Why I’m OK Teaching a Creativity Workshop

If I had a dime for every time I heard, “Oh Shalagh you are so creative”, I’d at least have five bucks. This became one of those phrases that made me twitch perhaps because I didn’t think of myself as having any kind of creative superpowers which was obvious to them but not to me, until it finally was. I think perhaps what they meant was they wished they knew the secret creative permission spell too.

Fast forward to the past several years when I intentionally indulged myself in creative challenges to gain creative confidence. I followed many of my creative curiosities until I finally owned that I was an Uber-creative. And I am beginning to understand that I believe in creative living aka Creativism as a way of life, one that is at odds with the consume and destroy mode of existence I see all too much of.

So if there is a purpose to my life, one of the facets seems to be sharing my creativity with others so that they too have permission to create.  To this end, I am offering a creativity workshop locally this Fall because I believe that everyone can benefit, and perhaps heal, from increased creativity in their lives.

Each of us looks to understand ourselves based on our interaction with the world. The advertising propaganda would have us believe conformity and possession would be our best safe bet to easy existence. But in fact, we crave to understand our uniqueness through our interactions. We long to be carefree, to be unique and yet connected to our community at the same time. We want self-confidence that comes from owning our own uniqueness and perspective. Not only are these human needs, they are only a few of the many benefits of creativity.

Somehow, as we become older, we conform to the idea that creativity will get us outcast from the tribe. That we need to focus only on the earning of money and security for our family. My hope is that by opening up a conversation with people, and consequently they with themselves, the tantalizing benefits will begin to tickle people slightly out of their fear zones so that they may try creativity in small bursts in their lives. A little creativity in one’s life is better than none. And the money people can save by ceasing to try to find themselves by spending rather than creating will make it an even more enticing proposition.

My final realization is that I don’t have to a “professional” artist to legitimize my knowledge and experience around creativity. I can be a small “a” artist. I only need to acknowledge that I am creative and share what I feel and know to be my truth around this process as it relates to my growth and development as a more rounded human being. I can honestly say that the permission I have given myself to create has created a better happier more confident me. And that is a completely good thing.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest  too. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Save

Save

Creativism

Olivia Sprinkel is an online connection/friend and introduced me to this concept of Creativism. After looking it up, I believe I already embrace and live this way. According to Orna Ross,the author and source of a series of books on this subject, ”Creativism is the adoption of creative principles and practices as a way of life, applying the creative process to everything.” It’s the adoption of the idea of recreation and connection applied to life. “Creativists say, there is a creative flow unfolding all the things and experiences in the world. I am a part of that. The best way to live is to align with that flow, to ride the wave.” And they say,” I’m in charge, I am responsible for what unfolds in my life”.

But it was in Olivia’s own Manifesto , The Creativist Manifesto : Consumer or Creativist ?, that I really began to understand the yin and yang, the masculine of the was we live now prioritizing consumerism and buying power, the masculine, over creativity and creating our worlds and life outcomes , the feminine.

In order to be a creativist, you can’t be following someone else’s rule book or blaming your life’s outcome on anyone else. Ms. Ross says, ” (Creativists) We spend much time cultivating an internal open space so that our truest needs are what concerns us. It is to these true wants that we give our time and life energy and we let the rest go.” Live by your own truths? Absolutely. Which is not to say we live solely for ourselves either. Because that’s the economic/money based system’s downfall. Greed. instead, as a creativistic society, we live and aspire collectively and join with others in the pursuit of these truths as the collaborative creative project of life.

If there is anything wrong with this way of thinking, I don’t see it. It seems idealistic and utopian and aligned with all my values. I already began to think about this concept in my piece about Non-Negotiable Creative Soul Living Here. As a creativist, you commit to allowing for and helping to create beauty, trust, honesty, and abundance in your world. Miss Ross suggests this can lead us to an economy that recognizes an individual and a collective, male and female, the tangible and the intangible, that is beyond consumerism. Create these conditions in your own life and you can then create them in the world. Apply this to whatever it is that you want to create.

I love and am equally terrified by the thought of our boundless potential for possibility and change. I know that within me are all the tools and the potential for higher thoughts than I practice having now. I will be checking out author Orna Ross’s Go Creative! It’s Your Native State, when it comes out. Her other title I love too, You’re Not Crazy, You’re Creative. And I highly recommend reading Olivia Sprinkel’s Creativist Manifesto Here.

