Tag: creativity

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Nature in the city

Jess tells us how she integrates Nature into her creative living in a city:

Living in the heart of a large city, I often have to work at making time to interact and explore nature. I grew up in the countryside, think fields and valleys with forests and streams all around, so as a child it was easy, just walk out the door and you were immediately squishing your fingers in the mud and smelling the fragrance of the garden.

I think every urban area has nature to be found, though, even if it does take a little more looking. And interacting with nature is such an important part of creative life that it’s definitely worth the extra effort.

Luckily, my day job is already pretty connected with nature. I’m a florist and own a flower shop, so I get to touch and smell beautiful blooms pretty much daily, and am often to be found with my fingers in soil planting things, all of which I know help keep my brain making new creative connections.

Outside of work, because I’m mostly surrounded by buildings, getting myself deeply surrounded by nature means going for walks to the city waterfront where I often will sit and watch the water as it ripples in the bay, listening to the ducks and gulls. I’m not lucky enough to have a city allotment, but I’ll often ride my bike to them and spend time peering over the fences taking in the mad mess of vegetables and flowers spilling over the plots, all framed within the grid of the city. I’m also obsessed with finding bits of nature that manage to sprout and even flourish deep within the concrete structures, stopping to snap photos of wildflowers bursting out of a sidewalk crack or a bus shelter taken over by vines. These images and this feeling of juxtaposition of nature and city and the tension of that, all seep into things I create. My daily sketch book is filled with colourful scribbles of neon city-scapes that have oversized birds and trees interspersed or crazy spliced human/animals.

When you think of exploring nature, you probably first think of it on a larger scale- hiking a mountain for example, but when you are in a city, sometimes you need to think on a micro scale! Even in the most urban environment, I guarantee you can find moss and lichen, whether on aged buildings or wooden electricity poles or on trees and rocks in a city parkland. Get down close and really look at these little mini ecosystems. It’s really amazing, the structures and colours of these tiny pieces of nature, and taking time to notice everything about them sets off all kinds of creativity in my brain- the texture, the shapes, the crazy colour combinations, how on earth they can grow where they do.

Also important to the conversation is the concept that exploring and experiencing nature isn’t about seeing something and then drawing it, the effect is deeper and further reaching than that. Immersing myself in the trees or lying on the grass in a city park, sitting by the water, all these things give my brain stimulation of senses that are helping it build new pathways that in turn help me solve problems and come up with new ideas. These are things that happen rather easier when we are kids, because rolling in the grass or climbing a tree is to be expected, as a grownup I have to really focus and practice the habit of touching, smelling, seeing and hearing with no “goal” or direct reason other than to experience.

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Nature

Growing up in the rural West Country of England was like living in a lifestyle magazine or children’s book. Emily and Jess lived in a 600 year old stone cottage that was the former bakery for the farm estate in a thousand year old Saxon era community just outside Bath. As very young children they played under Orange Pippin apple trees, as young girls, they had a treehouse in a crabapple tree and by eight years old, the 200 hundred year old giant beech trees were their hideout. Daily walks along English hedgerows provided biology lessons and botany lessons. Dog roses, honeysuckles, ragged robin and bluebells predominated as the flowers they broke apart to examine reproduction in plants. The neighbouring farm offered Christmas parties in a 500 year old stone barn, pheasant and duck plucking, flowering cherry trees, large and aggressive geese and huge herds of sheep running the lanes each spring and fall. The Adams family regularly visited the local arboretum, learned all the varieties of trees that resided there, and enjoyed long rambles through the soft rolling hills that characterize the area.

Nature is a muse for most creatives, and that comes often from the intimate connection we form with it as children. Our first toys were cups, spoons and dirt. Mud pies, potions and recipes made from every natural element we could locate were among our earliest creations, and forty five years later, Emily can still recall the exact combinations of some of those creations. The smell of the earth, the flower petals, the warmth of the water from the standpipe; all become woven into the fabric of Emily’s earliest creative explorations.

