My post is late this month because I’ve hurt my back something wicked and it’s really had me down for the count. Life has been very full and I’ve not been terribly good at following the advice that is the title of this post. This month’s Summoning Creativity effort is offered to me as much as it is to you.
Until recent history, the slow growth reflected in the natural world and in the required crafts of daily living was all there was. Our bodies and minds evolved thanks to, and in support of, slow growth. Today, we live in a culture that not only makes it possible to force growth but often expects it. While we don’t have to eschew technological or human progress, we must weave the appreciation for slow growth back into the tapestry of our lives if we hope to move toward a more harmonious relationship with the natural environment that surrounds us.
This writing made me nod and exclaim out loud, “yes, thank you for this reminder”. I read it a few days before I hurt my back, and I find myself going back to it now when just sitting to weave or stitch or even read is somewhat challenging because there is no comfortable position I can be in for very long.
Applying these words to my own healing is a learning edge to me. Over the last several years, I’ve had several injuries and physical realities that have forced me to reckon with the impatience I have with my own body. While I relish slow growth, slow healing is a whole other matter. I’ve got a lot of work to do there.
And once again, I have the opportunity to reckon with this issue of mine.
How will I do it?
My current thinking is to relate to the pain I’m feeling in a visual way. I want to look at images of the muscles, nerves and vertebrae that are communicating with me. Maybe I’ll draw them, or stitch them, or at some point, weave them. I will add color and texture to impatience, to my tendency to force healing on myself (which never works), and I will try to relate to the parts of me that have some slow growing to do, namely patience with and compassion for… me.
So, here we go.
Do you have health issues that impact your making? How do you reckon with these themes?
I asked this question to people in my community: what is one thing you do that you feel supports your creativity and art making?
Of those that I asked, these are the responses I got back. Captured are the nuances, intricacies of humanness, and the fabulous varieties in the ways people think about and relate to their creative spirits. It’s clear: creativity is not only about making art. Creativity is energy in the relational field, with self, others, and the world in which we live.
From Donna LaPerle~
Joy feeds my creative sparks which encourages resiliency. Knowing I have joy inside me comes through my creativity and keeps me from sinking into what I believe is insane news on the TV. I have balance because the joy of being creative puts me in an “I can” space. If I am experiencing joy, I am healing myself and it might reflect what I am creating in my art. My depression has popped out of my so called, Jack in the box, through weaving and woodwork. Looking at my stash of yarn or smelling my wood gives me hope. Through my creativity I silently invite others to connect with their joy. Perhaps I cannot change these crazy times but maybe we can hope for a brighter day and maybe witness just one or two smiles.
Linda and Donna with some Wild WeavingDonna’s Weaving & Exploration of Color Interactions
From Linda J. ~
I seek out craft and artistic visionaries who teach, inspire and nourish the creative quest and thought. Then I reflect and gather various inspiring materials, implementing the excitement into action–realizing everything is a learning opportunity and to enjoy the process.
When possible, allot time for your creativity—creativity nurtures so much of our well-being and identity; we can’t ignore that!
From Kendra ~
I exercise my visual perception. I attentively observe my environment, forms of plants, animals, interior spaces, quality of light/colors. The more I look, the more I perceive with my eyes.
I exercise my imagination in various ways: I imagine experiencing the world from a different physical size, how would it feel to be a tree or be a particular leaf or cat or an insect. How would I experience a tree if I lived in the soil? What’s the shape of the sensation of my skin touching another surface? What’s a visual representation – color, shape, movement – associated with a feeling or emotion?
from Kendra ~ Virginia Oaks; the tree pictured in the back is 800 years old!from Kendra ~ A leaf stuck in the snow and the pattern the wind and it created together. from Kendra ~ tea ceremony
From Steve Diffenderfer ~
I reflect on a current event, historical event,a recent interaction with a person be it emotional or cerebral, or anything else that holds my interest. I will then make a series of drawings to create context & reconcile that particular subject/idea/emotional response with at least three drawings and often twenty five or more small 5 /12″ x 8 1/2″ graphite or pen & ink drawings. (30-60 minute drawings). When I am truly inspired, I will translate one of those drawings into a painting. (5 hours to 45 hours per painting). I am not concerned with generating artwork. I am not constantly drawing. I create visual art in yearly cycles. I play guitar every day :). Beginning in 2020 I started exploring foreign languages and what may be lost in translation. I read a lot of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Pushkin, Bulgakov & Pasternak novels during the pandemic. I considered Russian literature being translated into English prose, and being reliant on a translator. I also considered the Tao Teh Ching (which I consider poetry, and have read and revisited for many years) being translated into English. This led me to begin visually considering Chinese characters (hanzi) and Hebrew characters (Ktav Ashuri) and working them into a series of artwork: using them to convey ideas & feelings outside of the spoken & written language I use in daily life.
