Inspiration Quote

"Imagination is the true magic carpet." - - - Norman Vincent Peale

• How can you use your imagination to achieve your creative goals?

Who's Your City?

That's the question that Richard Florida asks in his latest book entitled, Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.

It's a question I've asked myself. Early in my career, I chose to move to our nation's capital because I was looking for work in museums and with the plethora of cultural institutions dotting the Washington, DC area, I figured I was bound to find a job. And, I did.

Ultimately, I realized that my family was more important. After attaining my career goal in DC, I decided to move back to Ohio to be closer to my loved ones. Although Cleveland has some amazing arts organizations, I decided to take a different path, one in the corporate world.

If you are asking yourself similar questions about your career and your location, and you live in the Cleveland-area, I encourage you to attend the next Business Book Talk with Tim Zaun and Friends on this subject. One lucky attendee will also win a copy of the book.

Where: Lakewood Library, Lakewood, OH
When: Thursday, November 20th
Time: 7 pm to 9 pm

• So... who's YOUR city?

Start Your Novel Today!

Have you always wanted to write a novel? Got a great story to tell? November is National Novel Writing Month and the perfect time to start writing your masterpiece.

Also known as NaNoWriMo, this initiative focuses on quantity over quality. The goal is to write a 175 page / 50,000 word novel in one month. It may sound like a lot, but if you write just 6 pages a day you can do it. Too often we either don't start a creative project, because it seems too large, or because we continually edit our work and never end up finishing it. This is an opportunity to simply create without censoring our output.

• Sign up to write your novel during NaNoWriMo.

My Creativity Bookshop

Last week I added a new addition to my sidebar links - A bookshop. My creativity bookshop has all the books I've mentioned in previous posts plus a few more of my favorites to inspire you.

It's divided into three categories:

1. General Creativity
2. Business Creativity
3. Art / Design

• Please have a look at my new bookshop!

Celebrate National Design Week

This week Cooper-Hewitt launches National Design Week:

An initiative that aims to draw national attention to the ways in which design enriches everyday life, through outreach to school teachers and their students, and partnerships with design organizations across the country.

To celebrate this year there are several events to participate in:

People's Design Award
Vote online for this year's favorite design.

National Design Award
A gala event to celebrate design and its impact on daily life.

Events Across the Country
Find or submit a design event near you.

• How can you celebrate design this week?

Overcoming Creative Blocks

I admit, like most people, I get creatively blocked. This latest bout though has been going on awhile now. Yes, I have creative ideas but have been finding it difficult to actually sit down and turn them into reality.

So what causes creative blocks and what can we do to get past them? According to Steven Pressfield in the War of Art, it's called resistance or that feeling you get when you can't sit down to create. The feeling that makes you want to do everything from get a cup of coffee, talk on the phone or search the web, rather than create. Basically, it's anything you do to avoid actually being productive.

Pressfield's solution to overcoming resistance is to simply sit down and do the work that needs to get done. Like Twyla Tharp, in her book the Creative Habit, Pressfield believes that eventually the work will flow once we are engaged, and like Tharp he believes that creating must be a habit, something that is done every day.

Recently, I've been giving into my resistance and not creating at all, because I haven't had the time to sit down everyday and create.

• What do you do when life gets in the way of your creating?

Right Brainers Rule Month

Did you know that October is Right Brainers Rule Month? Well, neither did I till fellow blogger Tim Zaun gave me a shout out as part of the celebration.

Originated by Lee Silber of Creative Lee fame and author of such books as:

Career Management for the Creative Person

Money Management for the Creative Person: Right Brain Strategies to Build Your Bank Account and Find the Financial Freedom to Create

The goal is to bring awareness to the highly creative and innovative.

• What will you do to exercise your right brain this month?

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery

Last year, I wrote about Radical Lace & Subversive Lace, an exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design. This year they hosted Pricked: Extreme Embroidery and I just found out about it, even though it closed this spring.

I still think it's worth a mention though for its innovative approach to traditional crafts. Usually, when one thinks of embroidery they picture table cloths and tea towels, but put it in the hands of contemporary artists and you get a whole new approach to a traditional art.

• Check out the museum's travelling exhibition schedule for updates.