As brooding teens both girls used painting, writing and photography of these bucolic scenes to express their deepest emotions and yearning for mystery. There are a LOT of pictures of flowers and valleys still lying around our homes! Every aspect of our life featured nature; holidays in Ireland wading in cold mountain streams, lying in scented heather, prickly gorse and springy Irish moss. and exploring the deep dark rhododendron tunnels at Lough Key park. Summer trips to Devon, Wales, and the Cotswolds to ramble along grassy trails, through ancient woods and along sandy beaches that once hosted the Vikings and Danes. The broad rocky steps of the Burren, the fossil filled coast of Ireland, rock pools and crab hunting on the South coast of England. We learned rocks, geology, went into old cave systems and discovered ancient stalagmites in Wookey Hole. The ways in which nature was present are too innumerable to itemize. This natural world continues to influence our creativity today in both rural Ontario and urban Toronto.

This month we’re exploring how we can continue interacting with Nature in our adult lives, looking at ways to be immersed in it no matter if you live in an urban or rural setting. Check back in through the month as Jess posts about creating space for nature in her urban city world and Emily tells us all about using nature to nurture creativity in a more rural setting.

Make sure you are signed up to out newsletter, as we’ll be sending out a special email each month with ideas on how to use nature to boost creativity in your daily life.

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January -A year of us; exploring the roots and routines of Cloud Gazing Creatives

Every journey requires growth, and Cloud Gazing Creatives has been growing slowly over the last year. Jess and Emily are using the next twelve months to explore their ‘why’, the roots that gave them creativity and what they do now to maintain that creativity. Each month they will explore, from both rural and urban viewpoints, the themes and events that influence them and form the basis of the problem solving and critical thinking creativity that make them who they are.

How do we live a creative life?

Is there a secret to those who live a creative life? Authors such as Austin Kleon, Beci Oripin, Debbie Travis and Lynda Barry have tried to define it (see Jess’ Book Reviews). Artists and creators like Picasso, Tim Burton and Kurt Vonnegurt have tried to explain it and even Albert Einstein was questioned on how he became so brilliant. The answers are often vague, and almost always refer back to childhood and our upbringing within the world. Emily and Jess are going to attempt to explore and define the elements that have supported their creative life, with examples from their childhood and from today. Each month you can get exclusive bonus material if you subscribe to the CGC mailing list. Activities and exercises that bring these elements into your life will help develop your creativity and allow you to see the world differently.

People have asked us for as long as we can remember to explain how we became so creative. Some believe it is natural talent. Others assume intense training has honed our creativity. But we both believe, based on our lived experience, that everyone on the planet has the potential to be as creative as we are when they are offered the opportunity to explore the world in the way we did as children and do now as adults. There is no one secret that makes someone naturally more creative than another, only the path that we take to become creative. When people read about ‘Karen, the former account executive who now makes goat milk soap in her shed’ (good on you though Karen), or ‘Olivier, the former banker who paints watercolours in the Cotswolds’ (yay Olivier); it can become a bit depressing to think we must have prior wealth to be able to follow daily creative practice. This is not so. Creativity has its roots in our childhood, playing with crayons and finger paint and mud. It has it’s future in our connection with what moves us and in the chance to practice what we love everyday for ourselves not others. Join us for a year of ‘us’ and find out what makes us tick!

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Making a course adjustment!

Well, this is exciting! We’re happy to tell you that we’re evolving and adjusting and morphing into something new! Building on our ideas about how EVERYONE is creative, we just need to let go of our ideas about perfection & comparison & find our own unique way of making. We’re going to do this through our podcast chats, including interviews with creative folks about their creative process; blog posts of course; upcoming online courses; AND each month we’re going to give ourselves and YOU a creative prompt, that we will then work through each week with you, breaking down the creative process each week and digging in to all aspects. Do we know exactly what we’re doing? Heck, NO! But, we’re having a ball while we do it! This month we’ll be introducing the steps we take to work on creative ideas, and giving real world examples of them. Then we start on our first creative prompt in May, each week using our creative framework to explore ideas and hopefully inspire you as we all work on our own unique creative project.

Because, together it’s a lot more fun!

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Three key reasons we avoid being creative

The reasons we avoid being creative are numerous of course, and often unique to the individual. But there are three reasons why the majority of people just aren’t creative, or avoid trying it.

