time elementary and high school art instructors. Their award-winning art program spanned more than 20 years and consistently produced artists every year, many of whom are the offspring of parents who displayed no such ability.

Creativity is not limited to a select few actors, musicians or sculptors thought to be "born with something called talent that just comes naturally to them apparently with no effort whatsoever. Its potential lies within us all," Gray said of the sometimes largely untapped great reservoirs of creativity.

Art can be taught, and Gray regrets that such creative programs are often the first to go in budget cuts in a society that tends to see arts as an isolated pursuit that is "interesting, but largely unrelated, irrelevant, maybe even frivolous, compared to the practical concerns of day-to-day living."

In an effort to help backfill some of that gap, the Eastern Oregon Regional Arts Council arranged for grants to bring Gray to Enterprise .

As Fishtrap's Artist in Residence at the Coffin House, at week's end, Gray shared his thoughts on creativity in a discussion with 20 people.

Gray said he envies children's natural ability to draw.

"Every young kid loves to draw. They do it naturally. Their strokes are a natural flow, beautiful and expressive — like Matisse."

He thinks drawing is a primal drive. If we deny this significant elemental impulse, we "do it at our own peril," Gray said. "I hate to think what the world would look like without it."

By age 10 many children quit drawing and never pick it up again. A self- critical awareness and perfectionism sets in, and ends the creative process for a lot of children, if it is not nurtured.

Their free flowing strokes become more abrupt and abbreviated. They hesitate, analyze and begin making erasures.

"A lot of kids can't meet their own expectations," Gray said. "It takes very little to end it, just a few critical words," Gray said. "Fortunately it also doesn't take much to keep it going."

Often, it just takes validation, someone like an art teacher encouraging them that it is OK to do this, to continue the process.

Gray feels fortunate in that his parents encouraged him. They were not artists, and he doesn't think they understood the path he was on, "but out of love they upheld it."

Gray's 93-year-old mother, Eunice of La Grande, recalled that at Greenwood Elementary School, Don's third-grade teacher put his art on the wall.

"That was validation," Don said.

"I believe passionately in the transforming power of art in one's life," Gray said.

"Art is not the only way, but is a way to access creativity... in all aspects of life.

"The same process is at the heart of athletes when they are ‘in the zone'," he said.

If we broaden the definition of creativity, we realize that creative thought is highly prized in all aspects of society.

"We admire excellence and innovation. It may take the form of a research chemist's new breakthrough in medical science; or a football coach's ingenious game plan," Gray said.

"Like the artist, these people have learned to think creatively. They seek new insights and resourceful approaches to problem-solving. They welcome challenges as opportunities for growth and discovery. They have become artists of their own unique abilities and interests."

Educators value this creative process of thinking, but it often goes unrewarded in our traditional educational system, Gray said.

Gray praised the "really remarkable and dedicated work" of teachers who now have to find ways to squeeze art and creativity in among all the other state-mandated requirements.

Maybe instead of thinking of the arts as just a separate field of study, creative activities could be integrated in other classes such as history and math, so that we could see the development of the creative thought process as essential enhancements to all these areas, Gray said.

Gray, in his personal art work, has been exploring, moving away from the realism for which he is known locally for his art work in books including "Rendezvous" and "Traces," and for numerous paintings and prints adorning local homes.

In his new endeavor, he has to first initiate and develop an idea. Once he's over that agonizing first hump, then he can do a series of variations of the theme. Still, it's a challenge not to duplicate, he said.

"It's a struggle for me," he said to move beyond the intellectual into intuitive artistry.

That's why he envies the natural creative spirit and design sense of those young kids, before that analytical left brain kicks in and you lose the flow.