8.08.2012

Unlocking Your Creative Spirit

A few weeks ago, I ordered a book I'd been jonesing for on Amazon, The Crafter's Devotional: 365 Days of Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Unlocking Your Creative Spirit by Barbara R. Call. I finally finished it last night after reading a few pages every night at bedtime. It's super fabulous and really, truly full of neat tips, trick and techniques for finding inspirational every day.

This book includes everything from beginning beading, collage and scrapbooking, image transfers, altering books as well as ideas like taking your work outside for day, creating a 3D family tree and making your own journals for thinking and reflecting.

I experienced a couple synchronicities with this book. Most notably, I received a coaching newsletter talking about gratitude and how to experience it daily, almost like a meditation. One of the last weeks covered in my book was about starting a gratitude journal: finding 5 things to be thankful for every day. Could be as small as "I'm grateful for my hilarious pets," or something as momentous as "I'm grateful for the raise I received at work today."

One of the things I'm grateful for my friends and family who are working hard to get my Indiegogo campaign off the ground this first week.

Another thing my book talked about was the concept developed by Julie Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, called "filling the well." Every creative person has a "well" inside them where their ideas come from. Julia Cameron said that we must fill that well regularly or risk it running dry and leaving us without any inspiration from which to work. Julia created "Artist Dates" where you take 2 hours a week and visit a zoo, take a long hike, go to a museum and fill your well with images, colors, sights and sounds to inspire the rest of your week.

I've already planned out some Artist Dates with myself for the next few weeks: the local zen & rose garden, a sculpture garden, a beautiful 19th century church in downtown Houston, the beach and the Jung Center of Houston. All free save for what it costs in gas to get there. I find that surrounding myself with nature fills my well more rapidly than seeing a movie or visiting a museum.

What are ways you choose to fill your well?

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