If anyone has done a survey, I don’t know about it. I have no statistics to back me up and couldn’t begin to tell you what fears two through five might be. But thanks to readers’ comments after last week’s post, my own small experience, and some books I’ve read,[…]
All posts under Creativity
Why van Gogh is the Poster Child of Tortured Artists Everywhere
In a list of the top ten tortured artists of all time, Vincent van Gogh claims the #1 spot. Members of a club of tortured artists sport Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait with bandaged ear as their club badge. What makes Vincent van Gogh the poster child of tortured artists everywhere?[…]
5 Creative Ways to Work with Your Dreams
Robert Johnson’s 4 Steps to Better Dream Interpretation is an excellent process for understanding a dream. In addition to his process, or in place of it if you prefer, this post is about creative ways to work with your dreams. The ideas come from The Art of Dreaming by Jungian[…]
Your World in a Six-Word Story
The Pythagoreans considered the number six to be a perfect number. In mathematical terms, it is perfect because when all of the number’s divisors are added together, the sum is the number (1 + 2 +3 = 6). As it happens, six also seems to be the perfect minimum number[…]
15 Top Notch Sites for Free Images
There are lots of uses for images: presentations, websites, scrapbooks, art journals, collages, Pinterest boards, and vision boards, to name just a few. Free images, whether photographs or graphics, are the best of all if they are any good. Fortunately, there are now literally dozens of free sites with lots[…]
How to Unlock the Power of Creative Visualization
I used to think that creative visualization was a bit of nonsense cooked up by people who had a financial stake in The Secret. But then I started meditating a few months ago using guided imagery meditations. Surprisingly, images, sounds, even smells started appearing. Suddenly I was visualizing or, more accurately[…]
Chihuly: Artistry in Fire on a Grand Scale
If an expert is one who has devoted 10,000 hours to his passion, I’m not sure what you’d call Dale Chihuly. Other than extraordinary. Born in 1941, Chihuly has been working in glass for fifty years. He was one of the first graduates of the first fine arts glass program[…]
Stone Artists Celebrate Life in the Midst of Struggle
The Republic of Zimbabwe is a country blessed with an abundance of natural resources, yet it is one of the poorest countries in Africa. The vast majority (95%) of Zimbabweans are unemployed or underemployed and living below the poverty line. HIV/AIDS is still a serious problem, with approximately ten percent[…]
9 Ways to Kick Perfectionism to the Curb So You Can Create
Are You a Perfectionist? What Kind? If you are a self-oriented perfectionist, don’t beat yourself up. You are fine. You love a good challenge. You don’t fall apart when you fail to meet your own high standards. You simply look for ways you can improve next time. Your kind of perfectionism[…]
Manifesto for a Creative Life
The word ‘creativity’ scares a lot of people, sometimes me included. So before I tell you why I believe that we (you and me) MUST live creative lives, let me be really clear about some of the tired ideas about creativity that will NEVER have a place in our conversations.[…]