I explore other themes along the way. I’m always interested in something.
From Krista ~
I wake up early when it is still quiet. Make a cup of coffee and have time to knit or craft. It’s almost a meditative time for me. In the summer, I like to knit outside and listen to the birds and morning sounds. Winter, audiobooks.
Lately, I have moved away from visual YouTube podcasts, because my attention is drawn away from my knitting to the screen. I am more productive listening to audiobooks. I can keep working with an eye on what I am doing while listening to a story.
From Ali W. ~
One thing I do that supports my creativity is spending time outside without an agenda- just observing, walking, or collecting natural objects. Being in the moment with nature sparks ideas and often leads to unexpected creative flow. I prefer to let myself follow instinct-whether that’s taking a walk at dusk, watching how the light changes, or making something with my hands from what I find. Those little, unplanned moments feed my creative self more than anything structured (which tends to be hard for me).
from Ali
From Jonathan Silverman~
Serendipity, play, discernment- I have no idea and every idea of what I’m doing. There is joy and humility in acquiescing to both intent and discovery. Kneading, coiling, slabbing, throwing, pinching, scraping, folding, glazing… a wonderous dance. I am in partnership with clay, sometime we are in sync, sometimes we just don’t get along. We share ideas on how to end a form, pondering from the inside out and outside in.
Photo by ritesh arya
What do you think? What do you do to tend to or pay attention to your own creativity? Or if you don’t, can you imagine doing one tiny thing to turn your gaze towards the creative parts of yourself?
The details: Dates: Saturday and Sunday October 4 and 5 Address: Shelburne Pond Studios @ 1260 Pond Road, Shelburne, Vermont Hours: 10am – 5pm What’s in the studio: lots of things but especially recent work I’ve been doing that interlaces my focus on the plants around me and my love for weaving. My work has been dreamy lately, and I’m excited to show it.
If you’re in the area and feel like stopping in, I’d love to see you! This Open Studio event is wonderful. If you haven’t participated before, there are studios open all over the state and you can pick loops that are in a region you’d like to explore. The very comprehensive maps will show you all the spots to check out. This is my second year doing it and it’s a total joy. Many thanks to the Vermont Crafts Council for putting on such a great event.
As August comes to a close, I’m thinking about realities from the past few weeks that made engaging in a creative endeavor every day more challenging. Whether it was working a lot, having chores to do, managing a busy schedule, being with my family, or a bump in stress, it took some extra doing to stay with my creative process. I got some insight into why it’s hard to do something creative every single day. Sometimes, the time just runs out. Sometimes the fatigue is too great. Sometimes the stress is too distracting.
What to do when these deadly horsemen arrive to mess with the best of our intentions?
I noticed that for me, it helps to have at the ready a list of things I like to do or want to do that have different time and focus commitments. For example, recently I had a lot of chores to do outside and in our garage. I needed to clean, straighten, toss, and arrange so much stuff, in part to get ready to scrape and paint our shed. Well… I was bummin’ because I can’t very well weave and sweep at the same time, and I knew that the manual labor I’d be doing would make my arthritic hands and body tired at the end of the day. BUT, I had creative things that I wanted to do that are also passive. For example, making black walnut and chokeberry dye was something I wanted to get done, as well as clean some deer antlers that a friend gave to me. I realized that the passive time required for boiling the berries, nuts and antlers could be used to do something else (like clean the garage). So, I set up my portable cooktop on a table in my driveway, got to boiling antlers and tended to my chores, periodically checking how things were going. The antlers required scraping/washing, scrubbing to get the muscle, skin, and hair off the skull part, but I did that in between other tasks.
No one can accuse me of being a one-trick-pony!
By the end of that afternoon, I had accomplished what I’d needed to chores-wise, and had some beautiful deer antlers to show for it.
On another day, I did more outdoor work and boiled the black walnuts and the chokeberries separately, making beautiful red and dark brown dyes. I also prepared a chokeberry tincture which just requires putting berries and vodka in a sealable jar and putting it in a dark spot (with a commitment to shake it every day).
And on yet another day, I washed a lot of wool while I scraped the paint off the shed, using the sun’s energy to keep the soapy water hot.
