Creative Play Newsletter Vol.2, Issue 5 – With Gratitude
November is apparently “Gratitude Month.” I don’t remember when it was officially created, but I have seen announcements of that popping up more frequently over the last few years. With Thanksgiving occurring in a few weeks, “Gratitude Month” does make sense. So, I want to take the time to say …
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Challenging Work
Today, I begin the task of gathering the name of each victim of the Las Vegas shooting to create a new set of blocks for my Victims Quilt. As I type each one, I am looking at their photos and reading about who they were. I am reading about husbands who …
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Protest #6 – In Our Sights
I doubt this one needs a lot of explanation. It includes pages from The New York Times on October 3rd and 4th, 2017, overlaid with a gray sheer and quilted with black thread in concentric circles. The green gun sight image is appliqued on top. I used actual newspapers, knowing …
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Creative Play Newsletter Vol. 2:Issue 4 – Play For Your Authentic Self
I started reading a book called “Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul” by Stuart Brown, M.D., founder of the National Institute for Play, (Who knew there was such a thing?) and Christopher Vaughan. I am completely riveted. I’m learning about all of the …
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In Our Sights
I started a new quilt this week. I’m still reeling from this week’s news of yet another mass shooting, the most deadly of all, and I am not yet ready to start typing the names of victims to add them to the Victims Quilt. But, I still found myself sick …
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Victims
After 15 months of work, my Victims quilt is complete. The finished quilt is 112″ square and is too large for me to adequately photograph. Each 8″ block contains the name of a victim of a major mass shooting event in the U.S. I chose to focus on events that …
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Creativity Myth #3 – “I am too old to play.”
I had been using this excuse myself for so long that I really had to step back and think about it. I’d just become so accustomed to it that it felt like truth. When I gave it some more thought I realized that this idea is a really common message …
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Creativity Myth #2 – “I don’t have time to play.”
Believe me, I understand this one! As I wrote earlier, I hardly took time to play as a kid. As an adult? Forget it! I didn’t allow myself time to play until all of my work was done and my work was almost never done. Finally, however, as I have …
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Creativity Myth #1 – “I am not creative.”
Hogwash! Pure and total hogwash! But, hogwash that I am familiar with. Had you asked me ten years ago if I was creative, I would probably have responded with a tentative “Yes? I guess so.” I mean, I thought I was kind of creative and I enjoyed doing creative things …
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Learning to Play
I recently launched an online course called 30 Days of Creative Play™ that is designed to provide a kick start to one’s creativity when it starts lagging through 30 days of 15-minute creative exploration exercises. Over the course of this week, I want to discuss how I came to creative …
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