Tuesday, January 11, 2011

On living creatively...

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a new year's resolution post. Well, not really. As I friend of mine said, "I don't resolute." (I don't believe resolute is a verb, but I like it!) Rather than resolution, I like the word often used in yoga: intention. I have several intentions for this day, this week, maybe this year, but the one I'll share here is to live more creatively. Yes, I already have a pretty creative life — I am a writer with a lot of flexibility in my days and life. I realize how privileged and lucky I am. What I'm talking about though is pushing my boundaries, not playing it so safe. I could learn a lot from daughter P. That girl is creative. She cooks without recipes, sews without patterns, and plays the piano without music. I should do that more. Live with a little fear of failure. I'm working on it. I actually started late last year with a painting course. I learned a lot about technique and such, but I learned more about myself. I really had to let go and just assume that it wouldn't work out. In the end, this painting did "work out," (a subjective term if there ever was one) but a few I've tried since haven't so much. That's okay. There's always gesso and a new clean canvas.



On the point of creativity, I really enjoyed this blog post — an interview with the artist, cartoonist, writer, etc. Lynda Barry. I love this quote:

When What It Is came out, Amazon didn’t know how to categorize it, so they categorized it as science fiction, which was so boss. If I was going to write a science fiction story, this is such a good one — a culture that shames people out of doing the very thing that will give them new neurons. If you draw a chicken on a piece of paper, there’s going to be some interesting neural activity — but people are too scared to draw a chicken, even if they’re just gonna throw it away. What the hell is that? When did that happen?


For 2011, I resolute to draw more chickens. How about you?

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