I have been playing this month with the idea of responsibility in my creative work. To what and whom am I responsible in my art? Here, I share some thoughts, findings and inspiration for your own creative, soulful life.
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Scenes from the Past: A Creativity Prompt
In my post last week, I shared with you how to get inspiration and training by copying the masters of your art form and translating what you learn to your own unique style. If you missed that, click here for Great Artists Steal or How to Learn from the Masters.
This week, I promised you a new creative “prompt” or idea to jumpstart your own inspiration and creativity.
What the Heck is a Prompt?
A prompt is an idea or jumping off point for creating new work. Its purpose is to get the creative juices flowing and open you to new directions that may prove very fertile. A prompt may inspire, challenge, delight or motivate, or all of the above.
Many artists share that their best work often comes from prompts given by others.
Using prompts is a great way to:
- Move past artist’s block and get started creating anything.
- Get inspired.
- Expand your creative possibilities.
- Discover new tools.
- Create new work that may surprise you.
A New Idea for You Today
I have been reading poet Charles Simic’s recent book, Master of Disguises. Simic is a Pulitzer-Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate. Despite that, I don’t really love his writing, though I can appreciate its artistry. It’s just not my style. In fact, it’s about as far from my style as you can get. And that’s one reason he can be a good source for me to learn from, a good master to copy.
Here’s the prompt I created for myself from reading one of his poems. First the poem that inspired it.
Scenes of the Old Life
Washing hung from the fire escapes.
Boys threw cats from rooftops.
War veterans hopped on crutches,
Pitching pennies and smoking reefers.
Pitching pennies and smoking reefers.
Writers destined to remain obscure
Wrote late into the night
Using a pencil and the kind of notebook
Their children took to school in the morning.
Wrote late into the night
Using a pencil and the kind of notebook
Their children took to school in the morning.
Outside a club advertising exotic dancing girls,
A man in a crumpled white suit
Staggered with a knife in his heart,
One dark eyebrow raised in surprise.
In winter, rain fell as if it meant to fall forever.
We kept the gas oven lit to warm ourselves,
While mother cried and cried chopping onions
And my one goldfish swam in a pickle jar.
—Charles Simic
Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It
Copy Charles Simic’s poem “Scenes of the Old Life” formally as exactly as possible. Here’s how.
- Start simply by making a list of strong images that are memories from your childhood. Get a good sized list. Notice how Simic chooses images from his environment and then narrows down to one that is quite personal at the end of the poem.
- Choose the strongest of the scenes or images from your list, paring them down to ones that create a cohesive or similar mood throughout the poem, as Simic does.
- Make a poem that follows Simic’s form exactly. You may need to choose images/scenes that work best to do this.
To follow his form, your poem will:
- Be made entirely of striking images/short scenes.
- Express each image in a short pithy line or a few lines. If you want to completely follow his form, you might use the same number of lines for each of your images or scenes that he does. In Simic’s poem, the first line is one image, the second line another, and the last two lines of the first stanza are a third image. Are they all one scene? That’s for you to decide. The next stanza is clearly one scene.
- Be a poem of 4 stanzas made of 4 lines each (called a quatrain).
- Use simple, straight-forward syntax and language, be made of complete grammatical sentences.
- Contain many “end-stopped” lines (though not all of them), meaning the line ends with a comma or period.
- Mention the season at some point (as he mentions winter).
Once you’ve created a first draft, feel free to edit, revise or stray from the form in some ways to make the best poem you can.
Translate the Same Prompt to Other Media
photo by Olena Kotyk on Unsplash
If you are not a poet, you can start by making the same list of potent images from your childhood, including one set in a particular season. Then, make a painting, drawing, sculpture, musical piece or dance piece, based on a collection of those “scenes.”
You might make a rule for yourself that you have to use the same number of different scenes or images that he does. Or you might decide you are going to make a painting divided into four equal squares, each with a scene in it, as he has four stanzas in his poem.
If you feel stumped, start small. Give yourself the assignment to make a 1-minute dance piece or to do a 10-minute sketch based on one particularly striking scene. If you don’t make representational art, make something that conjures the images or feelings evoked by the list of scenes.
The idea is to stretch yourself and see what you learn and discover.
I’d love to hear how it goes for you.
