Keep trying

Hello again, 

Still trying to get this to function correctly. It's very frustrating. Why the tiny print? It looked fine as I typed but went teeny-tiny when I tried to publish. Then in frustration, I step away.

So what's a gal to do? Simple. remember that the master has failed more than the beginner has tried. 

Keep checking back. There will be more about creativity  to come. I promise.  

How do you know?

Creativity is everyone's game. We are all creative beings at all times of our lives. How we show that is what changes over time. Some artists pick up a pencil at five and are still drawing at eighty-five. Others, like a friend of mine,don't pick up a brush until their mid-fifties. Yet, my friend has been in two exhibits. What's the difference? 

Obviously, parental encouragement, economics, community, all play a part in where and when we discover how we want to express ourselves as creative persons. I prefer not to dwell on past history. That was then. this is now. So, look at now. 

• How do you learn? Are you comfortable getting your hands dirty? Do you need to have someone show you how do to something or can you watch a video and learn? Do you have to do things is a set sequence or can you deal with randomness? 

• What's your style? Bold and bright or gentle and quiet? Crowds or solitude? Do you want fast results or can you be patient? Sweet or spicy?

• Why does creativity interest you? Do you have a need to express yourself without words, in paint, perhaps? Do you need an outlet for the tensions or your job? Is there something you've always thought "I could do that?" 

Now, write a few notes. Look around your place. Watch a few videos. Go with your gut. Talk to your loved ones and friends. Sometimes, they know you better than you realize. 

Ask yourself, if money and time were no object, and you could not fail, what would you try? 

Let me know.  

       

NEVER TOO LATE

Creativity is everyone's game. We are all creative beings at all times of our lives. How we show that is what changes over time. Some artists pick up a pencil at five and are still drawing at eighty-five. Others, like a friend of mine,don't pick up a brush until their mid-fifties. Yet, my friend has been in two exhibits. What's the difference? 

Obviously, parental encouragement, economics, community, all play a part in where and when we discover how we want to express ourselves as creative persons. I prefer not to dwell on past history. That was then. this is now. So, look at now. 

• How do you learn? Are you comfortable getting your hands dirty? Do you need to have someone show you how do to something or can you watch a video and learn? Do you have to do things is a set sequence or can you deal with randomness? 

• What's your style? Bold and bright or gentle and quiet? Crowds or solitude? Do you want fast results or can you be patient? Sweet or spicy?

• Why does creativity interest you? Do you have a need to express yourself without words, in paint, perhaps? Do you need an outlet for the tensions or your job? Is there something you've always thought "I could do that?" 

Now, write a few notes. Look around your place. Watch a few videos. Go with your gut. Talk to your loved ones and friends. Sometimes, they know you better than you realize. 

Ask yourself, if money and time were no object, and you could not fail, what would you try? 

Let me know.  

(Sorry this is late. There was a computer glitch.)             

For the new year

2016 is over. Gott sei dank.

It was a year of sad good-byes and wonderful hellos, natural disasters and the stuff and nonsense that goes with them, but it's over. Can't say I'll miss it. 

Now, it's 2017 and I am still creating and encouraging creativity in others as a creativity coach. Why? We need to be creative now more than ever. We need to learn how to stay creative and centered in an increasingly crowded and crazy world. By drawing, playing guitar, cooking, writing children's books, welding metal sculptures, we creatively find ways to let go of the stress of this modern world. Not that creating doesn't have its own stresses but those we chose and can control. We draw the line, play the note, add the salt.     

We stay creative through knowledge, knowledge of ourselves, our creative goals, and knowledge of what's available to support our goals. 

Some people know early on what they want to create. They see a potter's wheel or a weaving loom and they know that they are a potter or a weaver. Others, like myself, are makers. There are some things we return to over and over but we are more willing to try new things. We have crushes on crafts. Then we return again to our first love or our third. Please don't tell us we have to make a choice.

So, how do we get this knowledge? Check back next week, and I'll give you some ideas. 

UPDATE

I AM UPDATING MY BLOG. 

PLEASE KEEP CHECKING BACK. 

THANKS.
KRIS

Where do ideas come from?

