When did creativity become a luxury?

I have been thinking about how much is written lately about lack of time for creativity and making time for making art. It seems there has been a huge cultural shift over the last half decade. Skills that were once commonplace and considered necessary have become hobbies. We feel indulgent when we spend time on them and they get pushed to the bottom of the list.

Sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery, letter writing, folk art painting are all things women used to do as part of their everyday lives. They were necessary skills. They made clothes for themselves and their families. They fashioned quilts from the scraps and the quilts really went on the beds and kept them warm. They used their creative skills to beautify their homes making them comfortable and comforting.

Then something happened. The variety of ready-made goods soared and stores sprang up on every corner and there was no need to make things for yourself. But there WAS a need for the money to buy the things. Our appetite for the beautiful things and the instant gratification of buying them grew until nearly every household needed two incomes and there was little time for making things. We spend our time making money instead of things.

But the NEED never left. The need that is inside us. The craving to take something that is nothing and make it into something that is beautiful or useful and do it with our own hands.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think women shouldn't have careers! I just wish people would stop and think about what drives the need to create and put a little higher value on it. Maybe that would make it easier to find the time.