How To Get Creative 1-25, and Work In Progress

Work In Progress (dream catcher)
acrylic on paper
8.5x11

After a life of being creative, I think I've learned a few things. One of those things is that we are always starting over. We're always going through endings. We're always going through transformation. And we're always beginning again.

This is the process. Fighting it doesn't help, it just makes us feel guilty. Trusting the process means that we believe things will turn around, eventually. It gives us hope.

So in this period of starting over again (where did my creativity go? where?) I am going to make a list.  I like lists.

How To Get Creative

1. Start something.
2. Turn on the music and dance.
3. Take a camera and go take pictures of something.
4. Read an old journal.
5. Go to a museum or gallery or show or concert.
6. Talk to someone creative.
7. Watch a documentary about something you care about.
8. Divide a page into four sections. Fill each section with a different drawing, painting, poem, story, song.
9. Sing a song.
10. Play with clay. Create a tiny sculpture. Display it proudly.
11. Take out your old portfolio, mss, tapes, or other creative work, and look at it as if you'd never seen it before.
12. Climb a tree. Take a minute and pay attention to the view from up there.
13. Climb under a table. Take a minute and pay attention to the view from down there.
14. Cry unashamedly.
15. Take a shower and plan a great story/painting/dance routine/song while the water is running.
17. Freewrite in your journal for fifteen minuets without stopping.
18. Make something with a child.
19. Read your favorite author.
20. Write out 100 great words on little slips of paper. Fold the words and put them in a jar. Shake and pull a word or two. Create something based on those words.
21. Make a commitment to create something every day for one week, no matter how small.
22. Set an alarm for 15 minutes and be creative until that alarm goes off, no excuses and no stopping.
23. Join a class, group, workshop, community, blog party, organization, etc of like minded, creative beings.
24. Clean up your creative space.
25. Write a list of ways to be creative.

Seeing that I like lists, and since this is a process and there are a million ways to be creative, I just might come back and add to this list.

Add a comment and share your tricks to getting your creative juices flowing.

Joyful Heart and the Living

Joyful Heart Charm

Paperclay, acrylic paint and ink

30/100 in 100

How do we go from worrying about a million little (or big) things a day, to paying attention to the little (and big) things that we are living?

I'm not sure. I keep drawing pictures and making charms and writing lists to remind me. I keep taking photos, some digital, some mental. I keep remembering to take deep breaths and let them out again.

A joyful heart helps, I think. A heart in search of joy. A heart that expects joy. A heart that sings and dances and laughs. A whole person that sings and dance and laughs is good, I think.

Sometimes when things get rough and I get uncertain and I have no control over the matter, I start singing show tunes, or 80's pop songs. It's so ridiculous that it makes me laugh. And then I get silly.

What do you do to open your heart to joy? How do you let your joyful heart fill your life with living. Or is it your living that fills your heart with joy?

100 Ways to Live a Creative Life, 76-100

By now, my brother and new sister in law will have been married on a mountain top, and I, perhaps, am sitting in a back yard barbecue, allowing other people to dote on my little poopets while I take a few breaths for myself. And maybe a gin and tonic. That's my wedding drink.

Hopefully, I have been taking amazing photos for the whole weekend and have gotten in some writing in my novel while the kids sleep and I do not have access to the internet. Hopefully, I have had my mom and/or my sister take over the kids while I go wander a new town by myself, or maybe wander in the woods. Or maybe just sit under a tree and stare off into the difference. I have no idea what to expect this weekend.

Maybe I can get in some of the suggestions I am making for living a creative life. Here are 25 more for you.

76. Go thrift shopping or yard sale-ing and look for things to inspire your creativity. Supplies. Instruments. Collections. Old photos. Think about what you COULD do with the things you see, not just what they are or have been used for.

77. Host an art party. You can provide the art supplies and some snacks. Set up in the yard or a park. Sit around and talk and listen to music and paint or draw the day away.

78. Keep a notebook by your bed so that you can write down those fleeting thoughts that often come as you are falling asleep and your conscious mind lets go a little.

79. Join an online creativity challenge or prompt, like this or this.

80. Create a fairy house in a hidden spot in the park or your yard. Using only what materials you can find, build a house for fairies or children of all ages to find.

