For many years, I created in isolation. Yes, every once in awhile I would attend a collage or jewelry class, but those were the exceptions. The problem I found, was a common one: motivation.
And I wasn’t alone. The more I talked to friends, the more I realized that they too had a desire to create but because of their job and family responsibilities didn’t have the time or even the energy to devote to creating on a regular basis.
At about the same time, two things were happening in my own life:
- The first was that a friend and I decided to do a hot chocolate tasting tour of our city. It made me see community in a different way. Gathering, often in a coffee shop, we sipped hot chocolate and talked about our lives. That sense of connection was something I had lost, most recently working at home.
- The second was my own personal exploration of creativity and spirituality: how the act of creativity is a sacred and communal act. This all collided with me seeing an online sale of the Creative Circles Guidebook authored by Connie Solera (someone I had gone on a mini creative retreat with here in my hometown). When I purchased it, I promised her I’d keep her creativity alive here, since she now lives in Arizona.
And that is how Creating Plus was born.
Creating Plus is a gathering intended to bring people together to create an artsy project while sipping delicious beverages and tasting yummy treats. And that’s just what happened when I invited a few friends, who were also craving creativity and community to join me earlier this year on a Sunday afternoon.
The host prepared a hot beverage – this time it was hot chocolate but in the summer months, I envision offering cocktails and mocktails. Each person then was asked to bring something to sweet to share, and did they ever. We had a delicious chocolate trifle and someone even made hot chocolate cupcakes.
I provided the project inspiration. For this gathering, we experimented with paint – creating color blocked canvases using tape, embossed designs painted over with watercolor pencils and flat backgrounds covered over with a single image.
I also asked everyone to bring a base they wanted to work on, whether it be a wood block, canvas or something else. Myself and the host provided the remaining supplies.
After I showed the demo pieces I had created beforehand, we all set out about creating and conversing and snacking for the rest of the afternoon. I created a Facebook group in advance, so I asked people to post images of their created works taking the communal creating experience virtual. Brooke, one of my friends who attended, wrote a blog post on the experience that nicely sums it up.
Communal Creativity
But that wasn’t the last of my experiments with communal creativity and keeping the Creativity Circles inspiration alive, I have facilitated two other groups since then – one online and another local in-person gathering. I’ll be sharing those stories in the future to inspire you to form your own sacred creating tribe.
How have you created with a group? What worked? What didn’t? And how did you keep the inspiration alive?
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