| March 3, 2010 | Permission to be Imperfetc |
| Quoteworthy |
| “Let it be imperfect, messy, absurd, and insignificant. At the very beginning, the creative process requires lowered expectations, spiked with fun, in very tiny increments of time, in fractions of steps.” — Jill Badonsky (Spills the Imp) |
| In This Issue |
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March 3, 2010 Journal |
Creative Courage, Ice Skating, and Floppy Red Clown Shoes
By Chris Dunmire, Publisher
To help float myself through first-quarter's winter blues, I've decided to try something different this season: take action. Yes, in January
I began taking short, brisk walks outside around my neighborhood several times a week.
Believe me, overcoming the frozen halt of winter's inertia is not easy, especially when it's 20 degrees outside. But as I suspected, once I started doing the simple walks regularly with the "small step" Kaizen-Muse principles in mind, I began looking forward them, and after a few weeks realized I had instilled a new enjoyable healthy habit into my life. Consistently showing up to do the work, no matter how little I might have walked some days had the added benefit of strengthening muscles that made it easy for me to slide into the next thing to grab me: ice skating (thanks to being inspired by out-of-retirement Chinese couple Shen Xue and Zhao Hongho dancing on ice during the Winter Olympics).
Long story short, I found an indoor ice-skating rink in town and laced up a pair of ice skates for the first time in 15 years (the slippery story is here). After that one-hour adventure, I had a newly-aroused passion for movement and creative courage led me to sign up for a 6-session series of beginner ice-skating lessons to learn the basics under the supervision of a professional coach. To date I have completed two 1-hour sessions, have no broken bones, and have awakened a slew of slumbering muscles in my body. Overall, it's a great workout and loads of fun — that's all I'm in it for. Plus, I've succeeded in dismissing the winter blahs and have a renewed appreciation for the creativity-movement connection. Which, by the way, segues awesomely into a new feature on Creativity Portal in partnership with fitness writer and author Michele Batz called Creativity in Motion. More about that follows.
New Series Authors on Creativity Portal
I'm pleased to introduce two new series authors on Creativity Portal:
• Oral historian
Ralph Dranow (yourlifestorymatters.com) specializes in helping people celebrate their lives by writing books about their life stories. A widely published writer himself, he created his business, “Celebrating Your Life,” to help make the raw material of people’s lives come alive on the page. Enjoy his first article: Oral Histories — Permanent Legacies.
 • 30-year physical educator Michele Batz (mbatz.blogspot.com) has been a fitness writer on e-diets.com and elsewhere to help motivate people in both the physical and creative sense towards healthy lifestyle living. Michele's joined forces with us to unleash a new active series called Creativity in Motion, which features fun fitness lesson plans and articles for teachers and parents. Her first: Keeping Kids Active During Cold Weather.
Welcome, Ralph and Michele!
Chris Dunmire
Creative Director & Publisher
Creativity Portal |
| Monthly Columns & Featured Series |
Creativity in Motion
Keeping Kids Active During Cold Weather
By Michele Batz
It's cold outdoors; your children are spending more time indoors and are less likely to be physically active. Want to get them moving again?
Creative Careers In the Arts Interviews
An Interview with 'Ask Mama!' Performer JoAnn Bromley
By Molly Anderson-Childers
JoAnn Bromley is a creative powerhouse and the mastermind behind the one-woman show, “Ask Mama.” JoAnn has acted, directed, and taught throughout New England and New York.
Even More Amazing Creativity Tool! Humor Writing Giveaway Winners
Congratulations to Judith Westerfield and Kim Pletscher for sharing their fun sense of humor and creative writing skills in my writing challenge. If you still want to get in on the fun and claim an Amazing Creativity Tool! Kit for yourself submit your writing by April 1 (giveaway details & guidelines). For now, learn a few new things about pigs and Old Man Winter:
How to Live Life to the Fullest: A Pig Primer by Judith Westerfield
How to Say Goodbye to Winter by Kim Pletscher |
More What's New @ the CP |
Oral Histories — Permanent Legacies
By Ralph Dranow
An oral history is a series of interviews resulting in a written record of a person’s life, and a great gift to a person’s family, filling in the blanks of the family history for them: a permanent legacy.
Lhasa de Sela: A Bid Farewell
By Diana Rivera
The resonance of her voice, her emotional depth exposed, her intricate lyrics — all of it took me in as if I was a traveler who, after a long journey, had been invited into the home of the most unique artist who would then become a life-long muse.
Creating a Custom Covered Scrapbook
By Jessica Ackerman
This same technique could also be used for a writing journal, notebook, binder, or any other type of book.
Seeing Like an Artist: Edges and Space
By Rob Court
Do you ever get frustrated when you're trying to draw something you're looking at, and just can't get the shapes to look right? |
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