81. Watch a great movie, listen to a great song, go to a great museum, read a great book, enjoy a great performance... and then create a response to it. It's a grand old creative tradition to write about other artworks. Give back to those creations you already love.

82. Give yourself a living challenge. For one day, do not say "no" to anything... or do not say "yes", whatever you need to do to push yourself out of your comfort zone.

83. Have a taco bar dinner... or an omelet bar brunch... or a sundae bar dessert... or a pizza bar lunch. Whichever it is, set out all the ingredients, including some adventurous ones, and allow everyone to create their own version of yumminess.

84. Hang up beautiful fabric. It could be an old quilt that has been hiding in a chest, or a tapestry from another country, or some lovely silk scarves or a kimono you never wear or those vintage dresses that you love. Hang them up and revel in their beauty outside of their functionality.

85. Fill a bowl with fruit. Leave it out as a centerpiece. Draw it. Photograph it. Enjoy it. Eat it. There is nothing as fruitful as fruit.

86. This is a long term project, but one that takes very little time each session. Take a self portrait in the same outfit or in the same place or in the same pose on the same day every year. Do the same for your children and spouse. You will have a documentation of your lives that is hard to beat.

87. Or challenge yourself to take at least one picture a day for a whole year. That's a different kind of documentation of your life.

88. Watch a documentary and allow it to inspire your creativity. Write a story or a poem set in that time and place. Paint a picture based on those facts and details.

89. Challenge yourself to perform in public. Do karaoke or a poetry slam. Play guitar at a cafe open house. Sing songs for a group of toddlers. Audition for community theater.

90. Draw an outline of your hand like you did when you were a kid making turkeys for Thanksgiving. This time, fill your hand with words or drawings or paint or collage. The only thing that limits you is the outline you drew, and that's not even a real limit, more like a guide.

91. Call a distant loved one and sing them a song over the phone.

92. Take an old book and alter it. Paint the pages, tear some out. Collage inside of it. Cut and reassemble the words into something else. Hollow out the pages and fill the hollow with something surprising. Get over your aversion to writing in books and make one your own.

93. Set up a lemonade stand and give away handmade postcards with each glass of lemonade.

94. Dress up for Halloween in a homemade costume. Or dress up for a costume party. Or just dress up for dress up, no occasion needed.

95. Find a small box, match box, cigar box, what have you, and fill it with wishes. You can create an assemblage of lovely things, or a collage inside of it, or you can just write your wishes on small strips of paper, or draw them out and use the box as the receptacle for your dreams.

96. Teach someone else something creative that you already know how to do. No one learns more than the teacher.

97. Go somewhere new, whether a new country or a new city or a new park or a new store. Look at things with new eyes.

98. Collect quotes that inspire your creativity.

99. Go on a nature walk. Collect beautiful things. Display them in a bowl or in a collage or through photography, or pressed in a book.

100. Believe. I wanted 100 to be special, and it came to me from out of nowhere. The one thing that allows you to live a creative life more than anything is the belief that you deserve one, the belief that you are creative, the belief that it is worthwhile, the belief that you are brave enough, the belief that you can explore and try new things and create something beautiful, so just believe in yourself and your creativity.

100 Ways to Live a Creative Life, 51-75

51. If work or school seems to be getting in the way of your creativity, use it to fuel your creativity, instead. Write a poem about the assignment. Use images from your studies or your job to create a collage. Use the research you are already doing to write a story. Use clients or classmates or coworkers as characters.

52. Paint your toenails all different colors.

53. Bake something as a present for someone else. Give them a recipe card to go along with it.

54. Start a blog. For goodness sake. It will help you write more often, make you more aware of images and photography, help you develop a creative community.

55. Show people your art. Share your writing. Sing them a song. This takes some bravery, but it fuels your own creativity to see your work in their eyes.

56. Ask to see other people's work. If they talk about being creative, be open to them. Talk with them about their own work.

57. Turn on a great song and dance wildly around the room. Alone or with other people, just dance.

58. Stand on your head.

59. When you take a plane or a train or a bus, bring along your creative work. A journal, knitting, a sketchbook, a camera. Take advantage of that time to be creative. Take photos out the window. Sketch your fellow passengers. Write your thoughts as you flow through space and time.

