CREATIVITY + INNOVATION Page 43 of 50

Playing with plaster

Posted on 2011-03-15 at 3:27 pm.

During the retreat I attended recently in California, I popped into another studio to have a nosey at what they were doing in Stephanie Lee’s class, and see Lorrie, Lindy and Louise working away on their plaster creations. I have always loved wax, and couldn’t resist having a go myself.

Under their guidance I made this picture – not bad for under an hour!

I can see why Louise has declared it was love at first sight with plaster… I just love the way the glaze seeped into the cracked plaster, and how the wax drank in the brown paint where markings were scratched into it.

My man hung it on the wall yesterday, with the new drill I got him for Christmas (but am now coveting – it’s so cool!)

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Have you ever tried playing with plaster and wax? Such fun!

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Finding the courage to follow your heart: Erin Wigger and Louise Gale share their stories

Posted on 2011-03-14 at 8:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

This week we share two stories from New York City – photojournalist Erin Wigger and Louise Gale, a British artist living in the US*.

* Since this post was published Louise has moved to Spain.

Erin Wagger

To do what I love means that I live with passion, purpose and a good amount of self-sacrifice. It means that every day I wake up and choose to live my life as a storyteller. I am a photographer and I tell life stories, death stories and everything in between.

I studied abroad for my sophomore year in Jerusalem, Israel and a friend’s father hooked me up with the number for the Associated Press office in town. I cold-called the editor and asked if he needed an intern. “I will clean your toilets or anything you need”, I remember telling him. I didn’t have a portfolio, or even any pictures to show, just hubris and the vague, unshakeable idea that this was the place for me. I now think he just wanted a cute young thing around the office, but it didn’t matter because I was in.

My first day on the job I photographed a demonstration in Bethlehem. Tear gas, rubber bullets and rocks. That was my first glimpse into real journalism. As I ran directly into the tear gas I remember thinking that this was the only thing I ever wanted to do. I decided right there to become a photojournalist. I spent the rest of the year photographing major events in Israel. I skipped class to go to demonstrations in Hebron and Ramallah. I talked my way into private Christmas services at the Church of the Nativity and took one of the only pictures of Yasser Arafat at a Christian mass. I was fearless and on fire. I failed most of my classes that year and never got a better education.

I went to school for photography, which isn’t for everyone, but I knew I needed to learn how to see. Anyone can press a button on a camera, but I wanted to know about who had come before me and find my place.

Now I freelance as a photographer in New York City, the most competitive place in this industry. It hasn’t been easy to survive. I do personal projects that make me no money and pray that they get noticed. But I still live for that thrill of meeting someone new and hearing their story. I am granted the gift of curiosity and this life enables me to indulge in it. I started photographing weddings and realized that there were stories there too, amazing ones that needed to be told truly.

I’ve had many crises of faith. Photojournalism is not a life that can be lived halfway. You will never be rich with money, but you will meet the most incredible people and be a small part of their lives. You will be a voice for them. I’ve backed away from my dream many, many times. I have been scared at the depth of my ambition. I want to tell big stories that matter and that’s what keeps me striving even when the going is rough.

(All images courtesy of Erin Wigger)

Find out more about Erin and her work on her website.

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Louise Gale

(Photo courtesy of Louise Gale)

I love that I can be creative everyday. I love that I go to bed at night contented and full of gratitude. I love waking up, excited to see what the day will bring. I love the connections I have made with other creative souls out there and the strong bonds that are forming. I love that I am listening to the universe and myself, and that I feel aligned and on the path I am meant to be on. There are so many things I am happy about in this present time of my life that I can honestly say I am doing what I love.

‘Burst’

My website was born to enable me to dream more, be inspired and inspire others, start creating art again and ultimately create the life I was born to live. It has done just that and I am so proud to say that I am now helping others dream big through my e-courses, and inspiring them with stories of serendipity and the universe. Through creating and exhibiting art, and through the life I am living, a wonderful community is forming, made up of people who support each other to explore and grow.