When fatigue was the main bad actor keeping me from my creative goal, I did my best to get clear on what my fatigue was about. Too little sleep? Stress? What was out of balance? There were several days when I didn’t have the bandwidth to sit with my more focus-required projects, so I continued to let passive interests save the day. I simply put fabric strips into the dyes I made and let them be. I also laid flowers between folds of dyed cloth and let them rest under weight in the sun. These were fun experiments that hit creative chords but didn’t take any energy from me. I do feel like I benefit from being a “let’s just do this and see what happens” kind of person. No one is going to find meticulously kept notes of how I do things on my bookshelves, but I always have random thing around to use in a project.
The stripes on that cloth you see below? That happened by accident when I laid the wet material on a rusty steel wire shelf. The lines appeared immediately and I was like, HEY! Look at that! As Bob Ross would say, I made a “happy accident”!
I’m also a big fan of taking pictures of things I see that I think are beautiful or interesting. I aim to keep them in a folder on my computer that is to do with inspiration I glean from the world around me.
When longer work days were the issue, I did things like spray paint dried plant stalks to prepare them for projects I’m working on. I also sanded some things and basically got my project ingredients together.
I learned that stress is the most killer of distractions for me. Stress mixed with worry is the monster that steals my creativity. On those days where that kind of stress was in the mix, I listened to people I admire. I looked for my mentors’ words and anchored myself in wisdom. On those days, that was enough.
When I actually had time to devote more than a couple of hours to my making, I took it, guilt-free and pressure-free. I chose a project to commit my attention to and went for it. That was glorious. I felt so grateful to have that time with myself, and the woven piece is done, just waiting to be mounted!
These are examples of what I do. I have my Creativity Options that suit whatever might be true for me on a given day. If I had to rely on having hours in my studio every day dedicated to my making, I would either be chronically disappointed and resentful, or I’d be neglecting other responsibilities I value. I’ve learned over the years how to excavate time and opportunity to make and tend to my making, and for me, it’s worked.
So, here’s some questions to ask yourself:
~ are there any creative things you do that have built in down-time moments? i.e., solar dyeing, cooking/baking/steeping/drying. ~ are there things you like to do that, if you have them around and easily accessible, would be easy to achieve in a short period of time? i.e., drawing/painting paper and brushes/pencils on the counter where you can play while something is cooking, or clay you can sculpt with while you listen to a lecture, or yarn you can knit/crochet/weave with while you wait in a waiting room/attend a conference/wait for water to boil? ~ are there things you like to do that you would do more if only you had a few hours to dedicate to them? i.e., working on larger pieces, sculpting, writing… if so, are there ways to take advantage of open time and claim it for yourself, rather than fill the space with a bunch of shoulds? ~ are there ways to organize your environment so that when the moment is right for any one of these things, you can act without having to think about it too much? If you have to dig out a bin from the back of the closet that has your art stuff in it, how likely are you to do it when you only have a half-hour? How can you arrange things so you can just as easily pick up a colored pencil as your phone? ~ on those days that are stressed and/or worry-filled, from what well do you draw insight, comfort, and support?
If you tried to be creative every day in August, how did it go? What did you do that supported your efforts? Where did it fall apart?
As we head into this next month, I am going to focus on keeping my environment arranged in such a way that I can continue to engage with myself creatively within my life, not as an effort separate from my day to day living. Might you join me in this?
One of the classes I teach at the Shelburne Craft School is called Weaving Your Story. The chance to meld my love of weaving with my passions for healing, growth and creativity has been a true boon in my life. The program is fully grant funded by grantors and an anonymous donor making it cost free for participants. The Vermont Arts Council, being a grantor and a great supporter of the program, recently interviewed me to talk about Weaving Your Story and I wanted to share the article with you here. It captures so much of what the class is about and how I feel about it!
In case you are wondering how weaving and creative expression can be healing, I think the conversation gets at it well. Enjoy!
I’m writing to you from my porch. It’s just a few days before August 1st. I’ve been thinking about the next Summoning Creativity post for a while now. As I listen to the myriad birds engaged in their morning meetings and wonder at the frogs knocking to one another from here to there*, I can’t help but come back to the bewilderment I feel at being on Earth, doing this thing called life. Being alive. Being here as part of, and witness to, all of it. All of what is happening, all of what has been, all of what will come… here we are. Part of the story.
August in Vermont has a certain texture and moodiness to it. The sun’s height in the sky has gone through some noticeable shifts and, even with the hot days of late, there have already been moments that feel and smell like early fall. The rhythms we live in are obvious. Yet, they can pass by with little notice if attention is not paid to the shifts.
Lest this seem like a naval-examining treatise on the passing of time, let me get to it and make the link between being human in nature and creativity.
The Link
When We Notice, We Are Engaged
When We Are Engaged, We Can Create
The Prompt for August
Engage Every Day
Yes. Every day.
