While riding through Savannah, Georgia, I passed the Savannah College of Art and Design. Looking at SCAD and the developing area surrounding it, one thought came to me: creativity begins with a blank canvas.
A blank canvas can be an empty building, an open room, a developing neighborhood, or the untouched pages of a book. To some people, it may look like nothing. To a creative person, it looks like possibility.
Our friends saw that possibility when they created Nelly’s Grocery & Wine next to SCAD. They began with an open space, but they imagined more than shelves filled with groceries. They created a place where shopping feels like discovery. The thoughtful displays, rich colors, curved shelving, and carefully selected products encourage people to explore. They did not simply fill an empty store; they gave the space an identity.
Their creation reminded me of Kindness Counts.
When I first entered the building that would become my center, I saw beautiful white walls, stunning hardwood floors, and one large open space. There were no classrooms or defined learning areas. Everything that Kindness Counts would eventually become had to be imagined first.
That open space became my blank canvas.
Open space does not always mean something is missing. Sometimes it means something is waiting to be created.
I pictured children of different ages learning, playing, and growing there. I created half walls and designed individual learning spaces for each age group. Before any of it physically existed, I had to see it in my mind. The empty room did not tell me what to create; it gave me the freedom to decide what it could become.
That is what creativity means to me. It is the ability to look at what is unfinished and see beyond its present condition.
I did not grow up having much, but I was surely creative. When you do not have everything already prepared for you, you learn to work with what is available. You imagine, rearrange, build, and transform. You learn that an empty space does not always mean something is missing. Sometimes it means something is waiting to be created.
Whether it is SCAD growing within a developing community, Nelly’s turning grocery shopping into discovery, Kindness Counts transforming an open room into a learning center, or an author filling the blank pages of a book, the process begins the same way.
First, there is open space.
Then someone sees the possibility.
And finally, creativity gives that possibility a purpose.