‘Green life or grey life?’

When I think of all the significant moments and scary decisions in my life, they have led me here, to do what I do, to the people I have met and the person I am. Growing up in the UK, my parents taught me “to go against the grain” and not always follow the crowd. My art teacher at school told me I wasn’t good enough – and that taught me “to try it anyway” (and guess what? I got in to art school!). Not having a job in a creative field right away taught me I could still be creative. The numerous jobs I had taught me it’s good to try new things and go back to your passion when the time is right. Living in Australia and travelling to far away lands taught me to be adventurous, face my fears and be a free spirit. There are many other life lessons have brought me to where I am now.

‘Botanical garden’

The greatest lesson in my life so far is to trust myself, my instincts and my intuition, and that positive thinking and determination will lead me to where I am meant to go. Being able to be creative every day saved me through the tough times of working in a windowless office and enabled me to actually realise, I COULD turn my dreams into reality.

May 1st 2011 marks my one year anniversary of this new life. The corporate life that brought me to America back in 2004 seems so far away now. I am also about to embark on training for my Life Coaching Certificate and I can’t wait to continue to help others follow their dreams.

‘Out of this world’

For more information about Louise, visit her website, or connect on Facebook.

[All images courtesy of Louise Gale]

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Would you like to share your story on Do What You Love? Please read this and contact me for more details.

Heavenly check list

Posted on 2011-03-05 at 6:04 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

Bunnies hopping past the front door… check

Fresh bread and homemade jam on the kitchen table… check

View for 50 miles across some of England’s loveliest countryside… check

The smell of wood smoke in the air… check

Bird song the music of the day… check

Friendly farmers and a family of deer… check

Wine and candles on the deck… check

What more could anyone want?

When I found this place last year, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for as the home for the Do What You Love art and creative enterprise retreat. It is beautiful, expansive, welcoming. It feels a million miles from anywhere, but is less than an hour from where I live, and only 5 minutes from the nearest town – a historic place nearly 1,000 years old. I am here on a site visit preparing for the retreat in May, and while I mean to be particular with details like the tipi orientation, bonfire location and where to serve afternoon
tea and cake, my mind keeps drifting like the little white clouds in the sky, over the hills and out into nature which surrounds us. This place is bliss, and I can’t wait until it is filled with the creative energy of people doing what they love. Just a little more drifting before I get back to work…

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There are only a few places left on the Do What You love art retreat, which combines creativity, enterprise and community to help you do what you love, for life. Our stellar line-up of business speakers will be announced soon. In the meantime, find out more and register here.

My California girls

Posted on 2011-03-04 at 8:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

(L-R Mindy Lacefield, me, Danielle Fraser, Louise Gale, Stella Singleton, Juliette Crane – I think Lindy McClellan must be taking the picture!)

There are some people in this life who it feels like you were supposed to meet. People you needed to open your eyes to something – something about you, about the world around you, or about your path. This is how I feel about the AAJ girls. When I met them for the first time last year, I somehow found myself in California, not really knowing why I was there. I didn’t even know what a blog was, and hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in a long time. In that special place in the shadow of the redwoods, I discovered the magic of art retreats. Somehow this amazing bunch of gorgeous gals made that trip a turning point for me, and everything changed.

Lorrie Spotts

Stella Singleton

We laughed, we drank tea, we talked long into the night, we painted, we ate together, we drank lots of wine. It was as if time stood still for four days, and yet it went so fast.

Only cheap paints allowed for this workshop!

It was wonderful to meet up with them and all the others from last year again – and to send love out into the world to those girls who couldn’t make it back for the second time (like Chrissy, Cathy, Anna-Marie, Peggy and Joli). And lovely to meet new creative souls too (like Karen, Nelly, Michelle, Amy, Carrie and Gwynnie B), to share this awesome journey.

Love y’all!

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You can read more about the crazy painting class I took with the awesome Jesse Reno here – and see what I painted here!