Don’t go yet! This isn’t bootcamp or a fad diet. It’s an invitation to harness the energy of August and give yourself the gift of engagement with your life, your surroundings, and your beautiful creativity that is boundless and waiting for attention. Here’s what I have in mind.
~ Every single day, take a moment to be fully present in your body and mind. Let your senses guide you. Do you hear something that has you wondering? Do you see something that catches your attention? Feel a sensation on your skin? Taste something that has your tongue tingling? Smell something that makes you tilt your head?
~ Let your attention rest on something that is: neutral, pleasant, interesting, or beautiful. Yes, I’m being directive about that. ** Like students in school, we learn best when we feel and are safe. Let us give our nervous systems the gift of a moment of, at minimum, calm neutrality.
~ Observe what you have chosen to rest your attention on. At least for five minutes, study what has gotten your attention.
~ Then, following this engagement, document it. You can do this in several ways. On days that are busy and there’s just no time that feels available for more, simply write what you saw.
It can be as short and sweet as: “By my front step, I saw a web that formed a circle on the grass. It looked like a tissue from a distance. But up close, it was webby and dewy.”
Or, you can take a picture of it and print it out, if possible.
Or, you draw it, paint it, sketch it.
Or, you can research it. Using this example, I might wonder, “what makes those webs?” and then study that creature.
Or, you can make something inspired by what you’ve seen.
~ And… repeat. Every day for one month.
Why every day?!
Because when we do something every day, over time, we change our habits. And yes, it is a habit to plow through a day without noticing anything. And, it’s a habit to live every day and notice many things.
It’s a practice to let those things you observe work on you and interact with the part of you that is curious, has wonder, and wants to play.
Things that might be useful to have around:
An unlined notebook where you can keep sketches/drawings/writings/clippings….
A camera. Many folks have smartphones that have one million photos on them that they forget about. I recommend for this endeavor to print out pictures and put them in your book. If you have a printer that can do this, great. I don’t have reliable printer and ink costs a forture, so I often will order prints through the Walgreens app because I can order the prints I want and pick them up quickly. If you are only ordering one print here and there, it’s remains inexpensive. Many pharmacies and grocers have photo printing these days, and there’s no minimum number of prints necessary. My daughter also has this little polaroid camera that is pretty fun. I haven’t used it for things like this, but I think it would work great!
Colored pencils or pens
Charcoal drawing pencils
Portable paints
If you have a specific medium you like to work with, have that around and easily accessible in case you have more dedicated time to play and create.
Things to consider that might help support this practice:
Setting an alarm each day (with a pleasant sound, please! – no startle responses necessary for this effort!) to remind you to take a moment to engage.
Keeping your art book around so you are visually reminded to engage.
Inviting people you live with or talk to regularly to do this, too! Sometimes it’s fun to have a partner in daily efforts.
Beware of the following:
If you forget a day or days, don’t throw in the towel! Just get back to it. My relationship with my journal changed drastically when I decided not to make it a shame and self-hate punisher if I miss a few days or months. Shit happens, man. It’s no big thing.
Judgement of what you are focusing on or on what you do with it. Reminder: this is not a project to get anything specific done. It’s an invitation to engage with what resonates with you while taking it a step further and interacting with what you noticed.
What do you think? Are you game? I am! I vibe deeply with getting practical and organized in my efforts. I also don’t want to miss any of August, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. If any part of this feels too rigid for you and your nature, adjust as needed and make it work for you. Most important is to commit.
As always, I love to hear from you whether through the comments or directly, so please let me know if you take this on! I plan on sharing my thoughts about the whole thing as we make our way through the month. We’ll see what engaging every day inspires!
Until next time,
Bradie
ps- this post came a little early so you can start on August 1 if you’re so inspired!
* I think I’m hearing mink frogs but it seems like where I am is not considered part of their Vermont territory. Not sure, but a deeper dive into frog lore is in my future.
** To be clear, I am not saying the requirement is to ignore all that is happening in the world and to just “be positive, man”. What I am saying is that we need to give our nervous systems a chance to balance out, reboot, and access a sense of safety if we are actually living in a safe circumstance. With the issues we are facing, we need to do what we can to nurture ourselves so we can stay strong and grounded.
I think it was around fifteen years ago now that I re-found my love of making things. That energy had been in some kind of limbo state, emerging at times through writing, experiments, and gardening. For these last fifteen years, though, I’ve been in a steady state of learning about all sorts of fiber craft and art. A main passion has emerged, and that has to do with weaving.
