Lessons in creativity: Master quilter believes everyone can think outside the box

Are you a creative person?

Chances are very good that you said no.

"Most people don't think of themselves as creative," says quilting instructor and designer Libby Lehman. "But every one of us is creative. If you can make dinner out of what's in the refrigerator, you are creative. If you can get dressed in the morning, you are creative. We are all creative."

Speaking at the recent Quilt Festival sponsored by the Utah Quilt Guild, Lehman pointed out another interesting thing about creativity. "Research has shown that 95 percent of those people who say they are creative were told as children that they were creative." So, she told the women at the session, "go out and tell any children in your life that they are creative!"

Lehman, who lives in Houston but spends more than two-thirds of her time on the road at quilt workshops and seminars, began researching creativity when she wanted to be more creative with her quilts. And while she applies much of what she has learned about creativity to her quilts, it can apply to other aspects of life, she notes.

"I did grow up in a creative family. Whenever someone in the family did something, mom and dad always asked how else they could do whatever it was." Her parents taught her to question and to experiment.

Growing up and into her married life, Lehman tried a variety of crafts: macrame, needlepoint, painting. "The end of my painting period came when I finished my first painting and propped it up on the garbage can in the garage to dry. My husband put it out with the trash," she jokes.

With all the crafts she tried, she says, "I soon got bored. I would think, 'is this all there is?' And then I took up quilting." Unlike many quilters, she did not learn quilting from her mother. "We signed up for a class and learned it together." Her mother eventually opened a quilt store and brought in a lot of instructors. "I could take any class for free, as long as I brought lunch."

One time, a man named Michael James came to teach a class. "He taught quilting as art. I didn't understand a word he said, but it was such an eye-opener. For 10 years, I had happily been doing traditional patterns, doing what I was told. I didn't know you could draw your own designs."

James was so popular with their quilting group that he was invited back year after year. But Lehman also learned "that some of the people who could make beautiful art quilts were not teachers. They could not teach me how to do it."