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Art retreats are incredibly powerful experiences. Join a group of likeminded souls at the Do What You Love art and creative enterprise retreat in the English countryside in May – just a few places left, register now!

Do What You Love interview – Jennifer Lee

Posted on 2011-03-03 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Jennifer Lee, author of The Right-Brain Business Plan, is a certified coach, writer, artist, yogini, and the founder of Artizen Coaching. Before pursuing her own passions full-time, she consulted for ten years for companies such as Gap Inc., Accenture, Sony, and HP, helping leaders and organizations manage change. Now she is on a mission to empower people to awaken their innate creativity and make a living doing what they love. When she’s not coaching, writing, or leading groups, she’s either painting up a storm, reading in her hammock, practicing yoga, making arts and crafts, or indulging in a midday nap (one of the fabulous perks of being self-employed). She made the leap from corporate America, when she realized she needed to ‘stop living my dream on the side’.

Today Jenn talks about her innovative new book, and what how she helps people live their dreams, in her role as a ‘life and business coach’.

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Jesse Reno’s awesome ‘No Limits’ class (Part Two)

Posted on 2011-03-02 at 2:16 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

I have a confession to make. I am a bit of a non-conformist when it comes to painting. I don’t much like sketching, I don’t have the patience to plan a painting, and rendering a still life is up there with doing the housework. Which is probably why I loved Jesse Reno’s class so much. It was all about being messy, creating chaos, getting stuck in.

If you aren’t familiar with Jesse’s work, have a look at this incredible video. He paints furiously, in a carefree but strangely considered way – it looks like everything in random but there is some method in all the madness. Jesse himself is a fascinating guy, full of funny stories of his life as an artist, living it just the way he wants to. His images are ancient and very masculine, but his colours and added details hearts, flowers etc) are contemporary and feminine. It makes for a unique combination.

Here are some images from our class – you can see how Jesse built up his paintings.

Jesse came back after class hours and stayed in the studio with us until gone midnight. It was awesome to see him paint live, and to get pushed into trying new things.

I was uncomfortable about my own paintings – they were crazy, quite dark, unfamiliar. But I was fascinated by what unfolded before me. You can see what I created over here – let me know what you think!

This is definitely my kind of painting.

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I had an awesome fortnight in the US, reconnecting with old friends at An Artful Journey, making new ones, and taking a road trip down the beautiful California coast. Will post more about all the lovely girls at the retreat and about the rest of my US adventure soon…

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Have you signed up to the Do What You Love e-course yet? Don’t miss out on joining people from all over the world for this innovative six week adventure towards doing what you love. Register now!

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Jesse Reno’s awesome ‘No Limits’ class (Part One)

Posted on 2011-03-01 at 6:52 pm.

Written by Beth Kempton

This class hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was awesome. Jesse Reno had us painting with our hands, wrecking it, painting over it again, wrecking it again, turning it around, painting it and wrecking it 3-4 more times, adding oil pastel scribbles and details, and so on. It was tough until I just gave in and changed my attitude – not being attached to what I’d created, and letting it become whatever it wanted to. And this is what emerged (images show the paintings in stages)…

The nomad

I really didn’t like this one at first, I wanted to throw it away half way through, and then I started painting hundreds of little squares on it with a rubber brush, this nomad emerged and he ended up being my favourite!

Layer 3:

Layer 6 (I turned it 90 degrees clockwise after layer 3 – you can see by looking at the green area):

The space child

This one was a bit spacey, quite cute, not sure where it came from:

Two people

This one is quite spacey too. Here are some of the base layer details:

Later layers:

And the final(?) painting:

Silenced

This one is a bit scary. I didn’t really like the fact that something so dark looking emerged, but it was really interesting to try not to control the painting.

Layer 2:

Layer 4:

Layer 6 (flipped 180 degrees):

Final layer:

Wierd creature!