The interlacement of all things is an idea, or a reality, that just grabs me. It’s simple and obvious. But it’s also profound and true. I recently wrote this in an instagram post:
One of the things I love about weaving is that is invites our minds to work with our bodies. We can be with humble tools and materials and through the simple act of interlacements, something beautiful can emerge.
To interlace materials is to simply join them in an over and under rhythm. Suddenly, elements are joined when they were otherwise separate. Weaving for me has been a way to be with myself and my thoughts. I follow the directions of the materials and let myself flow with the process, rather than try to control the process from start to finish.
This has been true of my experiences with grief. The more I tried to control grief, the more I suffered. As I have learned to move with grief and let the waves of it interlace with all of the other truths about me and my life, the more I’ve been able to grow with it.
If you told me fifteen years ago that I’d be invited to lead a weaving workshop at such a wonderful place as Mercy Ecospirituality Center, I’d have looked behind me, assuming you were talking to someone else. If you are within a reasonable drive to Benson, VT, and feel like spending a day playing with interlacements, please come! I promise, you will end up with something that you didn’t expect, and that it will mean something to you.
Thought I’d share a compilation of things I’ve been thinking about and doing this last week. Some make me smile. Some make me think. Some make me cry. Some make me feel gratitude. Some a mixture of all of those things.
I got to participate in this art show along with fellow fiber artists, potters, painters, and woodturners. What a wonderful thing! There is something uniquely powerful about putting your work out there for others to see. The camaraderie I feel with my fellow makers who are in this show is really nice. Makes me proud.
I had to cancel, very last minute, a Community Weave event at my studio because I got wrecked by an allergic response, either to an antibiotic or a new-to-me face/body cream. It looked like I got punched in the eye, and I had welts all over my body about 48 hours ago. Not cool. Much better now.
I finished a prototype for a larger series I am getting working on… it’s hard to see in this picture, but it’s a woven tube made of linen, adorned with flax, wool, jute, with a beautiful antler hanging in the middle… better images to come…
Wrapped up a fabulous class at the Shelburne Craft School- this was explosively fun and very co-creative and inspiring! Weaving with minimal rules, natural materials, and instinct frees up a whole lot of space in my psyche. Sharing that with others was a true joy.
Read through journals I’ve been keeping since high school, looking for lyrics I wrote for a song I love playing… man, that’s a trip. Never found the lyrics to that song. Did find lyrics to another song I wrote but didn’t put down the chords… what the shit? So, reworking that one. But, I did find this… a realization that I’ve been hard at work being-a-person for a long time… thinking, creating, examining, striving, loving, fearing… I often think of my younger self as kind of a hot-mess, and don’t get me wrong, I had my drawn-out hot-mess moments for sure (still do!), but I think I’ve been unkind to the younger me that was just learning how to grow up in the midst of living. Those days are over. I suddenly see myself very differently, not as pre- or post- hot-mess, but rather as a long story. Just like anyone. This shift has been medicine.
Listened to (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang on repeat, a cover of Heaven 17’s original version. Got inspired by the artists that use their medium to say “NO!”.
Spent a lot of time with my dog who seems to know I’ve not been feeling well.
Learned that there are so many plants in my yard that are medicinal and I am now going down a rabbit hole of studying them… reading about “weeds” that heal ailments has me reconsidering what a weed actually is.
And, I think that’s it for now. There’s so much going on, so much to respond to, metabolize, and critically think through. An endless well of compassion, empathy, fortitude, and courage is needed. And honesty. And self-reflection. Most everything I’m making these days has something to do with living and dying and the cycle of these opposites that shape our existence and our choices.
seeing signs all over the place that suggest that love, compassion, and a welcoming attitude are preferred by many
my cat resting in the garden
the smell of peonies
an about-to-bloom poppy
the sounds and sights of bees doing their thing
the smell of catmint
we need to notice the things that make us smile, call to our hearts, help us feel connected to other people, even if we don’t know them, and to ourselves, even when we’re tired, sad, scared, or sick
I’ve been busy in my studio seeing through ideas that are a continuation of themes I’ve been hanging with for a while now. I just can’t seem to get enough of loosely woven wooly fabric. I love weaving it. I love playing with it. I love how it is the perfect backdrop for a stem, a stick, a branch…
There is an Open Studio event where my space is tomorrow and I am looking forward to it. There have been a lot of projects in the flow, some of which are completed, one big one that is almost done that I’ll write about separately, and two that have finally gotten dislodged from my mind and set to looms. What a relief!
I think that’s one of the best parts of making… having an idea and finally getting it into action. Why does it take so long sometimes?
Healing Handcrafting 