When you really stop and think about it, you realize people are often creative in a number of different ways. My friend Lindy Hearne is a singer/songwriter, and he is also an amazing photographer. I tried to snag a copy of one of his pictures from Facebook, but couldn’t. If you would like to see a few of his shots, here is a LINK And if you would like to hear some of the music he creates with his partner, Lynn Adler, here is a LINK to their page on MySpace.
I have another friend who is a writer, Jory Sherman, and he is also a painter. What is the most amazing thing about that is that he is legally blind. Well, so am I in one eye, but he is blind in both. He can see light and dark and make out some large images, but that is all. The work he has turned out on canvas is stunning and he has won awards for that work as well as his writing. Here is a LINK to a story I did about Jory last year. You can see some of his paintings there.
I thought about this cross-over of creativity this morning when I set out on my morning walk. This will now explain the pictures of the buzzards in case you were wondering what on earth they have to do with this topic.
As I was walking, I was checking out the cows and the egrets in the pasture across the road from me when I saw this dead tree full of buzzards. It is a gray, cloudy morning and the silhouette of the birds against the gray sky was captivating. I thought about just walking on by, but couldn’t resist the urge to go back and get my camera.
That urge got me to thinking about this cross-over of creativity and how people are loaded with it, even if they don’t realize it or explore it. Since reading The Artist’s Way, I have been more aware of the forms of creativity I enjoy and am apparently gifted at. At least that’s what people tell me.
I don’t think I am as gifted as some of my friends, but then I have always had a hard time being my own cheerleader. I do enjoy singing, acting, directing, playing guitar, and I have even done some painting. All of that feeds my creative core, and as I learned from that book and from wise friends, all creativity is connected and feeds each other. So I believe I have become a better writer since allowing myself to enjoy all these other forms of creativity.
What about you? What types of creative endeavors do you enjoy? It doesn’t have to be in the arts. Creativity can take many forms.
Besides writing, I can’t sing but I enjoy karaoke. Strangers I meet in NYC always tell me I should be an actor. I drew a lot as a child, but plotting and weaving stories together was always at my core. I love cooking different kinds of cuisine and see the art of the physical body in playing volleyball.
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour
I’m a huge fan of all forms of creative expression…but sadly, I’m not talented in any creative media but writing…and a smidge in photography.
Alex, if you lived closer I would add you to the list of actors here at the art center. We are always open to new talent, experienced or not.
Elizabeth, I bet you have more talents than your writing – which I love BTW. I didn’t think my other interests were really talents until I really started using them and exploring them.
I doodle my way through Management meeetings at work, sometimes with a bit of poetry thrown in, all inspired by the inanity of the meeting. My staff usually gets more out of my doodles than the news I share from these meetings, and it’s quite cathartic for me.
Thanks! Who knows, maybe I’ll try my hand at being an extra.
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour
I can’t paint or draw. I take decent photographs, but nothing great. Love to cook. I can needlepoint, but it makes me a little nutty.
Carol, there is an amazing exhibit of needle art at the Art Center in in my small town. This woman makes the most beautiful pictures with her cross stitch. I have a niece that does, too, and I stand in awe of what they create. I could never do that.
Alex, hope you don’t end up on the cutting room floor if you do work as an extra. I used to help be part of a crowd for some filmmakers in Dallas that I knew and every time they would cut part of that scene. I really started to get paranoid. LOL
Hey all, (posted in two parts due to limitations)
Well, I’m one of those hard-wired weirdos. I was a child prodigy in both music (play 15 instruments without training, 4 1/2 octave vocal range and perfect pitch memory) and fine art. (Sat down when I was 12 and had never drawn before, and painted an arabian horse that looked exactly like the photo.) While I have a very high-IQ and am in MENSA, I consider my artistic side more savantism than genius.
I write songs, analyse music theory, play instruments, arrange music, sing and anything else musical. I used to listen to RUSH CDs during my final exams in Ear-training because I was so bored. And those were the few classes I didn’t clep out of.
In art, I have never been formally trained, but can work equally well in oils, pastels (both chalk and oil), charcoal, pens and inks, pencil and watercolours.
