Suzanne Carillo

I took some time out last week and caught the David Bowie Exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum.

I can thank my 7th grade English teach for introducing me to David Bowie. He played Space Oddity in class and then asked us to reflect on the song. That is when I started to wonder what kind of person would write such a song about being trapped in a tin can stranded out in space.

Turns out a very creative person.

The exhibit was packed. It made it hard to move and difficult to see everything.

There were loads of outrageous costumes. I like the one with the hands.

His love of fashion is evident throughout his career. He had his hands in every creative detail on every show or album.

He wore this costume on Saturday Night Live in 1979. He couldn't move or walk in it, had to enter from the back and then be carried once he was inside.

It is obvious he always had a very clear vision of his personal image and style and used that to his advantage to shape his career path and ever changing persona.

He has a sense of humour,

"I re-invented my image so many times that I'm in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman."

I always thought that the dilated pupil was added to the images, however as a child he was punched in the face in the schoolyard and the one pupil stayed dialated thereafter, making him look odd and somewhat etheral.

He took great pains to develop his creativity.

He exposed himself at a young age to as much diverse music, culture, people, ideas and books, as possible, anything at all to help stimulate and shape his own creativity.

Later on he developed an interesting creative computer prompting program to help with lyrics. He would insert headlines from the newspapers and the computer would mash them up and spit out new sentences that could then be used to start a train of thought or write a lyric. Very ingenious.

He was always keen to stretch and grow his creative mind.

One of his musical engineers developed a set of playing cards with suggestions containing recording solutions. If something wasn't quite working they would take a break, pull out a card and follow whatever prompt it suggested. Although arbitrary it would force them to look at what they had created with new ears or from a different perspective.

I love the fact that they were willing to do this to improve themselves and their work.

This would be a great idea for every day life.

When you're having an off day you could choose a card from the deck and act on the suggestion. Possible cards would be, "Take a walk." "Meditate for 15 minutes." "Learn to forgive yourself." etc. Fun idea right?

Tag line could be along the lines of,

"Suggestions for removing mental blocks and bad juju from the every day. 52 helpful ideas for improving your day."

Just remember…you heard it here first folks! Copyright that idea for me will you?

I went on a mini creative bender there…back to real life now ; )

Back to David… isn't this mustard suit wild? Paired with the striped shirt? Such style.

He was creative visually as well as musically. I loved his paintings and artwork they showed.

Visting the exhibit opened my eyes to just what a creative genius David Bowie is. It also stimulated my own creativity and made my mind move in a slightly different direction.

I think we could all use a push to make our minds move differently every once in a while.

If you get the chance to see the exhibit I would recommend it, especially if you already like his music.

And now I'll leave you with my favourite Davie Bowie song… Jean Genie, for a creative genius.