Who cares about gluing vitamins to the outside of a bottle? Well, once upon a time …

I was rushing to prepare for our department’s found art show, feeling like a fourth-grader who blew off her science project until the last minute. I was digging through old photos, re-discovering painting supplies I’ve never touched, looking in the pantry and thinking about the nuclear model that Homer Simpson built (with cardboard and macaroni) for a grade-school contest.

The clock was ticking and miscellaneous stacks of stuff were piling up. Maybe I could make a mosaic out of old pills. A little dangerous. Hey, how about gluing vitamins on the outside of a vitamin bottle? No, even better – make super-long braids out of some fabric I found. Ooooh, I should use this spool of wire I’d bought seven years ago for … well, for something.

A few hours later, I’d made a mess of the coffee table and floor, and I had hot glue, super glue and fabric glue stuck to my fingers.

But somewhere between the dining room and the pantry, I remembered how energizing it feels to be engaged. It was refreshing to solve problem after problem that night, even though idea after idea tanked. And I thought of some job-hunting advice I got years ago. All jobs hire for the same position: problem-solver.

So you have an idea. Wonderful. How are you going to communicate it? Tell it to someone? Awesome. How do you get them to see the same blue, the same return, the same solution that’s in your mind?

Creativity is about problem-solving. How are the vitamins going to stick to the outside of the bottle?

By the way, the found art show was a success. But the best part is that other departments want to be part of our shows. Looks like creativity is contagious, too.