Recently, I had a hamstring pull, a very painful muscle pull that would wake me up at night.  One night, as I was trying to go back to sleep, images that I had seen that day kept going through my head. One image, that periodically shows up on Facebook is this one of window washers dressed as Spiderman.
It irritated me that this image was stuck in my head since I'm not a big fan of Spiderman.  I really wondered how children, especially sick children, would feel about seeing strange men outside their windows. What about the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, how distracting would they find these window washers?

Most people don't find Superheroes scary like clowns but what if they did? What if window washers were dressed as other figures, maybe historical figures? What if...? How about..? Why not...?

Within a very short time, I had a short story in my head. It surprised me that it was a horror story, since that's not a genre that I often read. The next day I wrote it down. I have no idea at this moment, what I plan to do with it, since The Twilight Zone is no longer in production but it's ready.

So, where did I get the idea for the story?  Here's my theory:

Chance favors the prepared mind.

I write daily. Once a week I meet up with another writer and we work together. So, asking questions like "what if...?", How about ...?",  Why not...?" are ideas that I practice constantly. Topic sentences, subject-verb agreement, punctuation and spelling are second nature since I practice daily. Now, I have no delusions that I write great literature or that I am a future New York Times Bestselling Author, but I have sold some of my work and hope to sell more.

And I believe the same idea applies for any creative or practical endeavor. It doesn't matter if you want to be a fine artist working in oil or a diesel mechanic covered in oil. Practice, practice, practice. Watch YouTube videos. Read constantly. Go to museums, galleries, car shows, wherever it is that you'll find like-minded people. You're on the Internet right now, Google It!

And if you're interested in writing, join me at the Firehouse, here in Del Rio, Texas Mondays from 12:00-1:00 beginning October 5 through November 2, 2015. Call Nancy or Nicki for more details at 830 775-0888. Hope to see you there.

    

Comfort Zone

 

Comfort zones are wonderful places, couches with fuzzy blankets and hot cups of tea, chairs in the back yard on a hot summer nights watching the sunset. But sometimes, you have to step outside of your comfort zone. Go somewhere new, try new food, fossil hunt, learn a new language, zip line.



Southern Coast of England 

Now, for me, traveling is within my comfort zone. I like to travel. To me, the research is part of the trip and with preparation, traveling is fun. So far, I've visited eleven countries and half the states. I know exactly where my passport is. I have another trip planned in a few weeks and two others on the backburner.

Last year, my sister and I went to England. We had activities planned but one day we just looked at a map, hopped on a bus and went to the Isle of Portland on the Southern Coast of England, also called the Jurassic Coast. We had no idea what we'd find. We asked the driver to let us off near a museum and we wandered around. We walked over a hill and had a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance and a hedgerow of ripe berries beside us. We had a lovely lunch at the Hayloft Café and the proprietor told us about a nearby pirate cemetery. We then made our way down to the rocky beach and I took this photo. 

Leaving home is not leaving my comfort zone. I left my comfort zone when I decided to enter this photo and another in a juried photography show. I had to first enter the show online through something called thatentrything, all new to me and I paid the fees. I am not a professional photographer. The photos that I entered, I took on my cell phone. I risked putting work out there and not knowing how it would be received. I was pleasantly surprised to learn this photo was accepted. But being outside my comfort zone wasn't over yet. Then I had to find out where to have the photo printed and where to have it matted to the competition's requirements. Fortunately, I was able to ask a friend.  I had everything done and turned in to the gallery a week before it was due.
I didn't win anything. I really wasn't expecting to but I have received many pleasant comments. What is important to me is that I tried. I took something important to me and shared it.  

What takes you out of your comfort zone? What will you try? 
  




    

Project: Chalk Paint

The Before Photo

Last year, my word of the year was "Project." It's a word that can be a noun or a verb. I had several projects in mind that I wanted to share with you. However, things didn't quite turn out as I planned. Life is like that. Yet, at the end of the year, I realized that maybe I had not accomplished the specific projects I had planned but I had accomplished others.

This dresser is one. I have had it for years. I don't know where it even comes from. It was boring and slated for a yard sale. Then I heard about chalk paint. Evidently, chalk paint has been around for quite some time but it was new to me. Now, here's something I learned last year.

What you experience in person is better than seeing it in print or media.    

Shortly after I saw chalk paint in a magazine, a local antique store, advertised chalk paint on their outside chalk board. So, of course, I had to stop in. There were several pieces of old furniture that had been given a new life with chalk paint. I loved the colors and the textures. The store also sold chalk paint. The price was prohibitive. So when I came home, I researched on-line and learned to make my own with plaster or Paris, water and paint.

Midway through the painting

The painted drawers and drawer pulls

 The little set of drawers seemed like a perfect project for chalk paint, so I took them outside and went to work. It took just a few hours and the chalk paint dried very quickly. the pale green was perfect. I decoupaged scrapbook paper on the drawer pulls for a little bit of pattern and color.

 

 

Here is the final result. it now sits in my studio full of supplies. I'm glad now that I saw the sign at the antique store. Otherwise, chalk paint would probably still be one of those things that I see and think "Oh, I have to try that someday" and then forget about when I turn the page.

What about you? What difference does it make to your creativity to experience something as opposed to reading about it? Do you regularly go out of your studio, your comfort zone to experience new things? let me know.

Scam or no?

OK, so I'm sorting bottle caps for my retired husband's folk art and my cell phone rings. A man with one of those beautiful, deep radio voices introduces himself as representing an Internet program. Coaching has grown over 600% in the last few years and his company's research department has given him my name. He then asked me a number of questions about my creativity coaching business, always complementing whatever answer I gave. The program he represented was interested in having me on a show and interviewing me about creativity coaching. The interviewer would be a famous TV personality. I'd never heard of him. Thousands of listeners tune into their shows. Was I ready for the increase in business the interview would bring? The staff would work with me to script the interview prior to broadcast and I would own the rights. They would provide me with some copies of the interview on cd to be used in my marketing in any way I chose. And it would only cost me $2000.

"And this conversation is at an end." I told him. But wait! There's more. Because I teach classes as a creativity coach at a local non-profit and I could tell he was looking at their website as we spoke, he could offer it to me for the low, low price of only $995.

I still turned him down. Not that I don't have the $995 in my business account for marketing. I do. No, I turned him down and his fabulous interview that would triple my business because I checked with some colleagues first. One, an internationally known creativity coach, told me that she had been approached by this and similar organizations. They talked the talk but don't walk the walk. She knew of no one who had tried this marketing route to make any notable return on their investment,  especially the kind of numbers hinted at by the representative.

Another friend, an editor with a national newspaper syndicate called this type of thing "advertorial news." Basically, it's an infomercial. You pay, maybe people buy. Again, it's a limited return for little reward. So is it a scam? The fellow never promised, so technically, legally, I'm sure it's legit. Yet, the very calculating way he lead the conversation, the flattery were all directed at selling their product, not mine.

So what were my take-aways from this experience?

• I'm glad I took the time to become a certified creativity coach. My business experience and training helped me make my decision.
• Thank goodness for the coaches in the Creativity Coaching Association  for sharing their knowledge with me.  
• Thanks, J.G. for your knowledge. And to think I remember when you were a dumb kid.

So, what's your take on my experience? Is it a scam? Have you had a similar experience? I'm interested in your comments.

GREEN SCENE-TERLINGUA, TEXAS

October 25, 2014

Hello All,

I had a request to show some of the shawls I will have for sale at Green Scene this year. So here are a few.

They are woven on a triangle loom which I will have at Green Scene so everyone can see the process.

Hope to see you there.

Thinking about overthinking

One of the things that make us human is the ability to think. "Cogito ergo sum" I think therefore I am, and all that stuff. Sometimes thinking is quite simple, like tonight I thought "I'll make macaroni and cheese for dinner." It was quite good, by the way. Other times we may thing quite complex thoughts, like when we think about algebra.

As creative folk, we think all the time. Do I use a bright red or pale green? Create a retro design or futuristic one? Write about tornados or daffodils? Do I think about this project or that one? But we can overthink. We do it all the time. We spend so much time thinking that

•  Nothing gets done.
•  We never finish the painting, song, or book.
•  We make molehills into mountains.
•  We miss the deadline.
•  We have too much going on because we think we can do everything.

For example, we turn molehills into mountains. I think I have to write a formal proposal for something I want to do. I try to think of all the information I should assemble to write this proposal. I think of all the information I should include. I think I should include other information, references perhaps. So then I realize that continuing on the path I was on that I would either not get it done at all or miss the deadline. What to do? What to do?

I sent a short inquiry and asked what information do you need? I got a quick reply. We have a questionnaire. Do you want us to sent it to you? That's it. Fill in the blanks. I can do that.

So my thought for you tonight is don't overthink. Breathe.

Oh, and another thing, that makes us human, is laughter. 

Happy Earth Day!

Do you use cobalt arsenate to make violet paint? Or maybe you've inhaled mercury fumes lately while developing your photographs. How's that lead-based make-up working out for your acting troupe? Castrated any boy sopranos for the church choir recently? Still tickling the ivories?

I pray that some of you don't understand all these examples. The truth is that although we make art to give beauty and meaning to our lives, in the past is was often produced at the cost of our lives, our sanity and our world. Things are different now. Producers of our supplies test products for safety. Even our toddlers' chalk and crayons have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) available on-line. But we cannot give all the responsibility to the companies we frequent.

Call it "going green." Call it environmental awareness. Call it just plain old common sense. Look at your art, how you do it, where you do it, where you perform it, how you sell it. Are you acting in a environmentally responsible manner? Have you ever even considered that you should? What changes can you make? Change the lightening in your studio? Recycle paper and plastic? Is there a way to reduce packing of your work when you ship it? Is there a letter you need to write to a manufacturer or an elected politician?

Do some research. Read some articles. Learn what's out there. For whatever form of art you create, there is someone looking at its impact on our world. If there isn't yet, then perhaps you are the one to begin. Recognize that we no longer have to pollute and poison to create beauty and meaning in our world. We can create beauty and meaning and leave not just an artistic legacy but also a better, safer world where our children can safely create.

(This article originally appeared in roughly the same form in the June 2013 Creativity Coaching Association newsletter.)          

The best laid plans or how to felt a sweater.

Have you ever watched an ice skater before a performance or a pilot before a flight? They mentally skate or fly their plan, sometimes following a tape outline on the floor. Well, when I planned to make a wool tote and show you every step of the project, that's what I did mentally. Then I got out what I thought was an old wool sweater. I had not looked it in years. The damn thing's acrylic!

Now, if you are not into fiber, that may not sound like a big deal to you. It is. The first step in the project was to felt it. Let me describe felting a sweater to you.

Take an old 100% wool sweater, size XXL and put it in a bathtub of hot water and a bit of dish soap. The water should not be scalding. Swirl the sweater around a few times with your hand. Drain the water. Refill with cold water. For good measure, throw in a couple of trays of ice cubes. Swirl the sweater around with you hand. Drain the water.Lay the sweater out to dry on a few old towels. Your 100% wool sweater, size XXL should now be about the right size to fit a toddler.

Next, take an old 100% acrylic sweater, size XXL. Punch some holes in a steel drum. Add some of those big old round river rocks. Now, put in the sweater. Toss the whole thing in a geyser, scalding sulfuric water, anaerobic bacteria and all. Wait to the geyser blows. Watch the steel drum fly into a convenient nearby glacier lake. Take the sweater out of the steel drum. Lay the sweater out to dry on a few old towels. Your 100% acrylic sweater may have a few holes from the rocks but otherwise will be exactly the same XXL sweater you started with.    

So it's back to the drawing board to find a project to demonstrate my creative process for you.      

Look Both Ways

I'm not much into New Year's Resolutions and all that but what I have found the past few years is that a New Year's Theme works best for me. In the past, I have had verbs like "collaborate" or "try". In trying to come up with this year's word, I thought a lot about what it means to be a creativity coach. One thing stands out to me. That if I am going to coach others about their creativity, I have to be creative myself. How simple is that? Yet I know people who are trying to encourage others and haven't picked up a ___, sat down at ___, or turned on their ___, in months or years. Crazy, huh?

So this year's theme is not "create". No, that would be too simple. This year's theme is "Project". It can be a noun or a verb. So projecting into the future, I am going to share some projects with you. I'll share the creative process. How do I come up with ideas? How those ideas become reality? How do I address the problems that arise? I will show you the step-by-step process with photographs and instructions.

This will be a stretch for me.  It will force me to remember to take photographs, and to break things down into parts. Then I will have to explain those parts in a way you can not only understand but repeat and follow, if you want. I will have to show my mistakes. I will have to create within a time frame so that I don't lose your interest. I'll have several things going on at once since that's the way I work.

My first Project will be a tote bag made from an old wool sweater. So watch this space!

(Sorry it's been so long. We had a death in the family.)   

Earworms and my second favorite poem

You know what an earworm is, right? Earworms come in two types. The first and most common is the song earworm. That is when you get part of a song stuck in your brain and can't shake it. Song earworms have several characteristics. 

• It's from a catchy tune. 
• It's usually not one you are really like.
• It's not one that you know all the lyrics.
• It's frequently a children's song. 

Once after watching a television show, I had an earworm from a catchy, 1950's song. I only knew the first two lines. My dear hubby tried to cure me. He started singing the Disney children's classic, "It's a small world after all." I didn't think that was funny.

The second kind of earworm is when you remember the first lines of a poem that you once had to memorize. After I wrote about the drummer in my last post, that happened to me. Poem earworms don't go away until you look up the poem and read it again. So, since it is about creativity, I thought I'd share it with you.  

Harlem (Dream Deferred)

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes February 1, 1902 - May 22, 1967
  

A Drummer's Dream

Last week, I started leading another group through Julia Cameron's classic work on creativity, The Artist's Way. The fun and excitement was palatable. Everyone is at a different place in their creative journey but everyone is looking forward to learning and growing more confident as a creative person.

This is in stark contrast to a conversation that I had later in the week. A group of us were sitting around talking about music. A man I have known for years, a biker, started talking about his teenaged wish to be a drummer. His father and uncles played guitar but his desire was to play the drums. He was not allowed to follow his dream. His father insisted that he enlist in the military and so he joined the U.S. Air Force. He was in the Air Force for nine years before leaving and taking a job with the civil service. He is retired now. In all those years, he did not play drums. One could hear the pain and passion for the drums as he spoke. Speaking of his father, he said that their relationship tanked and they were estranged when his father passed away. You would think that after all these years, desiring to play drums would be water under the bridge, a youthful dream. You would think. NOT. For Christmas 2012, his Old Lady gave him a set of drums.

It is not easy for my friend to "get his chops" back as he describes it but he tries. He is realistic and recognizes that at this point in his life, he probably won't be asked to be on the big stage to drum for some famous rock group. I hope to hear him, though, as Joni Mitchell sang, "playing real good, for free." (Mitchell, 1970)

Word Count

Isn't finding time one of the hardest things about being a creative person? We have jobs, families, friends, and community activities all taking time away from the creative things we really want to do. So what happens when we do have the time to be creative?

Last week, I worked to have an entire day in my studio. I have little to show for almost six hours. I was unsuccessful in researching. I had a word count of about 200 words in a cover letter I am writing. That's not much to show for all that time. It was a productive day. Say what? Yes. A day in the studio, the workshop, the atelier, the garden, wherever you create is always productive. Why? Because you are there and you commit. You show up. You allow the thoughts and ideas to flow. Sometimes they flow like a waterfall and other times, like last week, like a mud puddle, which doesn't really move at all. But did I know which it would be when I sat down? No. I was happy to be there. Frustrated, yes but happy nonetheless.

And Monday, I found what I was looking for in fifteen minutes.       

Refueling in flight

This has been a summer to remember and it isn't over yet. I'm entertaining houseguests and traveling more  than I have in years. So far, I've made two trips, each, a week or longer. And so the question arises, how do you refuel in flight? How do you make art when you are away from your studio, your grand piano, your normal surroundings that nurture your art?

Coffee truck in the middle of the night.

It's been a question for me this summer and I have three ideas to share. In no particular order, here they are.

Miniaturize. Instead of working on your novel while attending a family reunion with all the fun and confusion, why not focus on a smaller aspect of your writing? Develop a list of adjectives for the villain. Create more backstory for the heroine. Write character sketches of your relatives. Outline your next novel.

Are you a visual artist? How can you reduce your work for travel? I recently saw a watercolor kit in a mint tin. Could you do something similar? Instead of large pieces, can you make Artist Trading Cards to share with the people on your travels? They would probably be greatly appreciated.

Speak up. Remember all that stuff you had to learn in Social Psychology about Groupthink and mob mentality? It's true and you have to counteract it while traveling. If you want to do something, speak up. It gets very easy to go along with the crowd and you could miss something good. At the travel stop in Virginia, on a whim, I asked the gal what about crafts. Oh my, she told us about the Heartwood Center for crafts. It showcases juried artists from the nineteen counties in Southwest Virginia. It was fabulous. It was very well done and if I hadn't said something, I'd had never known about it.

Look at your feet. I noticed while traveling that most of what I observed was in the distance, the Interstate that we were driving, the length of Beale Street, the Mississippi River, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (the coolest engineering feat, I've ever seen) and so on. But I'm telling you to look at your feet. There are two reasons for this. First, it helps you to focus, even for a few seconds, on who you are. When you're surrounded by people, it helps to sometimes to remember that you have your own opinions, thoughts and they don't have to agree with everyone else's. Call it a three-second retreat. The second reason to look at your feet is so you don't miss something. My sister and I are taking photographs of a wind farm. Have you seen modern windmills? They are huge towers that stretch on for miles. But when I looked at my feet, I saw not one but two Texas wildflowers that I had never seen before. Another time in Georgia, I had just finished photographing a courthouse when I looked down and saw this beautiful little pansy going in the gutter of the street.

Gutter pansy

So what have you been doing this summer? I'd love to hear from you.

National Library Week (Pat's Project)

My friend pat is a biographer. She has published an article in a historical journal. Her work has taken her to many parts of the U.S. and Europe. She has been researcher-in-residence. Pat's work has taken her to such diverse locations as Cody, Wyoming and Madrid, Spain. She is currently co-curating an exhibit in New York City with another scholar. She has two books about her research underway.

"Wow, how did she get started in this wonderful life?'

She read a book.

"No, really. Does she have a degree in English or creative writing from some prestigious university?"

No, both of her degrees are in psychology from state universities.

"Oh, is she rich then with lots of resources?"

With two children in college, I don't think she would call herself rich. And she taught herself to use library resources and the Internet to locate useful sources.

"Seriously, she got to do all this just from reading a book?"

Well, there is one thing more. Six years ago, when Pat read a book about a famous Spanish poet, she asked the question. How did that poet happen to meet a young teacher from a small town in Vermont of all places? When she started to research the teacher, she told people about her about her inquiries. It is amazing the number of people who were able and willing to help her. Look here. Talk to this person. Contact that place. People are there to help when you are willing to share your creative idea.

So what have you read this week?

HAPPY NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK  APRIL 14-20, 2013

And for more information about Pat's research, look here:
http://www.philipcummings.net/  

For Matthew 5/4/82-2/17/13

Some time ago, another artist gave me a list called Why Do People Make Art? Written for a young audience, it includes the expected responses like "tell stories" and "adorn themselves" and "seek personal enjoyment and satisfaction." It reduces the Cathedral of Notre Dame to "worship" and the anti-war songs of the sixties to "seek to affect social change."

Why do people make art? "to record a time, place, person or object." That one strikes me. So much of the world's art, architecture and literature exists because someone needed to keep someone else's memory alive. Tonight, I am not going to create art, architecture or literature but try to take a brief moment to keep a memory alive.

The first time I saw Matthew Lawrence Dyson, I almost didn't see him. He was a tiny baby propped up against a couch pillow. I had to do a double take. I remember holding him for a long time that first night. Later, I knitted him a blue baby sweater with  cables, the only time I've ever knitted cables. Matthew's mother is my friend Louise, who I've known for many years.

I moved to Germany, back to the States and later to Texas. I did not see Matthew grow up. In the only photo of him that I have, he is a small child wearing big sunglasses and surrounded by paper and crayons. Did he like art? I don't know. The one art that I do know he excelled in is the art of being a dad.

Matthew was not given the option of going slowly into that good night. He left his family, his parents, sisters and brother on February 17, 2013. He joins his sister, Jen.

Be at peace, Matthew.