I love discovering new concepts about creativity. Anyone else ever heard of Creativism?

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest  too. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Save

Save

A Controlled Creative Climate

For the longest time, I have wanted my own creative space. I have carved them out of back rooms and basements. In this house, I have use of a sun porch which we call the craft-room. It would seem that would be good enough until I can’t be in there alone without “company” and then the Summer weather makes the room unbearably hot.

But don’t be fooled, this isn’t just about the actual space to physically create in. This is also about the mental space and permission with which to be our truest selves. I have waged a battle inside that had me losing the opportunity to create regularly until now.

When we are in a creativity mode, we need to know that we are safe. We are our inner children wanting to play uninterrupted. The irony that our actual children steals that away from us is an unfunny life joke. Seems a fair enough request to ask for regular recess in our play rooms but our inner adults often have better more productive plans for us. Eventually we give up and we resolutely stuff our “childish” desires down some dark hole in our psyche.

In my case, my inner child began to tantrum. And what I came to understand was that not only did I need to allow her to indulge in her recess, I needed to create a safe environment in which she could play free of judgements and distractions. And then she needed to trust that when she wanted to play, I’d create time and space again for her. This is exactly the process by which I’ve begun to trust myself.

So this Summer, to further indulge my need to create safely, I’ve hired a sitter to regularly engage my daughter (CRAZY COOL) and purchased a mobile air conditioner for my craft room (COOL LIKE CRAZY). Which means I can close the door and create at will. There are no more obstacles and I feel slightly giddy.

This is how I am creating a space to grow into. Like setting an empty box down to be filled with a project of yet unnamed magnitude. I’m nervous at the prospect of having no more excuses in some ways but I’m also giddy at the notion of possibilities. And all it took was circumventing my excuses, ridding my roadblocks, and taking responsibility to keep my inner artist safe until she can come out to play.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest  too. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Save

Save

The Writing Lull During a Creative Burst

I have been at odds with myself recently in that I haven’t really wanted to write. I acknowledge that I am both a creative, equally prioritizing the visual and the verbal parts of me. I like when I go through a prolific phase of writing and it happens often enough to expect it. But there has been a writing radio silence of recent.

This week, I hosted a small creativity challenge and that’s been very satisfying. Unlike during previous challenges, I wasn’t nervous about what I was going to do every day. I would just get up to my craft room and let it flow. And I began to think today that perhaps the two parts of my brain know that they need to take turns. That there’s periods of contemplation and graduation that need to happen before better work can emerge.

Where my visually creative self is like my inner child playing, my verbal side is like my inner parent always figuring out the next understanding and plan through my words. I find out who I am and what I think by writing. And perhaps I am entering a phase that is more like an inner Adult at work.

I see a bigger picture emerging. I am watching myself from afar doing what I’m doing. I’m seeing what the next step is, I’m considering my whys and my ways and then I’m hoping that I will feel empowered into action on what I see to be the next direction that will make me happy.

I’m just winging it here but I am truly sure that following my intuition and listening to my own needs to write or create is the only way that I will not only truly trust myself, but will also help me navigate the best way through my life.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Save

Our Creative Selves Challenge Continues

Sometimes, I need an excuse to just mindlessly stand at my craft table holding scissors and glue in my hands for an entire week. And that’s what I’ve done here by creating this Our Creative Selves Challenge. And I invited a few friends to the party. Because I believe in the healing power of creativity especially in community. Find the introduction to my challenge post here.

The first day’s prompt was exploration and boy, there was such inspiration out in the wide world for this prompt. It was the best way to start with an excuse to play.

I chose to make a paper flower in honor of the woman who gave me a most exquisite paper flower making book. It was satisfying. Other participants grabbed oil pastels and brayers and clay and enjoyed the excuse to play.

The second day’s prompt was circle. And oh the loveliness that’s filling my eyes. There was knitting, paper clay making, puff paint, and prisma markers. And that each person made sure to take time out of their day to indulge their inner children, that is the good stuff right there.

This is what I said at the end of my Instagram post in which my circle art was posted.

“Create with abandon. Create with permission.

Steal the supplies, steal the time, and notice all worries fall away,

at least for a short time, as you find out what you make of your world.”

Here’s to Five more days of making! Hope you get a chance to create today just because you can. No really, you can. I’ll lend you the permission.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Save