60. Weed your garden. Throw out old clothes. Get rid of old magazines. Give away books that you will not read again. Purge your life of the things that are useless, cluttering and unloved. Then go back to your creative work with that editing mindset, and clean things up in that arena.

61. Go through your old creative output. Photo albums, journals, portfolios, projects, videos of performances, ignored stories and poems. Take stock of what you have done in the past. Love what is good. Honor your own creativity. Pay attention to how you have grown and what you have learned.

62. Start a window garden.

63. Make some ink blots. Spill a few drops of paint or ink on a page and fold it over. Open it up and marvel at the beauty that can come from a mess.

64. Begin a collection. Hone your eye for beauty and color and shape and order.

65. Display the artwork that you already have so that your home is full of inspiration every where you turn. Get frames and hand the work, or prop canvases against the wall.

66. Before you go to bed at night, write about what you did that was creative that day and what you would like to do the next day.

67. Look at negative space, the space AROUND an object. Try to draw that negative space... the area between the chair slats, not the chair itself. The air around the pear, not the pear.

68. Paint a room. Change the color. Indulge in paint chips from the hardware store and dive into thoughts of the world that is color. Look at your favorite colors in your wardrobe and life. Go through magazines to see color schemes that you like. Pick a color and go with it. If it doesn't work out, you can paint it again.

69. Write an ode to your favorite food.

70. Host a dinner (or a tea or a cocktail party or a pizza party or a dessert tasting) and set the stage. Create a table you might see in a magazine. Decorate with flowers and candles. Have it outside under a flowering tree. Allow other people into your creative life.

71. Create your own creative space. A desk, a chair, supplies. A place you can go to work without interruption, for however long you have. If that doesn't work, create a creative station that you can carry with you-- a basket or bag filled with art supplies-- and carry it wherever you go so you can be creative where you are. Or set up a space in a family area that allows you to take advantage of those few moments while the kids are watching cartoons or the food is on the stove. No one says being creative has to be in one place or look like one thing.

72. Get up half an hour early or stay up half an hour later than everyone else. Use that time to create without interruption.

73. Or hide away in the bathroom to plan your next project.

74. Start a project with your partner or with a friend or with your child. Both try to write a play, compete to see who can write more pages. Try taking photos to go along with their poems. Have them serve as a reader for your novel. Or if they are not creative, ask them to hold you accountable to your project. Knit a hat for them.

75. Trade child care with another friend, creative or otherwise. You take her kid, so she can have her me time, then a few days later she can take yours, and you can spend some times being creative.

100 Ways to Live a Creative Life, 26-50

Here it is! The continuation of 100 things to do to live a creative life. It's too big to post all at once, and I felt even posting them consecutively would be too dense, so I'm taking my brother's upcoming wedding as the opportunity to back post some material.

I'm still home, but busy with packing and getting the littles and myself ready for a road trip to South Carolina. I'll be gone until late Sunday night, so look for some more creative tips this weekend.

26. Lay on your back under a tree for fifteen minutes. Watch the leaves and sun and shadows. Let yourself be inspired by that.

27. Empty out your bag and draw or photograph the contents.

28. Take your lunch hour and visit a gallery or museum.

29. Listen to a favorite album from your past. Reflect on how far you have come.

30. Take a walk in a familiar or unfamiliar neighborhood. Look for things you have never seen before.

31. Draw a shadow.

32. Go someplace where there are a lot of people. Just sit and people watch. Allow yourself to be. Allow them to be. Look at all the marvelous ways people are unique.

33. Draw a picture of your monsters. These are the monsters you see when you sleep at night. The monsters that are in your memory. The monsters that tell you what you can't do or how you are no good. Draw them, then tell them to shut it.

34. Keep a flower by your bedside.

35. Get a corkboard or string up a cord with clothespins. Keep an inspiration board. Any time you find something beautiful or meaningful or inspirational, pin it up there. Keep this where you can look at it and let it inspire your work.

36. Have fun with paper. Make a paper hat or a paper plane, a football, or one of those finger games where you flip it around to find out your future. Make a paper crane. Have some scissors handy? Cut out some paperdolls, or paper animals. Snowflakes. Paper is everywhere, explore what you can do with it.

