A couple of months ago on the Pointless Overthinking blog, Troy Headrick posed the question “Where does creativity come from?”. If you want to read the post and the comments here is the link, https://pointlessoverthinking.com/2021/06/14/question-of-the-day-no-533/comment-page-1/#comment-90404 .
It got me thinking and I decided to share my response to his question here to start off this blog post.
“I think we are all a little bit creative, but often we lose the desire or get consumed by everything else going on so much that we begin to believe that it is not part of our character or that it is only the result that matters. I always loved sewing, journaling and playing with paper as a child and teenager, but took up a career in the travel industry, and just stopped nurturing this side of myself. Until I needed it – when I gave birth to twins, one with major health problems I needed something to stop me going crazy, as I was exhausted and isolated.
I turned to writing and scrapbooking.
It kept me going, until it wasn’t enough and I used alcohol to ‘make me feel good’. Three years ago, I got sober, and the creative side of me was reborn as a way of making it through. For me, creativity is a path to find purpose and meaning and a way of letting go of what we can’t control. The best thing I have learned from my creative pursuits is that it doesn’t have to be meaningful or liked by anyone else, it just is what it is.
It’s the doing that is healing and all powerful. “
There were many ideas about creativity of course, I love it how we humans have so many different perspectives. the last couple of months haven’t seen me make any scrapbook pages, I seem to be preferring to work in my journals, but there is only so much time.
I finished a couple more classes in the year long online Wanderlust programme with Everything Art.
Week 24 was Vicki Papaioannou whose work I admire but is not my typical style. The topic however was poems and quotes and I loved her perspective that she starts with the quote and creates a page to tell the story. I kind of used this method, but had a couple of die cut doors I have been wanting to feature so picked a relevant quote about doors.
My quote of choice was “When one door closes, another opens” – I ended up with “When one door closes, another window opens”. The information on the origins of the quote were a little challenging to find, as like everything on the internet you can end up in a rabbit hole. I believe it was attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, as a statement that entrepreneurs will find their way forward, ie. to be optimistic even when failure happens. The quote I ended up with is attributed to Julie Andrews. All that aside and there is a lot more if you want to go down that path – I like what both quotes symbolise to me – HOPE and OPTIMISM.
Week 25 was a class on boundaries with Kasia Avery. The basis for this one was to break down boundaries and mix up your use of products. e.g. oil pastels on acrylic etc. It kind of came out as a hot mess, but I am okay with that. It is all aobut learning after all. I have used the page to express my thoughts on sticking to boundaries. the writing says “Life is messy and raw and every day is new. We can put boundaries in place with the best of intentions but sometimes the boundaries get blurred. Not everything is able to be controlled.
It also says “Never wear a white shirt” – just advice to myself as I am rather prone to getting something colourful like tumeric down the front of my blouse when eating.
Now after sharing these I am feeling the urge to get back into my craft space.
Cherie đŸ™‚
Yellow Azalea 