How is Original Creative Work in the Arts Different from Creative Work in Other Disciplines?

November 30, 2012

The impulse to claim creativity as the special province of the arts is rightly resisted by practitioners in other disciplines.  Creativity is clearly manifested across all domains of human endeavor.  Creative practice in the arts is, however, different in some critical and valuable ways, according to Keith Sawyer (Washington University in St. Louis) and Elizabeth Long Lingo (Vanderbilt University).  In this white paper they find that certain “unique qualities of art-making support the development of students’ creative, analytic, and adaptive capacities, equipping them for greater achievement in work and life.”
Creativity in the Arts: Its Unique Role in the University