Creative Aging

Earlier this year, I posted about creative aging with Do the Arts Have an Age Limit? Now, the Metlife Foundation Creative Aging Program is offering funding, in the form of seed grants to encourage healthy aging.

This pilot program will provide in-depth technical assistance and seed grants of $7,500 to eight National Guild members to enable them to design, implement and evaluate sustainable creative aging programs (participatory, skill-based arts education programs for adults age 60 and above) using best practices detailed in the Guild's latest publication, Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit. Technical assistance will focus on capacity-building with particular attention to outcome-based evaluation measuring changes in the health of participants.

• So do the arts have an age limit?

Find Your Color

Did you know that each of us has a personal color? It's based on the day we were born and can give us insights into our personality and inspire us. Mine is pistachio green.

Pantone, the color experts, have worked with Michele Bernhardt to develop this system.

• Find your color at Colorstrology.

Create a Visioning Collage to Inspire You

Materials:
Large piece of sturdy white paper / poster board
Magazines to cut up
Scissors
Glue
Colored Markers
Pens
Paints
A Creative Dream

Begin by going through the magazines and randomly cutting out images and words that appeal to you. Once you have about 10-15 images start imagining your dream and how what you've chosen represents this. You may want to choose an image or word that represents the essence of the dream and place this in the center of your paper gluing it securely in place.

Next, working with the other images, begin gluing them down in whatever way makes sense to you and your dream. You can also add color with markers, pens or paints.

After the collage is complete it should represent your achieved dream. Place the collage in a place where you will see it every day and spend some time each day visualizing yourself in your dream collage achieving your goals.

• Check out this flickr group for inspiration.

Living the Creative Life

I just finished reading Living the Creative Life: Ideas and Inspiration from Working Artists by Rice Freeman-Zachery, and I recommend it to anyone wanting to get a peek inside the mind of today's working artists.

The book features 15 artists and tries to answer the question, "what is creativity?" by covering useful topics like keeping a journal or sketchbook; work spaces and work habits; and the all important, living the artful life.

Comprised of responses by a diverse group of artists, I was pleasantly surprised to see mixed media artists:

1. Linda Woods
2. Claudine Hellmuth

And local Cleveland artists featured:

1. Rebekah Hodous
2. Scott Radke

Finally, try this exercise, I've adapted from the book.

• Make a list of the 10 most creative people you are inspired by and then write down some of their creations to get a better idea of what inspires you. For example, is it people who make grand works or those who integrate creativity into their daily lives?

2008 R&D Awards

R&D Magazine recently released their list of the top 100 innovations for the year. Did you know that Ohio ranked second, behind California for the most inventions? Of the 10 organizations that were selected from the state, 3 of them are from Northeast Ohio.

• See the entire list here.

Creative Lessons From Innovation Experts

I know I've been posting lots of links to magazine articles, but recently there have been so many good ones to pass along.

Here's the latest. In the June issue of Inc. magazine, innovation experts were asked how organizations can foster the creative spirit in their employees. The results were interesting and included a couple of unique ideas.

Write it Down

"Frog Design, a San Francisco-based consulting firm, publishes Frog Design Mind, a print and online magazine that serves as a quarterly compendium of staff articles on subjects that excite employees.

Bring in Outsiders

Many top innovation firms tap the perspectives of outside experts -- be they physicists, poets, actors, archaeologists, theologians, or astronauts."

• Read Innovation: How the Creative Stay Creative.

Time to Play

When was the last time you played? If you can't remember, then it's probably been too long. August is the perfect month to let your inner creative out to get some exercise.

Did you know?

Giving children the time, space, and tools to play can aid them in developing important coping and problem-solving skills in stressful situations, according to CWRU psychologists who are following children in a study on play and creativity in children. Results from the second of three longitudinal studies shows that creative children in the first and second grades continue to use their imaginations and emotions in their play in the fifth and sixth grades.

"Good early play skills predicted the ability to be creative and generate alternative solutions to everyday problems and a higher quality of solutions," says Sandra Russ, professor and chair of CWRU's Department of Psychology.

If play is that beneficial for children, imagine how it could enhance the adult brain.

• Have some interactive fun by exploring Invention of Play.