And this one looks like a five-year old painted it! So interesting…

Layer 2:

Layer 3:

Layer 5 (flipped 180 degrees, not finished!)

So what do you think? I’d love to know…

[Update: Part Two of this post is up now over here]

I had an awesome fortnight in the US, reconnecting with old friends at An Artful Journey, making new ones, and taking a road trip down the beautiful California coast. Will post more about Jesse Reno and his crazy style, all the lovely girls at the retreat and about the rest of my US adventure soon…

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Have you signed up to the Do What You Love e-course yet? Don’t miss out on this innovative six week adventure towards doing what you love. Register now!

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Why experimenting is key to doing what you love: two artists share their stories

Posted on 2011-02-28 at 8:25 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

This week we share the story of mixed media artist Juliette Crane (in the US) and paper-cutting artist Helen Musselwhite (in the UK).

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Juliette Crane

To me, to do what you love means waking up each morning and being excited, knowing you’re looking forward to enjoying your day. I’d tried so many different careers – as an arts reporter, photographer, graphic designer, floral designer, editorial assistant, web developer. And I was unbelievably unfulfilled with every one (except maybe floral design because I adore flowers and colors so much). But there was always something about each career that didn’t fit. And, so often, that something just broke my spirit.

Still, I felt like it must be me. So many others seemed to be fine with going into work and attending meetings and even creating art based on some one else’s’ specifications. That was never me. Yet, I know how very much every one of those careers helped me to learn exactly what I needed to do what I love today.

This past year has been amazing! I finally dedicated myself to making my art my full-time career. And it has been one of the most wild, fulfilling, wonderful years! I feel like I’ve been able to get in touch with that incredible flow of life and make dreams reality. I meet the right people and things just fall right into place. But a lot of hard work has gone into it all. And when I talk about doing what you love and waking up each day and looking forward to enjoying it, I know that through all of the hard work I put in last year, even through all of the amazing successes, I lost a lot of that every day joy.

My life got so out of balance. When everything seems to be going in this phenomenal direction and people respond to your artwork and it’s all a dream, it’s hard, for me at least, to stop. Yet I wouldn’t have done it any other way. For me to remember to separate myself, at least sometimes, from that crazy current that can pull you along. That was an awesome lesson.

Now I know exactly what I want for this year…to enjoy it all! Not just in really celebrating all of the amazing things I’m accomplishing, and not even in making time for myself, my wonderfully supportive husband and my family, but actually being present and loving every second in my every day! To remember all of those little things, those small moments, that are absolutely most important.

Like the young man at my art opening who made me cry when he looked at my paintings and said he wished he could take every one of them home with him. Like the girl who asked me to teach her and her friends how to paint owls at her 1oth birthday party and who near-pressed her nose for minutes to my snowy owl painting, she loved it so much. Like all of the smiles and gorgeously unique owls everyone goes home with at my painting workshops. I feel so honored to be a part of it all!

And that, is doing what I love.

(All images courtesy of Juliette Crane)

Juliette Crane is a mixed-media artist and writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information about Juliette and her courses, visit her website. You can also connect on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

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Helen Musselwhite

I do what I love every day and I feel very blessed that I’ve finally got here. It took a while and a few incarnations. I try not to take it for granted though as I realise it could so very easily slip from my tight grasp.

Doing what I love means I can go off on flights of fancy and fairytale through my work, and each piece of artwork is a world to escape to whilst I’m making it. I have always known that my working life would be something to do with art. Drawing, painting and making were favourite pastimes as a child and my parents always encouraged me. Art school was the next and obvious step.

I migrated to paper through lots of other materials including wood, silver and gold and fabric but paper won! I started making my paper sculptures four years ago when my partner and I relocated to the north of England. Until we moved I had been doing two part time jobs – one in the art department of a school and the other working with a friend in her jewellery shop. In the shop my duties included making jewellery and designing the window displays. These I made from paper – and it was then I realised paper had all the properties I been looking for but couldn’t find in the other materials I had experimented with. My love of paper was born!

