In the Midst of Winter, We Dream of the Sun...

Sometimes life can get us down. When it does, we have at least two choices: to wallow in our discontent... or to get up and just get on with it, hoping to find a bit of joy where we can. Surprisingly, option two — although initially requiring more energy to kickstart — also offers a lot more kickback on our investment.

The last two weeks have been difficult ones for our family as we continue to struggle through a time of crisis; but in the midst of the anxiety and the sadness, we have tried to instil joy in the small moments where it can shine:  a sunbeam through the icy window, a smile of trust and mutual support, those brief bursts of inspiration when creativity takes hold and pushes all the other worries aside for a while.

Along that theme, part of my self care during this stressful time has been to revive a long-ignored interest in fabric design, and to create a few cheerful and colourful patterns inspired by tropical islands and sun-soaked shores. I have even created a new shop on Spoonflower (castle_of_miranda) to share those images, and have ordered some sample swatches for myself.

It's late and I'm tired; it's still winter outside, but I think I can find summer in my heart again.

Fever Dreams and Labours of Love

Have you ever woken from a dream so vivid that you believed it was true long after you woke up?

Sometimes I think that creative work is like a self-induced fever dream: images and emotions so real in our mind's eye that we can almost touch them... but those visions quickly fade and disappear forever into the shadowlands if we don't do something to make them real. Creative work is about finding ways to keep fuelling the fire and building a solid bridge between the world of imagination and the tangible reality of everyday life.

The process of creativity could also be imagined in relation to one of the most basic human instincts for survival: procreation and the arrival of a new generation of ideas. Initial conception combines micro-elements of inspiration and of practical realities, the resulting embryo is nurtured and guarded well during development over an appropriate length of time... and only delivered after the hard work and challenges inherent in any labour of love have been successfully completed.

What are you doing to bring your dreams into the open and make them real today?

Silver and Gold

Part of the ongoing challenge for designers and makers over the course of our careers is to keep our interests and passions fresh and alive. One way to do that is to expand our design skills into new areas, using new materials and processes. I have been enjoying a wealth of learning opportunities over the past year or two, thanks to the Craftsy learning platform. 

Over the holidays, I made a few pairs of earrings, including these two identical pairs: one in gold and one in silver. Looking forward to sharing more photos soon!

NOTE: An extended version of this post can be found on LinkedIn.

A Creative Perspective on Travelling Light

One of the dangers we face as creative professionals is a tendency to assume that we already know how to solve a particular problem because we've worked with similar clients, projects or products before. It's an easy trap to fall into, particularly in an environment where efficiency and streamlined production are the darlings of every business blog. 

One of the mostly invisible components of creative work—and more challenging than you might imagine—is to jettison the past and wrestle with our own preconceived notions (and sometimes those of our clients) in order to create an open and fertile environment for the new possibilities that will best fulfill the mandate we have been given. Creative problem-solving requires a new and thorough consideration from all angles, inside and out, starting from ground zero. 

Travelling light includes getting rid of our emotional baggage. Good solutions are designed to elicit both intellectual and emotional responses from their end-users in order to achieve the goals set forth by our clients. This doesn't meant that we ourselves should get too emotionally attached to our concepts... in fact, although our passion for creativity may fuel our daily calling, emotional attachment to our own ideas can be an obstacle to truly creative solutions, while intellectual clarity about the true purpose of our work allows us to serve our clients best... and to explain how and why a concept will work in all the ways that matter to our clients.

Of course, as we work through each of the possible angles to solving the current issue at hand, we don't throw away everything we know. Our past experience provides valuable insight and guidance, but an open-minded examination of each decision will keep us from falling into the trap of taking particular choices for granted or letting the wagon wheels roll us down the ruts most travelled.

After all, didn't you become a creative professional in order to be an explorer and adventurer, discovering a new world every day?

The Divers, the Dabblers and the Dispossessed

As graphic designers, artists and makers, it seems important to examine the ways in which we embrace creative learning. Some makers seem to focus on a particular area and learn everything there is to know about one specific technique, tool or discipline, becoming deeply knowledgeable about all the details related to to that topic. Their devotion to their discipline allows them to separate themselves from the crowd. They are specialists with a great deal of technical knowledge and a particular focus: watercolour illustrators for whimsical children's books, arctic photographers of northern lights, newspaper typographers for digital editions, steampunk knit designers or Civil War fabric historians. I think of them as "deep divers".

Others, like myself, have a more multidisciplinary approach, gathering a variety of skills and abilities across a broad spectrum of interests. Cross-pollination and lateral thinking offer a rich source of inspiration and ideas. Like an octopus, we have many arms waving in different directions at once.  (On the downside, our immediate vicinity may become dark and cloudy when we feel threatened by the single-minded focus of the divers.) We are the "dabblers", extending our tentacles into many different ponds and oceans.

And then there are the dispossessed, those who can never settle to any particular discipline for long, who barely dip a toe in the water and never learn to swim. They cast their nets wide as they skim across the surface, pick up a few items here and there, look them over and throw them back... and then move on, restless and dissatisfied, leaving nothing but flotsam and jetsam in their wake... never truly appreciating the wild beauty of the world that lies just beneath the surface.

Honouring Sacred Moments

Many faith traditions advocate setting aside a day—or time of day—as a sacred time; it's a practice that seems to have mostly fallen by the wayside in our secular urban society... or has been transformed into something completely different. Either way, I think it's important to find ways to recognize and honour sacred moments in our lives.

The value of intentionally engaging in a ritual of sacred time is that it allows us to connect with someone or something beyond ourselves, to set aside the hustle and bustle for a while, to consider a larger worldview and our place in it. It can be as simple as intentionally setting aside time to be present with friends or family, lending a hand in difficult or challenging circumstances...or even just preparing a meal, if it is done with loving intention.  

It's not all that obvious, but sometimes our path to renewing our spirits is through action, through doing for others (while respecting our own needs and boundaries). I often look forward to time off with anticipation of advancing some personal creative projects. This week, most of that time was spent helping various family members and cooking for some friends going through a rough time... and to me, that was sacred time, too, and infinitely precious.

As makers, we are blessed with frequent opportunities to tune into the flow of creative energy that surrounds and infuses us. For those of us who do creative work for a living, we also learn the value of seeing through the eyes of another, of gaining a deeper understanding of what the other really needs, and building something to serve that need, to solve a problem, to reach that goal. If we can bring that skill and talent to our personal relationships, we can build something even more valuable.

In a week that has been touched with the sad news of illnesses, financial struggles and deaths in our circle of family and friends, the value of each moment, of each day, becomes more apparent. And in the glad news of a small new life entering our world, we feel the energy of creation moving through our world in a powerful and hope-giving way.

Untangling the Big Ball of Wool

Have you ever tried to wind a skein of wool into a ball? I have recently discovered that it's not as easy as it looks. The first time I tried it, I ended up with a big, tangled mess. The second time, I used a special wooden wheel to stretch out the skein while I wound it up. It worked much better. I have yet to try the human yarn winder method (which replaces the wooden wheel with a pair of hands from a willing volunteer.)

How is this related to the creative process? Well, for me, the metaphor goes like this: a little of bit of preparation and planning—along with proper tools and more than one pair of hands—can really make the process smoother and less time-consuming... but if we do end up with a tangle, we need to apply patience and determination to tease out the strands, little by little, until we have something we can knit together into almost any kind of product, in an infinite array of patterns and styles. 

Mind you, we could avoid most of the tangling issues right from the start by limiting ourselves to the basic pre-packaged wool found at any big box craft supply store... but if we want to benefit from the unique attributes of artisanal quality resources, we better be prepared to invest the extra time and learn how to wind it all up properly.

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Dreaming in Technicolour

Do you ever wake up with an image imprinted on your brain? 

Do you feel an urgency about capturing those thoughts and images? And as your waking mind takes hold, do the images and thoughts start to fade and slip away, lose their bright and shiny lustre, sliding into muddy puddles of doubt? Do you question why they seemed so charming and insightful in the first place? 

Which is more real: the spark of the dream, or the dimming of the spark that comes with the dawn? I'd rather believe in the dream, but I often find myself limiting my actions and living within the duller and more mundane boundaries of "reality", losing some of my faith and excitement for the initial vision along the way.

Creative work does require a balance of graceful dreaming and gritty realism to come to fruition; we need to push and pull the boundaries of our perceptions, to capture those sparks (like the lightning harvesters in the movie "Stardust")... but we also to analyze and utilize the tools at hand (or invent new ones) to maintain or enhance the freshest and brightest aspects of the dream. We grind and polish the diamonds, refine the silver with fire and hammer the metal into shape. It's not magic, it's hard work... but when we do that work right, the work itself is invisible, and the focus remains entirely on the magic of the dream.

Hi ho, hi ho....