Creativity in Community.

Finding a healthy community to create within isn't easy. Knowing who we are in the creative process with a firm grip on ego and sensitivities is essential in saying yes to showing and sharing our work. The isolation of our creative process can stunt our growth. When we are barely hanging on to a sense of our creative gifts the last thing we want is to be thrust into a community that may or may not understand or help us develop them. Find a mentor or mentors that may be two steps ahead of you that will listen and observe with respect.
A sense of creative community can energize our imagination, help us develop our skills and increase our awareness of products and marketing methods. As important as it is to find that quiet sweet spot of inner beauty, it is equally important to find the community that is good for you, encourage you and build your confidence. You may not find it where you expected it.....your family or friends or religious organizations.....but find it you will where it actually is, books, galleries, classes and workshops and hanging out with other creative souls. Many times it is in studying and relating to art works when the artist has been long gone. Choose to participate in a creative community that inspires and encourages you.

Sharing your creativity brings up vulnerability.

The sensitivity that is so much a part of our creativity is a double edged sword. It sharpens our awareness to color shape and form and ignites our imagination. The other side of it is being sliced open by critical opinions, approval and judgments. Bringing your creative work into the world is much like exposing your soul and can be terrifying if you have been subjected to creative injuries that often happen early on in our expressive life. As artists, there is a collaborative process with the Great Creator....a spiritual journey to our most sensitive center. Like rejection from a loved one.....our creative hearts get broken and vulnerable. But, like real life, we mend and heal and reach again for our creative dreams and partner up with Divine Design. The books that were lying in drawers, continue page by page, the paintings stuffed in the back of the closet come out to be finished, the music that still plays in our heart is written down. The fire breathing dragons and muttering ghosts that hide under our bed are invited out to dance in the light.

"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open."

Shakti Gawain

Don't downsize your creativity!

No art blooms without an artist blossoming! And like beautiful things that bloom, it begins as a tiny seed, a pinpoint of light, a spark of creativity. We are made by the Great Creator and we are intended to be creative. It is with that tiny inner message that our artistic path begins and changes and grows. The fragile tendrils of creativity expand into sturdy stems that shoot up to the light....growing into a unique destiny. Some of our friends and family may not get this and begin to downsize us with criticism or discount our efforts. We get this at a very tender young age often. My message as a young girl was, "Put that away and get your work done." But as I grew, other negative shrinking meassages came......"Artist's don't make a good living, that's la-la land....get a real job." There is no comfort in believing words that downsize us to fit another's view of us. The size the Great Creator wants to make us is none of our business and certainly no one else's either.

"If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies, and so does a man." Henry David Thoreau

Creativity lies in our authenticity.

From Julia Cameron's book, Walking In This World. "When we surrender to becoming what we are menat to be instead of trying to convince the world of who we think we are, we find our proper creative shoes and can walk in them comfortably. Not surprisingly they sometimes take us far. Moving comfortably and at a less driven pace, we also enjoy the journey, finding pleasure in our companions and our 'view' each step of the way."

If you haven't read Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way or Walking In This World, they are a must for the creative soul.

It matters not which way the wind blows and what is the latest storm, or fashion or fad. Things are always changing....opinions, desires, attitudes, alliances and enemies. What matters to my artist's soul, is roots that grab the richness of the earth while tangled branches reach toward the heavens, swaying in the wind, bending in the storm and absorbing the light. Perhaps we need both roots and branches to be whole....land and air, gardening boots and gossamer wings? I love Pablo Neruda's poetry and this quote: "Two things make a story. The net and the air that falls through the net." The human heart has more than one dimension and we are free to find ourselves with abundant joy whether we delight in our roots or wings.

Creativity is exploration!

Perhaps exploration and revelation is more of an accurate description of the creative process than "self-expression". Exploration goes beyond the self, and is driven by seeking the authentic truth even at an unconscious level. Struggling with how a piece is evolving and participating in the process is to develop personally through creativity. Developing and sharing that exploration and revelation is not separate from the environment or community. Even when our creations are disturbing and we question their value, they will be more likely to heal rather than damage society. Choosing to participate in creativity is to trust the process of exploration and allow the flow to lead. It is just my opinion that we are never meant to control the process, but to be a willing participant.

Creativity is connected to the deepest part of ourselves.

The deepest part of myself....that peaceful, clarity of soul....is where my creativity lies. I love the quote from Saul Bellow, "In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But, the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves."

There have been life events and circumstances that flood this channel, leaving debris behind and it has taken time and effort to clear away what clogs the creative flow. The freshness of flow and connection to the Source of our creativity is our poetic purpose, our artful essence, separate from our education, our pedigree and our circumstances.

Creativity cannot be put on a schedule!

Finally, I am content with knowing that life isn't about being scheduled! The light chasers know this one......the raw materials of nature, the subjects of our creative expressions cannot be organized according to our whims and plans. I learned this one following my photographer son on an early morning shoot in the mountains. We froze our butts off, climbing, setting up the gear and waiting for that streak of gold to hit the mountain top.....and it did that morning....for a few seconds....maybe a minute....and then it flattened out. We showed up....and I think that is the secret.....showing up! Anticipation....whether it happens or not at our predicted moments is where the creativity begins. Just show up and let the raw materials of the environment combine with your talent and skills and see what happens. We'll be freer to do whatever we need to do when it comes. The magic is in consistently showing up whether it is behind the camera, at the easel, on stage, or writing down our poetry!