The process of creating is as much about the time spent not creating—and how you use that time in service to creativity—as it is about the time spent actively engaging with making art. I am a huge walker and daydreamer. I might say that I’m a professional daydreamer. And that’s always been the case: the […] Continue Reading
Creative Sparks
Real tools and firelight for artists and dreamers to create inspired lives
Letting in the Wondrous: How to Cultivate the Optimum State for Creativity
For me, the essential “trick” to creating my best work is to cultivate that inner state in which I release conscious control and open to influence. I enter the wildness and wilderness, that state in which I can let the wind of inspiration blow through me, allow the strange to happen, the wondrous to seep through the cracks. It’s all about availability and surprise. Continue Reading
A Little Beauty Every Day
“Filling a space in a beautiful way – that is what art means to me.” –Georgia O’Keefe I find myself thinking a lot about this idea of making a little beauty everyday, to which I was introduced by Laurie Anderson via Austin Kleon’s brilliant, down-to-earth book on creativity, Keep Going. I wrote about this previously, but […] Continue Reading
Creation and Revision: Letting Your Art Find Its Radiant Form
The process of revision or honing, polishing and shaping a work of art is one that often stumps creative people. Where to begin? How to go about making the work stronger, better, truer to itself? Will I ruin it in the process? What to cut, keep, add, change? Some time ago I published a post […] Continue Reading
7 Steps to Inspire Your Creativity Again and Again
How do you foster inspired creativity? And how do you know when you’ve had a good creative day? Is it when you have finished a wonderful painting, written 1000 words, or worked out the ending to your dance piece? Or is it when you spent four hours in your studio, puttering around, seemingly accomplishing nothing? […] Continue Reading
Are You Trying to Do Too Much?
Find what’s yours and leave the rest This past year, our world has turned more virtual than ever. Every event, concert, class and workshop is happening online now, thanks to the pandemic. Suddenly, we are not limited to what’s happening in our own town or even our state or country. We have an overwhelm of […] Continue Reading
2020 My Year In Review— Amazing, Terrible, Full
At the end of every year I pause to harvest the blessings, learnings, challenges and losses of the outgoing year. I give myself space to honor and celebrate my life, to learn from the past, clean my slate, replenish, and prepare to set a new vision for the year to come. Here are the highlights […] Continue Reading
Finding Your North Star to Guide Your Year
Have you named dreams, intentions or desires for the year ahead? Have you sat down to connect with soul-inspired vision? Or does that all feel hopeless in the light of the upheaval of our times? How can we possibly plan? Why bother? When you take the time to connect with, and clearly name, your heart-centered, […] Continue Reading
How to Harvest Your Year
We have come to the end of this crazy year 2020. At last. It’s time to take stock, to gather the harvest of the year. It’s time to acknowledge, celebrate, mourn, forgive, release. The hard and awful, the joyful and blessed, the crazy, stressful, beautiful, boring, all of it. In that way, you clean the […] Continue Reading
Growing Through Your Art and the Art of Others
Making art is an evolutionary process. As we create, we grow as artists and as people. We continually evolve, learning new skills, testing new ideas, adventuring into new territory. And we are tried by our materials, by our limits, by our dreams for what we wish to create. When we look at the work of […] Continue Reading