P.S. Please share this post with friends who might be inspired to create new work, using the share buttons below!
P.P.S. To learn more about poet Charles Simic and read more of his poems online, click here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic
On Devotion to Creativity: A Life, A Path
I Am Devoted to Beauty and Creation
Some days all i can truly do is write. It’s all i can do truly, with a whole heart, with devotion. This is what’s given to me, and it’s a lot.
What jewels have been laid in my hands—I am awestruck, fascinated, dutiful, grateful. How could i possibly organize my life any differently than around these jewels?
Writing is my listening, how i tune my ear to the worlds, all of them—or whichever chooses to haunt me now.
Beauty is incredibly important to me. To actually capture beauty in the hand for a moment, more than once, more than just a lucky break, that takes deep work, to devote your life to something.
I’m interested in devotion, that profound movement of the heart—offering, sacrifice, surrender. How much it takes and how much it gives us in return. You can’t force it or fake it. It has to arise organically in the heart. But you can commit yourself to it consciously, once you feel it start.
Devotion is like a small, worthy boat that holds and carries us across waters now stormy, now calm, so that we can see astonishing lands, become salt-worn, washed whole, a part of sea and sky.
Creativity Is Not a Chore
by Averie Woodard
Creativity is not something i make myself do. It’s something i open myself to do.
I tend the garden, create the right conditions, the proper soil, show up lovingly, and work with my hands in the dirt, grateful for rain when it comes, grateful for sun, for blossoms and ripe fruit. I’m happy to tend to the slow care of picking caterpillars off the stems, cutting away the dead heads and stalks, mulching with the unused portions, watering daily. I know the seeds will flower in time.
Why would i complain about the work of creating? I’m honored to be given these seeds, this plot of ground, this longing. And entranced by the miracle of growth, new life—every time. Entranced by the process of growth and the care it takes to create art. Entranced to be in my garden of creativity, feet muddy, knees in the soil, dirt under my nails.
This is the place i feel most home, most right, at peace, one with all, belonging—even in the struggles. Outside my garden of creation there are precious few places i feel as well. Ritual is one of them, any kind of communion with the All, being in nature, around a fire, and often when i am teaching.
But, that garden of creation and communion is my first home, my path of devotion, my sacred work, my divine play.
Explore Devotion, That Magic Power
What are you truly devoted to in your life? What do you give your whole heart to, sacrifice time, money or other opportunities to follow?
What are the rewards of that devotion?
What do you care about or want more of in your life that you could be more devoted to? How would you express that devotion?
You may wish to journal about these questions, to dive deeply into them and see what arises for you. Remember, devotion is a movement of the heart. It’s not another “should.”
Please share your responses in the comments below, so we can continue the conversation.
And if you liked what you read here, share this post with a friend using the share buttons below. Help me spread the love.
To your devoted life,
The Seasons of a Creative Life ~ Part 4: Winter
This is the final post in a 4-part series on the Seasons of a Creative Life. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here.
In the Winter we turn inward for renewal and replenishment.
It may feel like nothing is happening, like we have dried up and have no more good ideas or inspiration or energy for creativity. We are tempted to panic.
But this season is needed too.
This is a time for absorbing new sources of inspiration—reading great books, watching films, listening to music, going to art shows, following our passions and interests, trusting the process, even though it is not yet yielding any outer work.
We may, in fact, during this phase be continuing to go to our studio every day—that’s good!—even though nothing is flowing. We are not creating anything we like. Have patience!
Winter: A Time of Mystery and Transformation
Many changes are taking place in the dark under the soil. Many new seeds are waiting to sprout.
Before a transformation in our style, a breakthrough to something new, we often go through a kind of death of the old, which can feel painful and bewildering and scary.
This is winter. Everything looks dead and frozen, but tremendous things are happening within, waiting for the conditions of spring to burst forth again.
Keep Feeding Your Inner Life
Make use of this time by going within, getting to know yourself better, mining your history, your fascinations, your emotions for new directions.
This is also a great time for inner transformational work, to clear new pathways within.
In the winter, we read seed catalogs and plan our gardens, letting ourselves freely dream and imagine. We also let ourselves slow down, rest and renew, so that we can have energy for the spring and summer ahead.