I own my own web-design firm and do all the graphics myself. I can digitally paint as well as create 3D photos.
I am a published author in several different genres, including historical fiction, comedy and horror.
I am a professional tv/stage/film actor, professional stand-up comedienne, and improvisational actor. My work has been featured on NBC sitcoms, The Kennedy Centre in DC, and Zanies all over the country. I found out I had the gift of writing and performing comedy when I took a beginning acting class in college so I could become a better singer/performer. Since then I was awarded a scholarship to study with Second City, have taken several stand-up classes so I could become better at writing, and am now writing and performing my own one-woman shows.
I am a successful jewellery designer, working in polymer clay, wire-working and wire-wrapping (my favourites) and bead stitching.
(If any of you are on Facebook, you can see some of my work in my store on my fanpage. Get to the link through my web-site.)
I am returning to college to finish my double doctorates in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.
ALL of these things I learned myself, but have continued learning through classes and books. I always find conversations of this nature fascinating because I’ve always said most artists, whether they realise it or not, can cross-pollinate.
Elizabeth, it’s not about talent. Talent is a subjective word that Viola Spolin of Second City eschewed and shunned, because of its negative connotations, such as this: a person thinks because they weren’t born with a natural gift, that this means they have no talent for it. How erroneous is THAT?
When I taught jewellery making classes and acting classes at Michaels, I would always meet customers who said the same things: they had no talent. But that isn’t it. All of these things, like your writing, are CRAFTS that need to be learned for those not born with the inherent ability. Think of it as a language. You weren’t born knowing how to write. You had to learn the general guidelines and then learn to work within that paradigm in order to create.
It’s exactly the same for any other artistic endeavour.
Alex: if you are truly wanting to experience acting, then don’t be an extra. Background players are NOT acting–they are furniture. I tell folks who ask me about dipping toes into the business, to audition for a local community theatre production. I learned more about acting while as a non-speaking townsperson in community theatre than I ever did in college. In theatre, it’s okay to act and interract, and the director will have more patience with you in helping you learn what to do. But in film and tv, background players who “act” then steal focus from the leads, and that will get you canned. Directors do not have time to help new actors or background actors learn the ropes. Too much money is on the line.
It is my opinion that most creative artists can cross-pollinate easily because it’s all emanating from the same side of the brain: the intuitive side. If you break down each creative endeavour into its component parts and analyse them, you will have one thing in common: the intuition. Artists are constantly flying by the seat of their pants in the creation process, working intuitively. And that is something all arts share.
Writer’s block doesn’t exist; not in the way most think so. They think it’s a lack of ideas. But it’s really engaging the logical side of the brain too soon, thus shooting down every idea you have as crap. In other words, judging your own work too harshly before it’s time.
That’s sort of what happens to people when they think they automatically can’t do something creative. They’re engaging their internal editors too soon, thus, convincing themselves that whatever they do will be crap. There are WAY TOO MANY people working in offices who long to be working as artists, but fear and self-loathing keep them in a safe, cushy job instead of doing what will make them happy and what they love. Julia Cameron gets more into that in-depth in her other books, I think.
Um, I’ll shaddyup now.
I seem to have few creative talents. I can write. I like to take photographs, but don’t have an eye for it. Long ago I did ceramics. Fun, but I haven’t done it in years. Apparently I’m as creative as a block of wood.
Wow, Carla, what a wealth of talen you have.
Helen, I would venture to say that you are a tad more creative than a block of wood. Seem to remember something about you dancing in water. Mermaid something LOL
@Carla Rene, duly noted. It’s just funny how I always have seen myself as a behind the scenes guy and not ever someone in front of a camera or audience, even though others have.
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour
Maryann, when you said “Dallas” I didn’t think of the city right away but the primetime soap!
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour
Alex, I was always the one either behind the scenes or directing, but always really wanted to be on stage. So two years ago I took the big plunge and auditioned for a role in a play at a community theatre. Got the part and got bitten by the acting bug. I’ve been in several shows since and I really love acting. It’s just playing, and who doesn’t like to play.
More food for thought. We’ll see, I’m playing with maybe signing up for student films at NYU or something crazy like that! Thanks for the support!
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour