Exploring the Potential of Art Workshop: An Attempt to Foster People’s Creativity in an Online Environment

Abstract

Recently, the importance of creativity in society has been clearly recognized. Furthermore, educational practices through art, such as the STEAM paradigm, are being implemented gradually. However, the framework of how creativity should be fostered through art has not been sufficiently discussed. Based on studies of artists’ creative expertise, this study proposed a framework for fostering creativity through art. In addition, we conducted a year-long art program based on this framework in an online environment and investigated its effects. As a framework, we proposed the importance of long-term support for the dynamic development of participants’ creativity. We mainly focused on the following four components: active interaction with objects and the environment through bodily action, active interaction with others and their works (inspiration), exploration in creative processes (exploration), and promotion of intrinsic motivation and decrease in creativity anxiety (motivation). After a total of eight workshops over a year, we observed improvements in the participants’ creativity anxiety, divergent thinking skills, images of art and creation, and openness to others. We discussed the effectiveness of the proposed framework and the advantages and limitations of using an online environment.