Blends, Bricolage, and Chimeras of Association in Child Imagination

Blends and bricolage can tell us much about the young imagination and its potential for mature creativity. No one is surprised when a child substitutes a little toy truck television show—though perhaps we should be. No matter how unremarkable, all blends reflect the imagination at work. That said, our notice of make-believe chimeras generally increases, the more unlikely the juxtaposition of their elements. What we notice and notice again in child's play are the blends and complexes that are unusual to us—balloon dogs, spool people, and "greenly" dignified express trains whistling through a mysterious landscape for scheduled arrival in Chicago.

Divergence from conventional thinking is not the only measure of vigorous imagination, however. Those blends that surprise most also reveal hidden likenesses and relationships between hitherto unconnected things. Pet dogs and balloons, as unlike as they are, may suddenly be seen to share an inclination for companionship as well as a tendency to take off on their own. Similarly, volcanoes and authority figures share a great deal of physical and emotional force. In either case, the metaphoric connections invite us to contemplate a convergence of ideas about dissimilar things.

Indeed, when it comes to evaluating imaginative blends, the more unexpected and ilso the more insightful and apt, the more creative we may deem the child who puts m together.