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| CutoutsStudio.com |
Our guest speaker for January's meeting, Julia Linsteadt, shared her own journey to becoming a working artist and showed off several of her wonderful cut-out paper silhouettes. She also gave us some tips for sparking creativity and getting yourself out of that creative rut:
- Word dump - write down whatever words are in your head, even gibberish
- Tinker table - have a small container of art supplies at the ready so you can doodle or draw on the spot
- Take a break - a few minutes just for you does wonders to get unstuck
- Look at art - see what you can learn and wonder about from other's work
- Challenge yourself - a deadline can create "positive pressure"
- Go outside - the wide, open spaces will help clear your mind
- Meet up - get together with people and socialize
A few other great take-aways from Julia's talk -
As a child, her parents set up an environment that naturally nurtured her creativity (although she didn't realize it at the time) - she spent a lot of time outdoors and using her imagination.
A college professor once told her that "art is chaos in a fixed structure," and those words still echo in her head today. It's important to remember that the creative process can be very chaotic and uncontrollable - which is actually a good thing! From such chaos comes amazing experiences and creative visualization. But whenever the chaos feels overwhelming or unproductive, we artists can always return to the structure of our work - themes, materials, techniques, etc.
It's also important to be aware of the limits we might put on ourselves as perfectionists. "Perfectionism is just fear dressed up in high heels," Julia said.
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| Three Feathers |
She also shared an old fable that compared the negative words we often express to feathers in the wind - once they are released, they can't easily be retrieved. The lesson is to stay positive - with yourself and with others - positivity promotes creativity!