I got together a website, contacted shops and galleries I’d come across in my travels, started an Etsy shop and off I went. Over the past four years the Internet has been, and continues to be my most important tool. Looking back to my previous incarnations in the world of art over a decade ago it is clear how the internet has made self-promotion, finding an audience and selling work so much simpler and quicker.

I work from a studio in my home which I love doing. Each day I’m in my own world only emerging for necessary things like eating, dog walking and spending time with Andrew my partner. Sometimes I head into Manchester to buy paper – a valid distraction.

The downside of working from home is that I find it very hard to turn off from work especially if I have a deadline (which happens quite often). Often the urge to unload the dishwasher or do a bit of vacuuming takes over, and inevitably takes more than the five minutes I intended.

There is no doubt I work harder, and for longer hours than I ever have before, but I am so much happier and fulfilled in my work. It is a trade I’m more than willing to make.

I hope to carry on as I am loving what I do until I’m an old lady, but I’m only as good as my last piece of work so I never take it for granted.

(All images courtesy of Helen Musselwhite)

For more information about Helen visit her website or connect on Twitter, Instagram and flickr.

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Would you like to share your story on Do What You Love? Please see here and contact me for details.

Do What You Love interview – Christine Castro

Posted on 2011-02-25 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Christine Castro of Darling Studio is a brilliant website designer. Getting your website designed is a big thing. It is the face of your business, and it is also a reflection of you. You want people to be drawn to it, and to stay a while, so the design – both in terms of beauty and usability – is crucial. And because so much is riding on it, it can be stressful, but Christine was a dream to work with on the first site we created for DWYL and made the whole thing exciting.

Christine is a veteran blogger, who has been posting about her life for over a decade, first on Webby-nominated maganda.org and now on Brunch and Darling Design. Christine has designed websites for wildly popular artists like Sabrina Ward Harrison and Kelly Rae Roberts. She loves colour, simplicity, and a good cup of coffee and her work has been featured in national publications, including An Illustrated Life, Little Book of Letterpress, and Desire to Inspire.

Here Christine talks about brunch, lessons and working with artists to help them communicate their work to the outside world.

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Unleash the creative in you: TJ Goerlitz and Andrea Schroeder share their stories

Posted on 2011-02-21 at 9:00 am.

Written by Beth Kempton

Are you doing what you love?

In this weekly series, we highlight stories of people who are determined to do just that. Some stories talk of triumph, others despair. They all involve bravery, belief, courage and hope. They are real stories about real people chasing their dreams, and making choices and sacrifices which allow them to do what they love, for life. Every Monday this will become a space for sharing those stories. It takes courage to share, and I hope you will read them, relate to them, be inspired by them, and leave a comment about them.

The stories shared here are our shared stories. “Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams…” WB Yeats

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Today’s stories are from TJ Goerlitz of Studio Mailbox, an American artist living in Germany, and creative dream coach Andrea Schroeder of ABCcreativity.

TJ is an American artist living in Germany. Even though TJ is married to a German national and settled in the country, she still finds that the feeling of being a ‘foreigner’ still influences her life and art.

Andrea Schroeder is a creative dream coach, healer, artist and all around magic-maker. Her mission is “to help remind you that you are a creative genius and that you can create and do “anything”. For more see her website ABCcreativity.

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Tari ‘TJ’ Goerlitz

Doing what I love means exploring my surroundings and then expressing my reaction to it through photography, blogging and artwork.

Studio Mailbox was born on leap year 2008 after I moved to Germany and my attempts to build a website were an epic failure. Blogging was a way that I could have an internet presence and be able to administer it myself.

Over time the site has given me a huge sense of accomplishment. It’s a record of my creative adventures as a foreigner. Now it’s grown into something that needs to be managed and hopefully in time will become a platform for generating income.

