Hello, and I hope you’re going well…
Here’s something different for you above – a photo from the farm where I grew up in south-western New South Wales. Taken from the front of the house-yard, I was there just before Christmas. The skies seem so big compared to how one sees them in the city… Always changing, the sky reminds me of freedom and possibility and has been the subject of many of my paintings.
The sky also reminds me that we’re all connected, and what a start to the year we’ve had. Already shockwaves have emanated, and continue to do so, from the United States, Italy, Germany and the Australia, with our own government’s attack on its’ underprivileged via the Centrelink debacle. More clear than ever is that we are a global community – events and tragedies affect us all at some level. While each of us is living through our own difficulties, many are also feeling the rips in the fabric of our humanity due to the actions, or inaction, of politicians elected to be of service to us. Betrayal and uncertainty are in the air, giving rise to anxiety, stress, fear and reaction rather than thoughtful action.
Where does creativity fit into this? Making things seems a total luxury in the face of it all. However, being creative is integrative of body mind and spirit, reminding us of who we are. Then we can be more mindful and wise. Many have written about this.
Integration is not something likely to be addressed in business, engineering courses or psychological papers on creativity. The rationalist view is more common. Money is to be made from reaping the innovative benefits of creative thinking and so, there’s been a lot of investigation into creativity since the ’60’s. One idea that has emerged is about important Creativity (big ‘C’ creativity as described by Edward de Bono) and little ‘c’ creativity. Colouring might be considered a good example of the latter. However, de Bono was wrong.
Creativity is non-discriminating, crosses all boundaries and is not selective in who it happens to. Let me be blunt. Colouring can give rise to remarkable ideas. How? The reasons from research are: colouring drops stress hormones within 45 minutes; brain activity becomes more global and is enriched with different sensory information, fodder for fresh ideas. Random unprecedented neural connections might also occur. Such connections can form a new idea. And I did not set out to write about colouring again! Creative tasks can be anything from gardening to cooking to figuring out how to fix something. You know already.
Check out my article on LinkedIn if you’re interested to find out more. ‘Getting Clear about Creative Thinking’ published yesterday – you can read it here
Creative processes are how new possibilities arise. It’s common to see articles with titles similar to this: Brain Hacks to Boost your Creativity. Refreshing, isn’t it, to know everyone can be creative? As you know, this is what ‘floats my boat’! And in alignment with that, I have a few new offerings.
This is new!
- A free talk for organisations and work-places titled “5 Power Tips to Make Creative Thinking Easy”. In this 45 minute talk you’ll discover what creative thinking really is; learn a 3 step process to get started and find out about 5 effective ‘hacks’ to welcome in fresh ideas. You can reply to this email for a flyer and more information – I’d love to hear from you 🙂
- New course – 1 day “Creative Think Shop”. The feedback from many people has been that it was difficult for them to attend both days of the level one. Consequently, I’ve condensed it into a full day intensive. Everything is provided and the first one will be up and running on March 12. This is what it’s all about:
- Explore your unique brand of creativity and how it can upgrade your life and work
- Find out about the creative brain (that each of us have!)
- Identify traits of ‘highly creative people’ and your strengths
- Say goodbye to procrastination with the 6 Sure Steps to Powerful Creative Process
- Complete the day with a range of strategies that help you create great conditions for generating inspired ideas
I’ve been preparing for my exhibition at Nancy Sever Gallery in Canberra… The information is not up on the site yet, but it is here in Art Almanac. The show opens on February 4th at 3pm and will close on March 5th. On the 5th, I’ll give an artist’s talk at 3pm. Hope to see some of you there!
And this is not as new, but valuable – My free consultation is still on offer for anyone wanting to get a taste of working with me. In “Your Treasure Map to Brilliance” 50 minute discovery session we actually draw a treasure map that’s for you to get clarity around your natural creative brilliance and how you’d like to see that unfolding in your life…You can book a session here or ask me about it. I can do this via Skype or phone. A couple of days ago, had a lovely session with a woman from the Netherlands 🙂
That’s all for now folks. Thanks for your interest once again. I look forward to meeting with you in person or online. And I would be very grateful if you could forward this to someone who might be interested. Thanks!
Wishing you vibrant curiosity, fertile imagination and much joy in making something, anything!
Suzanne xo
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