1: Fear of failure

In modern society we have developed a massive reliance on predictability. It permeates every aspect of our lives from transportation (bus schedules) to television schedules to standardized testing in education to delivery dates for babies. People spend billions trying to ensure that the outcome of everything is predictable and reliable. In some cases this has a good purpose, but we are letting this roll over into our creative arena also. When we write, we aren’t all going to produce J.K. Rowling-esque work the first time, or even the thirteenth time. When we paint with oils, it’s not going to be Michelangelo or Da Vinci or Van Gogh the first time, or even the two hundredth time, because we aren’t them, we are us. Our need as humans to have a predictable outcome has led to a profusion of ‘paint nights’ where each step of a process is broken down for participants. I have been to several, and EVERY SINGLE time I hear the large portion of painters say things like “well at least yours is straighter than mine’ or ‘your colours are so much brighter’. This is an ingrained societal behaviour, that we must achieve greater than we do when we try something. We beat ourselves up when it isn’t as good as what we imagined we would produce. As a creative we both deal with this daily. In some areas we have far more confidence (Jess is a flower designer, dress maker, knitter. Emily is a writer, a painter and a singer.) When we venture into other arenas we are afraid of not getting it right the same as any other person, but we are also able to see that the experience will teach us something. And so we go for it. Most of the time- we probably aren’t likely to try modern dance any time soon.

2: Fear of judgement

Linked to the fear of failure is our western fear of what others will think. How we are measured on the social yardstick can be a real and terrifying experience, or alternatively can be a totally imagined measurement that turns out to not exist. Both are true. Social media has turned some people into the ‘judges of life’, who troll the internet making nasty comments and bullying others for their lifestyle, choices or way of living. Young people in particular suffer here; why post images of your work (writing, acting, singing, making, painting, fashion, design or engineering) if the internet is going to tear you apart. It’s really sad, and one of the things we hope here at Clougazing Creatives to change. To create a community of supportive makers and doers so that young people will feel safe enough to be the world changers that they are. 

The other reality is that we can also imagine this judgement. Because we have seen it acted out on others, we may fear that our creativity will be judged by a standard that we create in our head. Cloud gazer Emily lived this for many years about her singing. Only about ten years ago did she finally take the leap and start singing in a church choir (group singing feels safer). 

If we think that others will not like our work, we are less likely to speak up or show it. Have an idea for helping prevent climate change? Maybe someone has already done it, maybe it’s too small to make a difference, maybe it’s too expensive, maybe it won’t actually make a change, maybe people will laugh, maybe people will say I’m stupid, maybe, maybe, maybe. See how it goes? The courage to be creative is your biggest gift- let’s change the world together.

3: Attachment to outcome

This one is closely related to the other two- with a personal edge. When we have an image in our head of what our creativity will produce, when it doesn’t achieve the vision, we become discouraged. A community of creators to support you can be vital. Even ONE person to cheer you on can make a difference here, and yes, sometimes that person is you. Sometimes you are the only one who can really see the future in a project, and it may take a long time to get there. 

Whether writing a proposal for a new product, pitching a business idea (entrepreneurs fall into the ‘supercreator’ group), painting, designing a dress or planting a new flower bed it matters that you see the positive and accept the negative instead of deeming any project an utter failure. And this takes practice. Like meditation or yoga, creators can practice trying and failing. Just ask Simone Giertz, a swedish inventor and internet star who purposely designs things to fail. It can be a very cathartic experience, and is one that children can be really good at in the right environments. The experience of creating and being okay with failing is like playing. When children have a set of open-ended materials in front of them they will experiment with placement, colour, design or usage until they find something that works for them. Then they will repeat the experience over and over again, trying small changes until they have absorbed all the information their development needed from the play. Then they move on to other materials to learn again. Creative adults can do the same.  

When collated together in this list one giant feature jumps out. We are afraid. The world is a scary place. Fear helps to keep us mostly safe by curtailing the number of risky ventures we try. Evolution gave us this trait to protect our bodies and ensure our future. But evolution also gave us the ability to explore alternatives. We have a brain that enables us to do risk assessments, to make explorations into territories that otherwise we would avoid. We CAN push past the fear to achieve new things, if we are willing to let go of the need for a perfect result, if we let go of our worry about how others will see us and if we can rise above the fear of something not working the first time. Because ultimately that’s what creativity is; getting up to try again.