If You Get Stuck in Winter
Sometimes we get stuck in winter. Uninspired and feeling lifeless, we don’t have the energy or hope to dream. We are in the doldrums.
If that is happening, it can be wise to get some help. Take a class to get new inspiration or reach out from some one-on-one mentoring from me to get your creative juices and enthusiasm flowing again and open up possibilities in your life you may never have even dreamed were possible.
Trust the Wisdom of the Seasons
When we think we should always be inspired and flowing, we are making unfair demands on ourselves. We blame ourselves or our circumstances for something being amiss. Really it may be that nothing is wrong. We are simply in another season with different gifts that we can use, if we become aware of them.
Start to notice the cycles in your creative life and to flow with them, rather than resisting them.
How can I make use of this time to further my creativity and creative dreams?
Is this a time for gathering new sources of inspiration and studying new skills?
Or is it a time for collaboration and sharing of work?
Is this a time for creating lots of new first drafts, just letting them pour out without censoring or judging?
Or is this a time for revising and revisiting, seeing how I can improve on earlier work?
Every season has its blessings and is needed to complete the full cycle of creation.
Share below what you got from reading this post. I’d love to hear. And, of course, if it feels valuable, share it with a friend.
The Seasons of a Creative Life ~ Part 3: Autumn
This is part 3 in a 4-part series on The Seasons of a Creative Life. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
Just as the season of summer does not last all year, neither does the summer of our creative life.
Autumn comes and, with it, a period of harvesting and then pruning.
In the natural world, we see things fall away, die back and turn colder during this time.
In our creative lives, this is the time for bringing projects to completion, revising, refining, and also honing our skills. A priceless time.
Autumn: A Time of Learning and Discerning
The autumn of our creativity is when we have the energy for studying new tools, looking with a discerning eye at our works and seeing how they can be made better. You may not feel the inspiration of new ideas flowing, but it is just as valuable and important to go over your first and second and third drafts and make improvements, learn from your mistakes, and practice new skills, to grow as an artist.
Autumn: The Final Harvest
In the harvesting phase, we have the focus and discernment to refine our projects and bring them to completion. Letting ourselves complete a project is necessary to make inner space for something new in the next springtime cycle.
In the next post, we’ll talk about the winter of our creative lives and how it paves the way for spring. Stay tuned!
If you want ongoing support, guidance and community to help you navigate the seasons of your creativity so you can really thrive and shine, join me here.
The Seasons of a Creative Life ~ Part 2: Summer
This is part 2 of a 4-part series of the Seasons of a Creative Life. If you missed part 1, read it here.
Following the period of initial inspiration, the Springtime of your creative cycles, comes Summer.
Summer is a time of tending our new shoots and watching them grow, watering, feeding, and weeding.
This is the period of working on our creative projects with devotion, logging the hours it takes to bring something from seed to fruit. This is where you put in regular “studio time” so those precious, bright ideas can become actual finished pieces.
Summer: A Time of Sustained Growth
The summer of our creative life is the middle of writing the novel, making the painting, choreographing the dance piece, or building the house. You are riding the current of the initial ideas and sustaining the growth to bring your project or dream to completion.
This is the phase in my IMAGINE Dreamtending process that I call GROW. This is when you grow your dream from its first shoots into a full, healthy plant.
At this cycle, you need structure, a map or plan, a way to break your big goal down into do-able steps. You need support, feedback and regular doses of inspiration, so you can keep going.
Summer: A Time of Sharing
Summer is also an expansive, outward-focused time in the natural world. We tend to be more playful and more social in this season. In the summer of your creative life, this is a time to put on shows, give readings or performances, send your work out in the world or find ways to share it with others, even if it is just a few others. You might want to collaborate on a project at this time.
Our creative lives need this sharing of our ideas and creations in order to feel meaningful and complete, in order to keep generating energy and enthusiasm to create. If you are lacking in creative community or places to share your work, you are missing a key, essential element in a creative life. (See my book 6 Essential Ingredients of a Thriving Creative Life.)
If that is the case for you, take a class, join or start a group, rent studio space in a collective, host a creative salon in your living room, find like-minded people who are up to similar things that you can be in creative conversation with.
In my next post, we’ll visit the creative season of Autumn and learn how valuable and essential that season is.