The most important thing to me is creating a style that’s original and recognizable. When I started blogging, I only used my own photography and artwork. It never even occurred to me to go find imagery somewhere on the web. It’s been a ton of work but the end result is a site that’s truly mine both in stories and content.

In hindsight, I wish I would have known sooner how important it is to connect with others online. A huge mistake I made in the beginning was to neglect linking and interacting with other artists. I just didn’t understand how the whole blogosphere worked. Not knowing the etiquette made me feel very vulnerable and insecure. Germany is quite a way behind the curve when it comes to blogging. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was actually blazing a trail by German standards!

One of my biggest worries is somehow creating a controversial on-line presence that will hinder my chances at future employment or opportunities. What I’m slowly learning is that surrounding yourself with a tribe of like-minded people is your best defence. That way when you do mess up most people will hopefully display compassion and support you.

I have lots of dreams but the ones I’m currently chasing are avenues to exhibit artwork in Germany as well as investigating publishing and licensing opportunities.

Because I’m creating work in response to German culture, I worry about offending people. Sometimes it’s tricky to know how to speak my truth. Although I’ve experienced a lot of pain as a foreigner, I’ve experienced even more love. I’m nuts for all things alpine. I swoon over traditional clothing. Don’t even mention German hats! It would be so meaningful to me if I could use my foreign eyes to create the kind of designs that Germans could be proud of.

If I could ask one thing of the universe to help me along my way, I’d ask for a creative mentor. I’ve been out here alone in my wacky creative brain long enough.

All images courtesy of TJ Goerlitz. For more information see TJ’s website, Studio Mailbox, or connect on Facebook

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Andrea Schroeder

I am doing what I love. It is the most soul satisfying, glee-inducing thing EVER.

I have been doing what I love for some time. Well, I always have been, in a way, anyway. I mean through being a “starving artist” or juggling a job and my creative life – I’ve always found a way to be doing what I love, in the best way I could at the time.

But seven months ago I came to a point where I needed something different. I knew I needed to quit my part time job and have the thing I love be the way I live. I set a clear intention to leave my job in six months.

And those six months were a bumpy ride.

I started to examine everything about my work. I had been doing my art, as well as leading Creativity Workshops, Healing Meditation Circles and working with clients one on one for years already but everything about it was set up to be part time, to fit around my job. I had to look honestly at what needed to change for me to be able to make the income I wanted to have. I had to look at what I needed to learn and where I needed to grow to be able to create and sustain the kind of business I wanted to have.

The more I learned about business the more exciting it got, seeing how I can fit everything I love into one beautiful sparkling entity.

At the same time, the more I learned and grew my business – the louder my fears became. The parts of me that really like the comfort and safety of income and benefits let me know they were not happy with my choice. Self doubt began to creep in. Sure, I put on great events and make art that inspires people – but can I really produce enough for it to be a full time job? Can I really make enough money to pay the mortgage and insurance and keep the car running and and and and and…

And then, if that wasn’t enough I did have people questioning me “Are you sure you can really make enough money?” “Isn’t this too big a risk?” , “I can’t believe you are quitting your job! You’re so lucky to have it!”

My intuition was always clear. YES. You are ready. This is the time. You can do it. You have everything you need. Oh. But you do have to deal with these pesky fears. There is no other way to get there.

So my time became stretched by learning about business, applying my new learnings to my ever-growing business, doing the work of running a business, interacting with fears – both mine and the fears of the people around me and going to work.

Looking back I’m not really sure how I did all of that. But I had that clear intuitive knowing. I was ready. It was time. And there was a lot of crap to move through in order to get there and the best way to move through, for me, for that time, was to just plow through and not stop no matter what.

And that’s what I did.

I left my job a month ago.

I do the things I love as my full time work. I live my creative dreams and I get to help others do the same. This is the best!

Andrea’s studio

[All photo credits: Andrea Schroeder]

For more information about Andrea visit her website, or connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

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Would you like to have your story published on Do What You Love? See here for more details of how to get involved and share your story with the world.