Nurturing Creativity-Part I

Nurturing creativity is a big job but I am up for it! For me, it's not as simple as walking into the studio and picking up a paint brush. My whole life needs to be about living full out passionately and creatively as a way to feed my heart and soul.  Hopefully, that focus translates to what I create in my studio.

Thinking back on the past few days of what fed my creativity I noticed these are some of the things that brought inspiration to me:


Dancing. There is always dancing before dipping my brush into paint.  I also had a ton of fun dancing and drumming this weekend at our Co-housing Community's Annual Feast Day.

Doodling and sketching. I think I have always had a writing instrument in my hand since birth. It helps the old ADD situation to scribble while attempting to concentrate!

 
Life Drawing Group is a a new found lifeline.for me. It's so very different from the work I do professionally. It truly creates new openings in my brain that make things flow a bit easier when I hit that canvas with cold wax! I LOVE it!

The Artist's Way. Huge topic but something that has helped me uncover my creativity and feeds my spirituality beyond measure. I have participated in many groups, facilitated some and even attended one led my Julia Cameron herself.  The entire process is a lifestyle for me that I recommend to anyone wanting to know themselves better.

Nature is critical in nourishing my creativity. I mean, I paint trees. I owe it to them to be out there with them showing them my gratitude. Plus, it's clearly fall in Santa Fe and that makes my heart sing!

Meditation happens almost every morning of my life and keeps me on the sane side of the scale so I can get crazy with paint after I've had coffee!

Photography- nothing fancy here. But, taking pics of ordinary things gives me moments of focus and appreciation for the beautiful things surrounding me.  

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it" Alice Walker

Who knows I might even be inspired to paint something purple!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll post Part II on what helps me stay inspired later.

My website has some new paintings and  news of upcoming events. I hope you will visit me there and sign up for my newsletter. http://lisaadamsreed.com/

On this beautiful fall day that's HOW I SEE IT!  What inspires you??

Clutter and Creativity

I am excited to share that I have a Creativity Coach! I am feeling that there is something that I am meant to create and she is going to help me “give birth” to it! She asked me what fears and obstacles I have that may be standing in my way. Hmmm…My fear is that I won’t experience everything I can possibly experience. So, I have to get busy! I can’t put my finger on what is standing in my way. I do know that clutter can stand in the way of many things, creativity being one of them. So, I tackle the “stuff” I own once again, wondering if it is keeping me from living a fully creative life. Having recently moved into a 3 room casita, I am having to dig deep to keep the place tidy and I have already gotten rid of massive numbers of “things”. When we got back from Colorado today, I had 5 newly purchased books which means 5 others have to leave this house. I rationalize that it doesn’t have to be 5 books, it can be 5 things that take up the same amount of space as the new books. Hey, these are my rules, I am making this up as I go! So, two pairs of capris that I never wear are stuffed into the Charity Box. Capris should be against the law anyway. I have never seen anyone look good in them. Bad design. Pedal pushers went out of style for a reason! Two more pairs of dress paints that would require heels that didn’t make the last clutter cut. A white shirt and a white tank top. I don’t look good in white since I stopped coloring my hair. ONE book, a dress that had a huge print that made me look like a giant flower garden (WTH was I thinking?)-GONE. Okay, that’s 7, so I get to keep the books!

The next set of clutter that works against this ADD girl will be remedied by my Artist’s Way Morning Pages. One of the books I came home with is actually a pretty new journal. I’m such a sucker. Like a 99 cent spiral wouldn’t suffice? So, three pages of dumping my brain on paper every morning rids it of all that chatter so I can be productive in some other way. That mind decluttering process begins AGAIN tomorrow!

Maybe I should change the 3x3s and incorporate the daily decluttering of my brain and my belongings! We will know if this process works, if I ever actually have any art to post on this blog! For now, an occasional photo will have to suffice. Those Aspens in Colorado were strutting their stuff! That's how I see it!