37. Leave post it notes with inspirational messages on them in places where people can see them.

38. Put a secret on a postcard, send it in to Postsecret.

39. Learn a new hobby or pick up an old one that you can do during quiet times, like watching tv at night or hanging with your partner. Knitting, sewing, painting... something that you can do with your hands but leaves the rest of you still present.

40. Organize your life by color. The cupboards, your closets, the bookshelves, collections, photographs. Use the rainbow to reinterpret your daily life. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. It's surprising how different things look when they are placed in a color scheme.

41. Walk around with a hand mirror. Look at the world through this mirror. You become very accustomed to what you see. Looking at it in the reverse can help you see things that have gone invisible.

42. Stand on a table, or a bench. Get up high and look at the world. It looks different. It feels different.

43. Get down low. Sit under the table or over in a corner. Crawl around and realize all the things that are going on at this low level. This is what children see, and pets. It's a new experience.

44. Don't wash the dishes. Go out and see the sunset.

45. Wash the dishes. Put on some music or just allow the world to be full of splashing and clinking. Feel the water, the warmth, the suds, the slippery dishes, the different textures.

46. Pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano. Remember that instrument you took lessons on when you were 12? Play it. Don't try to follow any music if you don't want to, or do. Pick out an old favorite song by sound. Make up your own. Experiment with chords and fingering and all the sounds that you can make when you just try to make music.

47. Sing. Sing while you are watering the plants. Sing while you are going to the mail box. Sing while you are walking from the car to the store, sing while you shop. Sing the kid to sleep, sing some old games like B.I.N.G.O. Sing along to the radio, sing in the shower. Just sing, sing a song.

48. Take a walk in the rain. No umbrella. (One caveat, make sure it is not freezing rain and you have some dry clothes for later, or at least a place to go without air conditioning. I speak from experience.)

49. Get some chalk and draw on the sidewalk. With kids, without. Who cares. What would you like to see?

50. Instead of simply writing out your To Do list, try to map it out. Sketch a map of the route you would take to get your To Do list done. Draw symbols for your goals. Or do it the other way around. Draw the map out of what you did that day and where you went.

100 Ways to Live a Creative Life, 1-25

Today I was filled with the desire to write out 100 things to do to lead a creative life.

Wha-a-at?!

Are you crazy girl? Don't you have kids to watch? Shopping lists to make? Novels to write? Bravery to be?

Maybe, but I was feeling grumpy and small and pulled this way and that, and I wanted to stop and think about creativity, and how I can make it part of my every day life. Some of these ways are things that I have already done, some are things that I would like to do, some are things that I don't know if I'm up to.

As I wrote out my list, some things came clear to me, though. Being creative is about seeing the world and paying attention to what it actually is. It is about questioning the old ways of doing things. It is about experimenting with media. It is about playing and having fun. It is about taking the care to see things and make things that are beautiful and meaningful and loved.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. It is only partial and really off of the top of my head. I am not a musician or a dancer or an actor, so I must admit those areas are skimpy. As are crafty projects or cooking or gardening or other creative pursuits that I know even less about. It's also rather geared towards women, sorry dudes, that's the hand I was dealt. Feel free to adjust to your masculine masculinity. It's list meant to inspire, not as a set of rules, anyway. Not every woman has kids, either, and I write from that perspective, too.

I am also going to break it up, because it is really long. So you'll have to stay tuned to see the rest. I welcome any suggestions or additions in the comments. We always need new ways to perk up our creativity.

1. Keep a small camera always on your person. Whip it out whenever something strikes you as lovely. Take pictures. Flowers, people, clouds, cars, buildings, anything you see can be fodder for your creativity.

2. Pay attention to the daily things. Take, for instance, breakfast. Don't just stand at the counter gobbling a breakfast bar. Feed your soul by feeding your body. Make your meal an event, even if a small one. Pick a flower for your table. Grace your cereal with blueberries. Use your best china. Sit outside and breathe in the morning. Imagine it is a celebratory breakfast, and what you are celebrating is your ability to be creative.

3. Turn off the tv and paint a picture instead, just for the time that you would have watched the show. Which would make you happier? Half an hour of a syndicated sitcom, or half an hour of painting a picture?

4. Carry a small notebook with you. Use this notebook specifically for creative ideas, brilliant thoughts, little sketches. Don't let those wonderful ideas pass you by, capture them in your notebook.

