MY CREATIVE LIFE: THEN AND NOW
Recently, a friend sent me her creative story after reading my book, Refrain from the Identical: Insight and Inspiration for Creative Eclectics. She decided to do the exercise at the end of Chapter 1:
"Exercise: Write about your creative history. Start with memoires as far back into childhood as you can remember and then work your way towards the present. Does any activity still call to you?"
Her story touched me and reaffirmed one of my purposes for writing the book—to help people connect with their creative identities by retracing their creative histories. Carol graciously agreed to allow me to post her story. I hope this will inspire others to write their own. (I've included some of her poems as visuals for the post.)
MY CREATIVE LIFE
THEN AND NOW
November 2011
Back as far as I can remember, I liked to color with crayons in color books within the lines. Another passion of my younger years was to cut out and organize my paper doll's clothes although I don't remember doing much in the area of making up dramas or plays for them. Can those two activities even be considered creative?
I remember having a brownie camera for taking pictures but not anything very special. Then I moved onto using our "long time in the family" Argus camera and shooting black and white photos because that was all that was available then.
Over the years I did seem to always have a camera in my hand, recording vacation trips and horseback riding adventures with print and slide. Photo shoots and classes were always fun. It was an added pleasure to organize them into a book or program to help tell the story of that special event.
Today I remain in love with putting together books by organizing pictures and information. My photography phase seems to be on hold right now as I came to feel that there was no particular purpose in all the pictures that I was taking. I am still working on that issue although often I will see a scene and frame it in my mind and imagination. Things of balance and color continue to catch my eye's attention.
Over 20 years ago we were camping at Pismo Beach, and I happened to wake overly early in the morning and idly started composing a poem in my head and was able to remember all the words until dawn when I could write them down. That was the beginning of a romance with poetry writing that continues to this day. Sometimes, I will go months without writing a word then all of a sudden a whole poem pops into my head. Be assured that my poems are short, usually lines of few words, and only one even approaches a whole page in length.
Photo by JoDee Luna
A friend introduced me to sketching a couple years ago, but I have not done much with it after she moved away. It is on my list to take some basic lessons to further my abilities in that area in order to awaken some hidden and dormant talents. A further goal is to one day use my own sketching abilities to illustrate a book of my poems.
In review, my current creativity is limited to making my own greeting cards when I have the time, doing some cut and paste additions to my daily journal, and periodically writing poems; photography and sketching are on hold for now until the Holy Spirit guides me there again with freedom. In this phase of my life, "when I have time" seems to be the limiting factor for the expression of my creativity.
Slight revision/addition 12/4/11
P.S. If editing can be considered creative, add that to my list as I have read over and made changes and additions to this a number of times over a period of weeks.
*After reading Carol's story, I extended an invitation for her to post photos on this website. Here is an excerpt from her reply: "I have been coming to a realization over a period of the last couple of weeks that I could focus on taking pictures that show some of the handiwork and miracles of God as seen in nature, etc."
Share this:
