An inspired reunion

When I reflected on having done a year of workshops for individuals, I had an urge to invite people back for a reunion. I was eager to reconnect with workshop participants, and to have people who attended different workshops meet one another.

It was an inspired idea! The group that gathered at the reunion included people from five of the workshops. Everyone connected easily and spirits were high. The pot-luck dinner was special, as everyone contributed a dish made with love. As if by magic, the meal was perfectly balanced and every taste complemented the others. It was as if a master menu-planner had created the meal.

As we ate we each shared something we created, something that has inspired us, or both. The range of offerings was fascinating. One person brought a magnificent glass bowl she recently made (a new technique for that person, and one she’d dreamed up and sketched shortly after taking the workshop). One person came with gardening gloves of various sizes — hers, her kids’ and her husband’s. Following the workshop she attended last summer, she discovered that being in fresh air and tending a garden was the creative outlet she craved. And, for the first time, her family happily centered some of their weekend activities around her passion. One person brought back her sketchbook from the workshop. It was nearly filled with vivid drawings and poems she’s been creating. Someone else brought a dramatic drawing, also done in her sketchbook, that she made on a vacation soon after her workshop experience. She said that drawing held more vivid memories for her than all of the photos from her trip. 

After eating and enjoying all of the creative sharing, we moved on to start creating anew as a group. I had been inspired by two visits I recently made to the ICA, to see the work of Nick Cave. He uses "mundane" materials like buttons, pipe cleaners, yarn, beads, and more to create his sound suits and fabulous “paintings”. With that in mind, I hit art supply and craft stores, as well rifling through my own cabinets and drawers, to source a host of fun materials. With Edith Piaf as our sound track and glue guns in hand, we dove in and started playing and forming the materials into fantastic creations.  

As the evening came to a close, someone suggested that the reunion had been more fun than a book club meeting and that we should continue to meet and create together. Plans are underway already for our next creative adventure!

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Nick Cave sound suits at the ICA Boston; creations made at the reunion from similar materials.

New discoveries at two very different museums

In the last 2 weeks I’ve been turned on by amazing art at the ICA in Boston and at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. I am happy to share some of the memorable pieces I enjoyed.

The ICA’s current special exhibitions are outstanding. Nick Cave’s sound suits and his newer sculptural works knocked me out. The inventiveness of materials and forms, his colors and concepts, were delightful and exciting.

I also discovered the incredible work of South African artist, William Kentridge at the ICA. His pulsing Refusal of Time installation was fascinating and mesmerizing. If you get to the ICA, plan on spending at least 20 minutes taking it in. Equally exciting for me was seeing his monochromatic and varied works on paper. Imagine my delight when I visited the Barbara Krakow Gallery a few days later and saw another group of wonderful pieces by Kentridge. I intend to continue to explore the work of this marvelous artist.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of taking a day trip to New Hampshire to spend time with a dear friend. She told me the Currier Museum would be a treat but I was surprised by their eclectic and impressive collection. My favorite discoveries included paintings done in the middle ages, including one portrait that looked amazingly modern. I loved walking through the gallery of modern art that included stunning works by Picasso, Matisse and O’Keeffe. And, we spent a lot of time in a contemporary gallery that included a standing mobile by Alexander Calder, a large Joan Mitchell painting and intriguing sculptures by Louise Nevelson and Marisol. Savoring a cup of tea was especially enjoyable because the dramatic cafe space was framed by a pair of enormous, colorful paintings by Sol Lewitt. 

I hope you can plan an excursion to a great museum or gallery soon. When you soak in the beauty I predict that you’ll start to notice and enjoy more of what is in your every day surroundings. And, your emotions can become fuel for your own creative expression.

Let me know if you come across wonderful new art and where you’ve found it.

Creative fun with kids!

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I was completely delighted to do an Intuitive Painting session with a great group of children at the Young Achievers Science and Math Pilot School in Boston. The fantastic team of City Year corps members who work at the school invited me to be a guest at their after school enrichment program. I loved working with all of the kids — 15 second through fifth graders participated.

After having everyone do a few free drawings, accompanied by upbeat music, I gave the kids individual assignments. These ranged from ideas like drawing confusion, to drawing a great dream, to dividing a page to show both excitement and frustration, to drawing a fabulous morning. After doing two assigned topics, they finished the series of 5 drawings with a free one — and the results were a blast. The kids created with joy and enthusiasm.

After everyone completed their 5 drawings we broke into small groups and several kids worked to create a single large drawing together. Each group had a different theme. It was great fun watching them fill the large sheets with color.

I am grateful to the staff at YA and to the City Year team for the invitation and for their help to make this a great experience for a great group of kids!

Desert inspiration

It was a great treat to be able to escape Boston’s brutal winter weather and explore the desert of Arizona for a week. Nature provided an amazing array of inspiring visual treats that captured my eye and will surely be fuel for upcoming creative adventures. 

In spite of the cold air back home, looking at these photos brings to mind both the warmth of the desert and the pleasure of coming upon each of these spectacular moments of delight.

Wow, what a day!

My second Igniting Your Creative Core workshop of this new year was a marvelous day!

Over 40 attendees have now participated in this workshop, including the amazing group of seven women who made Sunday’s workshop so special.

I am deeply moved by all of the incredible people who have come together to do this work. It has been an honor to see them open their hearts and embrace their creativity. The artwork from the latest workshop speaks volumes, and I think the energy is palpable when viewing this small selection of pictures that they created during the day.

Equally wonderful for me are the shared insights, reflections and ideas that emerge on the journey we take through the day. From our greetings in the morning, when everyone says what drew them to the workshop, to our conversations over lunch and closing reflections as the day concludes, the workshop is a wonder. I have been most fortunate to work with amazing people who really show up and allow themselves to be candid and authentic in all they share. They have enriched me immeasurably.

Thoughts about love on Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love is the focus of the day and I want to share some thoughts on the ways that love and creativity are closely related.

The power of love is legendary. Thinking about love in terms of the people who love us and those we love comes naturally. But few of us think about self-love, which is crucial for our happiness, our relationships, and as a foundation for creativity of all kinds.

A common misconception is that it’s selfish to think about loving yourself, but self-love is neither narcissistic nor selfish. It’s healthy and wonderful to make yourself a priority and love yourself, in much the way that you feel warm, excited, adoring feelings when you think of a person you dearly love. These are feelings of delight that you can cultivate for yourself.

Fall in love with yourself! Just as you want to give gifts to people you love, give yourself gifts. You deserve them. Give yourself time to do things you love. Give yourself the treat of popping in to a shop that delights you. Take a trip to someplace you've longed to visit. If you are busily doing only for others, you're neglecting yourself. And, when you put yourself last, you cannot give as much to others.

Self-love is also about forgiving yourself and accepting yourself. Most of us are much harder on ourselves than we are on anyone else. That's the sign of a harsh self-critic, and for some, a self-critic that's out of control. Healthy, robust self-love is the antidote.

Cultivating self-love fuels a happy life. And, self-love is a key foundation of creativity. When self-love is missing the self-critic has free reign and creativity is stifled. Nobody can feel free to experiment, play, create, make mistakes and move on from from them, try out new ways to express themselves or find novel ways to solve problems when that self-critical voice is putting you down (and often making you afraid to even try). Do you see how this works? How self-love is the antidote to the negativity that hampers us and limits our potential?

I hope that this Valentine’s Day will be a celebration of vibrant love — for those dearest to you and for yourself.

7 minutes of brilliant creative inspiration!

On a trip to New York over the weekend I was tipped off by a friend to the Dance on Camera Shorts Program at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. I am a dance lover, but never knew about the emerging art of dance captured on film. That’s where the appeal of attending the program began.

There were 12 excellent films in the program, but one completely blew me away (and garnered the loudest applause from the packed audience). Boris Seewald’s short film, Momentum stole the show.

I was excited to find the film online and I am thrilled to be able to share it with you.

The film is 7 minutes of pure genius. It’s a great film creation, but the reason it excites me so much is the story it tells (and shows!) about how creativity can start from a moment as small and insignificant as picking up a tortilla chip. Really. Incredibly.

I hope I've peaked your interest, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

(I think you'll also enjoy seeing more of Boris Seewald’s work, which I was glad to experience.)

Injecting small doses of creativity into a busy life

We’re all busy — whether we work full time in a company, work independently as a freelancer or consultant, if we manage a family, or are looking for work opportunities. Add to that an array of non-work commitments — to community, to political or social causes, to taking care of your health, and more — and it’s easy to feel like there’s not a free moment in the day.

When we look around and see so many people living that way, too, we start to think it’s normal and right. You may think, “Why can’t I do it all and not feel stretched to the breaking point?” Or, you may be aware that it’s too much, yet realize you’re habituated to the intense pace of life and being overcommitted.

All of this busy-ness leaves you starved. Starved of time for thought and reflection. Starved of time to care for your body and soul. Starved of time for fun and refueling. Starved for adequate sleep. Starved for time with people who matter. We’ve all read a lot about stress and the damage it causes. The question is what to do to decrease stress and “feed” yourself so you correct for the malnourishment.

I’m happy to tell you that injecting very small does of creativity into your busy life can have a terrific impact. You may be surprised to hear about some ways this can work.

Take a 2- to 5-minute break once or twice a day. Use that snippet of time to look at the sky. Or, stop and people-watch on a bench. Or, close your eyes, relax your muscles (from the top of your head, to all of your face, down to your shoulders and through your entire body) and then take several long, slow breaths. Exhale slowly and fully. Taking any of these breaks will shift your brain waves from Beta (active alert thinking) to Alpha — when you’re still awake and lucid, but are much more relaxed.

When you get your brain into an Alpha state, using my suggestions or many others you can come up with, your right brain can take over from the left brain (which is used to doing, planning, thinking in linear ways, and being in charge). The right brain can and will access and use some left-brain ideas, but it will do so in new and more innovative ways. And, it's the Alpha stage that brings up new ideas while you shower, or walk the dog — great ideas that seem to spring from nowhere.

Surprise yourself. This is another way to get your right brain activated, and can also be done during short breaks. On your ride back from a meeting, take a turn into a neighborhood you don’t know and see what the houses, shops and gardens look like before you return to your route. At mid-day, head in a different direction than usual and see if there’s a new restaurant/lunch truck/market that offers new options for lunch. Cultivate curiosity and see where it leads you as you stop to run an errand or make plans for your weekend.

Inject play into your life. Get down on the floor with kids and immerse yourself in their play for a few minutes — rather than being an observer — and remember what that feels like. Find ways to be silly. Try putting a basket of small colorful toys on the conference room table and enjoy them before the start of a meeting. Hang something delightful on your bulletin board that brings a smile to you face. Play also changes your brain waves. It lets creativity happen naturally.

The more often you take these breaks and make these shifts, the more you’ll feel refreshed, relaxed and better all around when you get back to your scheduled activities. You’ll see that even these small efforts, when they become routine for you, will lead to having more creative, fresh thoughts that will brighten your life. And, you'll observe that, paradoxically, slowing down and reaping renewed energy and creative thinking will make you more productive. That's a real bouns!

You may even find yourself consciously building some “white space” into your schedule as you plan future appointments and tasks. Try it! See how building small spaces into your life will reap big rewards.

Great energy at the January workshop

What a treat is was to join with another amazing group of participants for my Igniting Your Creative Core workshop yesterday. We did more Intuitive Painting and writing than ever, including individual and group projects. And, in addition to sharing a beautiful and healthy lunch, we shared experiences, insights and ideas that are related to creativity and our lives — including many hopes and dreams. The group has already reached out to continue the conversation and to provide support for building more creativity into day-to-day life after the workshop. 

Here some photos from the day: the participants in the midst of working on a project, and one of the incredible pieces of art done in the morning.

I am looking forward to my next workshop on February 23rd, and I will soon schedule workshops for April and May. I’d be delighted to see you at one of them!

New creative adventures

I belong to a small group of creative friends that meets monthly (or as close to monthly as our busy lives allow). We’re now into our 6th year together, and the ways we spend our time has changed over time as we’ve changed.

Each member (there are 4 of us) does professional work related to creativity. One sold her ad agency and has been a full time (and very successful) artist for over a decade. One is an architect with a thriving practice. One recently gave up teaching in an MBA program at a prestigious university to be a full-time artist — something she was just starting to explore when we first formed the group. I transitioned from my design firm to my current creative coaching practice. Our journey together has been marvelous.

This year we have paired up differently to plan new creative adventures for each of our 3-hour meetings. For this week's meeting, we each sent in a piece of music we loved, and were told to come with an assortment of materials to share for making sculptures — something totally new for me. Here’s a photo of one of the three sculptures I made. It was created while listening to Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant.

I’m also including a photo of a collage I made at our session in December. I'd helped to make the plan for the collage project. Each person started by picking a topic from those in a hat (the topic for my collage was “pain”). To make the collages, we selected images from a stack I’d saved from my design firm days — wonderful samples provided by printers and paper merchants — and applied them to wooden panels. As at our sculpture session, everyone's collages were marvelous and quite different.

If you’d like to learn more about the experiences my group has had, or how you might start a similar group, get in touch. 

Can we just slow down?

What is all the to-do about at this time of year? Why do we get so frantic? Maybe it’s easy for me to question since I do not celebrate Christmas — and Hanukkah (a much more minor holiday) came so early this year. Still, the social calendar is crowded, gifts need to be purchased or made for many people in our lives, there's often some traveling coming up (to be with family or take a vacation), and I cannot think of anyone who is not frazzled.

I believe that slowing down is always important. It provides space to breath, to feel, to let ideas emerge, to experience life more fully. And never is it more important to do all of that than now. In the midst of this cold and hectic season, make time for yourself. Sit and sip some wonderful tea. Step away from your desk and look out the window (there's gentle snow falling outside of mine at the moment). Send a quick note to someone you care about to tell them you're thinking of them. Create a quick 4-line poem about what you're feeling right now.

Taking a few minutes for yourself will change your whole day. Do it every day and magic happens.

Wishing you joy and relaxation, now and always.

A wonderful day of shared creativity

The latest Fuel for the Creative Core workshop was Sunday, and once again, I was delighted with the great group and wonderful energy in the room — not to mention the fabulous creative work that was done by all of the participants. (The pictures shown here are of a piece that was done by 3 participants in a group project. Their subject was a late-night wild party at a zoo and they had a blast creating it together.) 

Even the overnight snow storm couldn’t stop most of the hearty Bostonians from making it to my last workshop of the year. We settled in for a cozy day that was filled with creative talk and activity.

As I look ahead to 2014 and my upcoming workshops, I want to thank everyone who has attended a workshop with me this year. You are all amazing people. You have inspired me and one another. I have learned and grown from working with all of you, and I am very grateful.

Reflections and Gratitude

With Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday, everyone I speak to seams to be hurrying to fit a week’s worth of work into three days. People are cooking and have lots more cooking to do. Many are facing car and air travel that will surely be stressful. Hanukkah shopping and preparation is another challenge for many of us, as that holiday starts so very early this year, overlapping with Thanksgiving. In all of the rushing it’s easy to lose sight of the meaning and importance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Can we all just push the pause button and refect for a few minutes? Can we give ourselves a short and meaningful break from the hustle and bustle? Try this — I promise it will take one minute and give you lots in return.

Close your eyes, relax your shoulders and lower jaw and slowly draw in a deep, full breath. Then, slowly exhale. Make it a long and complete exhale. Repeat. Open your eyes and smile.

That’s it. A moment for yourself. A gift. A snippet of time to refresh your body and your mind.

And, if you can spare another three to five minutes, make a list of at least 12 things for which you are grateful. Beyond the things that come quickly to mind, see what you find in your heart. Maybe you’ll want to make a new list every day this week and see what comes up for you. You can use these simple practices often to bring light into your life. That's what happens when you take a little time to care for yourself and focus on the truly important things that bring you joy.

As I reflect on the past year and all that fills me with deep gratitude, I wish you a joyous holiday, safe travels, love and abundant creativity.