Creative Process
By Chris Dunmire
What is creativity? You may get a different response depending on who you ask, but studying the concept reveals creativity permeates all aspects of life from personal creation and artistic expression to collaborative business innovation, relationships, and problem solving in every realm possible. When we consider standard definitions of creativity, we see it involves both an innate ability and a process repeatedly engaged in as we move through our days to meet challenges and find solutions, not just as artists or inventors, but as every kind of person in every profession in every aspect of life.
Artist Spotlight
By Chris Dunmire
Joy Sikorski was the best-selling author of How to Draw a Radish: And Other Fun Things to Do at Work along with a series of 'how to draw books' featured in art museum bookshops across the nation including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim Museum.
Enjoy a sampling of Joy's whimsical style in this fun collection of art lessons from her books Squeaky Chalk and How to Draw a Clam that includes a rolling vacation car, flapping Pterodactyl, long-tailed flying kite, dogs galore, cute piglet, and original twitter bird, along with insights from her interview about creativity, being an artist, publishing a book, and the legacy she desired to leave behind through her work.
The Holy Wild
By Danielle Dulsky
To be human is to be tasked to create. We are born with the capacity to feel deeply for a reason, with the instinct to make something new out of the old and birth some great majesty from the union between body and imagination. To place restrictions on a woman's sensuality is also to restrain her creativity, and the Maiden of the Unbridled Sensual has awakened her art through whole-body feeling and the continual validation of her emotions. In Salome's revisioned tale, the Crone-Mermaid grants the Maiden permission with only a single glance. This odd creature symbolizes the union of playful creativity with seasoned, grandmotherly wisdom. She is the ultimate creatrix, a living and joyous work of art who is the knowing elder. Her very presence as a witness to the beginnings of Salome's self-designed ceremony is heartening, spurring the Maiden forward and reflecting back to her this truth: She is the living, breathing antidote to all that would poison the creative and sensual empowerment of the feminine.
Elemental Muses
When I reflect upon the element of earth, this is what comes immediately to mind: The importance of allowing your creative work to be the foundation you stand upon. Inspiration is not just some flight of fancy. It is the air you breathe; the water you gulp down when you are thirsty; the bread that fills your belly. The process and products of your creative work will feed your soul, if you let them. They can fill your belly, too, providing an important source of income, and an influx of resources and contacts you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
Writing from the Deeper Self
By Naomi Rose
Sometimes you can be in such an inspired and aligned state that every word you write is a keeper, and there's nothing to do at the end but raise your eyes to the heavens and give thanks, then go take a walk or a bath, or play with your child or your cat. But more often, what you write will be a first draft, to be refined over time by further thinking, sensing, and leaps of understanding. Unless you have had a lot of experience doing first drafts, and then seeing how they lead to more clear, full, and subtle refinements — and even if you have had experience — it can be frustrating to have to withstand the impatience and edginess that writing a first draft brings about./p>
Inspiring Creativity Interviews
By Chris Dunmire
Joy Sikorski was the best-selling author of How to Draw a Radish: And Other Fun Things to Do at Work and a series of other 'how to draw' books featured in Starbucks and at art museum bookshops across the nation, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tampa Art Museum, and Salvador Dali Museum. In this inspiring interview, Joy discusses her life as an artist and author and desire for her legacy "to let everyone know that they can draw" through her whimsical work.
Art of the Song
By Eric Maisel, PhD
In order to create, we must take the bad with the good. You are bound to write many bad paragraphs along with the good ones. That is the eternal law. You can get rid of those bad paragraphs later but first you must write them. Otherwise you won't write anything. If you try to write only the good paragraphs, you are three-quarters of the way toward paralysis. The name for this problem is "perfectionism." But people afflicted aren't striving to be perfect. They simply do not understand that the good requires the bad, that getting to the good is a process that includes mistakes and messes.
Creative Projects
By Ernestina Gallina
This engaging series of rock painting tutorials will teach you how to transform smooth river stones into unique works of art. Once you understand the fundamentals of rock painting, you can use your imagination to design your own creations with endless possibilities! Step by step rock painting lessons include: Cute Love Bugs, Basket of Pansies, Messages and Quotes Written in Stone, and Painted Desert Cactus in Flower Planter.
Premiums and Printables
By Chris Dunmire
Did you know memory-boosting exercises help improve brain function and positively impact your creative ability as you age? That's why so many sage people are addicted to puzzles like word searches and Sudoku! Here's a playful way to exercise your memory and boost your brainpower: Play my Tree-mendous Memory! game. It comes in two editions: Fall and Spring and can be downloaded in four different styles.
Fostering Creativity
By Abby Connors
Picasso famously stated, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Anyone who lives or works with young children knows they truly are artists, buzzing with creativity, filled with wonder, curiosity, and fresh new ideas. Every child is creative, but too many children lose some or most of their creativity as they grow to adulthood.
Kaizen-Muse™ Body Blissmas
By Jill Badonsky, MEd
Embrace an inspiration; set free an expression and in between, let the flow be effortless. Inhale, exhale, flow and release; test the edge. Explore stretching beyond your limitations, let go of the struggle. The above pertains both to the creative process and to the practice of yoga. In the Body Blissmas quest for creative wellness for spirit, mind and body, yoga is a powerful conduit for deepening our creative experience. And creative thought can in turn enrich our yoga practice or any practice concerning reverence for the body.
Creativity & Inspiration
By Tom Evans
The Earth travels a distance of well over half a billion miles every year around the Sun. For many of us though, we may as well be standing still. At the start of each orbit, we often diligently and religiously set some goals and make new resolutions. There is nothing wrong with setting goals and having ambitions. What then often happens though is, when we hit adversity, our goals get thrown out of the window while we deal with the latest crisis or drama. We run a script in our heads that life is hard and 'it's not meant to be.'