5. Make up stories and tell them to your kids and scribble them down when they go to sleep.

6. Fill your home with vignettes. Your mantel, your dining table, a bookshelf, counter top, bedside table. Bring out your collections and group lovely things together. Use scarves or scrap fabric for draping, books or boxes as pedestals. Group in themes or color schemes. Remember to add height. Rearrange things until they please you.

7. Find some books and/or magazines that feature creativity you admire. Read those instead of doing the crossword or while waiting on line. You can go to the library, you don't even have to buy them.

8. Take a recipe and change it up. Or take two recipes and put them together. Experiment in the kitchen. Write down what you have done and how you got there. Take a picture of it.

9. Next time someone has a birthday, make a card for them, instead of buying one. It doesn't have to be fancy if you don't want it to. Simple words, simple images, a fine doodle, a collage with stamps. Give someone your small work of art, it's worth more than a store bought thing.

10. Doodle when you are on the phone or in a meeting. Then paint the resulting doodle. Hang it up as if it were fine art.

11. Spend 10 minutes every morning before you get up writing in a journal without stopping, without reading. Just write write write. You don't ever have to go back in to the journal, just let it flow. Make it a daily practice. Yes, these are the Morning Pages.

12. Start your own list. Write down all the creative projects or ideas you would like to do. Every time you have a free fifteen minutes, take a look at the list and work on something from it. You can make it the same item every time, or pick a new thing, but it's good to have evidence of your creative ambitions. It's good to remember them.

13. Next time your kid does something creative, play along. When was the last time you did finger paints or put on a puppet show or messed with some clay? And you don't have to have kids for this one, just play like you did when you were little.

14. Get a package of balloons and blow them up. Toss them around. Draw on them with markers and make faces or flowers or monsters. Play.

15. Schedule an artist's date with a friend. Bring sketch books and draw the park. Go to the museum. Write poems and share. Go to a dance performance. Read Shakespeare out loud to each other.

16. Take a creative class. You are much more likely to spend time in your creative pursuits if you have made the declaration by signing up, and even, oh my, PAYING for that class. Make the commitment with others as witness. Do it and enjoy your You time. You earned it.

17. Remember your dreams. Write them down. Or create a song from them. Or paint them. Or collage them.

18. Create an unexpected flower arrangement. Play with colors and textures. Search for unusual additions, leaves, twigs, seedpods, fruits or vegetables, grasses, ornaments, whatever strikes your fancy. You can buy these things, or just search them out in your actual environment. Is that a weed... or a stunning arrangement?

19. Write a poem while at a stop light, or between subway stations, or while the bathtub fills, or while on line at the post office. The point is to make it quick, and low stress. Do not worry if it makes sense. It's only something you dashed off while the light changed. Let your brain flow free. You just might surprise yourself with what you end up with.

20. Carry a glue stick and scissors with you and collect little pieces of paper that you come across. Receipts, postcards, business cards, brochures, wrappers, whatever. Glue them in your journal and collage about your day. Add writing as you go or later on.

21. Shake up your wardrobe. Don't just wear the same old same old. Put on that antique necklace of your grandmother's that you never wear. Take out your fancy wedding shoes and wear them with your jeans. Put together a dress and a sweater you wouldn't normally do. Wear scarves around your neck, or your wrist. Rock it like Carrie Bradshaw.

22. Eat lunch somewhere new. Have a sandwich on the front stoop. Sit at a fountain down town. Try that new restaurant you have always been afraid/in awe of. Sit in a window and look out at the world. Lay out a blanket in your bedroom and have a picnic there.

23. Turn the tv off and look into the reflection on the darkened screened. Doesn't your room look different in there?

24. Get a deck of tarot cards and pull a card a day. As you go about your day, think about how that tarot card reflects upon what happens to you and how you react to the world. You can use other forms of wisdom, too. The I Ching, the Medicine Cards, The Bible or your Riverside Shakespeare for quotes. Heck, you could use a Dr Seuss book for this.

25. Cut open a fruit and look at what is inside. Draw it. Write a poem about it. Use it as a writing prompt. Press it in ink and make a stamp out of it. Even an everyday apple, when you cut it crosswise, looks new and different.

to be continued