What's Your Muse?

In the middle of summer, what sparks your creativity? What lights the passion within you to make or design something new? I decided to ask that question today because I am working on answering it for myself. I keep hearing about the importance of working now on items for the holiday season ahead -- but it's really hard sometimes to think about creating for Christmas or Hanukkah when its 90 degrees outside!

I currently have 22 books home -- borrowed from my local library, hoping that one of them will invite the muse to visit. Is that what you do? I've been in and out of the fabric store, the hobby store, and browsing the magazine aisle in the grocery store. I think about taking a class in the local knitting shop while visiting there, but the materials fees on top of the class fee sounds pretty steep. Yet, I longingly look just a little longer while fingering the new yarn arrivals.

Sometimes I sit in my studio and doodle -- or stare into the closet at drawers filled with every color and shade of fabric, hoping they will speak to me. But, one of my favorite places to feel the muse whisper is in seeing the wonderful creations of my fellow artists and teammates. Seeing others at work on some new project, or hearing about a class they are taking lights just a little fire in me and sets me working on a hot summer's day. I love the fantasy SixSisters brings to her watercolor fairies (above). Maybe my muse hides there!

Perhaps I will discover the inspiration in JillsTreasureChest. I have seen fairies hiding there among her amazing ceramic pieces.

Ah, but then maybe it isn't in fantasy I will discover my inspiration, but from nature. BethPeardonProds photos invite the eye to look deeper into the spirit of what she has captured!

Or should I sit in the garden of all the lovely flower paintings in  PFDOriginalArtworks shop? Her work is very inspirational!

Or could it be the inspiration will come from supplies waiting for my fingers to caress? SassaLynne has some amazing hand-dyed threads that beckon!

TheKnottySheep has some gorgeous new hand spun yarns inviting my fingers to make something fun!

But, the inspiration in the supplies category doesn't stop there. Just look at the buttons to be discovered in BizzieBeeButtons shop!

Ah, well, I get stuck there on occasion -- because my little crow's nest studio has supplies galore, but I still don't seem to find the inspiration to start the spark on how to use them. Maybe I what I really need is Artmixer's great book Finding Your Creative Focus!

If you have other ideas on how to stimulate creating in the summer heat -- I would love to hear them in your comments. And do visit these great Bbest Team shops where others have already been inspired to create!

Carving time for your Muse

Why are most artists fascinated with the topic of creativity? Perhaps the answer is that we fear its loss. We examine how we come by our own ideas and how others do so, panic when we have dry spells, and attempt to furnish our physical space in ways that are conducive to the creation process. We seek inspiration anywhere we can by taking workshops, reading books and blog posts, collecting pictures and quotes, journaling, listening to music, or taking a walk in the hope that we can jump start the creative engine. Above all, we’re in a hurry to “get it right” because time is a-wasting, and we don’t want a great idea like Diane Clancy's Poetic Mountain to get away from us.

If we listen to the advice of American painter Georgia O’Keefe, however, we need to give ourselves the gift of time to develop our ideas. “Nobody sees a flower—really—” says O’Keefe, “it is so small it takes time—and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” Great advice! While creative thinking tools that I have written about in previous posts (such as SCAMPER or Attribute Listing) can be very helpful in generating ideas when nothing else seems to work, these methods depend more on an organized approach than on the clock-free zone of our subconscious. In a perfect world, we can take all the time we need to let our senses absorb impressions. We see and hear and feel and smell, wrapping ourselves in a cocoon from which ideas emerge—organically—when the time is right.

The Lavender Pickers (Greeting Cards), by ColoursandTextures

According to Julia Cameron, one of my favorite authors who has written numerous books about creativity, we need to set “artist dates” for ourselves to give our Muse the time it needs to percolate. An artist date is a period of time you set aside at least once a week for just a few hours, in which you use your senses to explore the world. This is not a time to take along a friend, a spouse or your grandchild. You may choose to attend a concert, visit a museum, bird watch, stroll through a butterfly garden or a field of flowers, curl up with a book in a secluded library corner, bake a rich dessert for yourself, or even meditate.

Blue Square Baking Dish, by artsielady

This is your time. Open your eyes, listen, taste, smell, touch—and dream, as the BBEST artists below obviously have done. In my next post, we'll explore Boomer blogs whose posts are an artist date in themselves.

A Bird Gathering, by BethPeardonProds

Her Majesty, The Monarch, by MysticSilks

8.4 ... Journey. Bamboo. Sendak. Snoopy. (Corner Bookmarks), by joonbeam

Asymmetrical Dream Borosilicate Pendant, by gimmebeads

© 2009 Judy Nolan. All rights reserved. Please note that the images in this post are owned by the artists and may not be used without permission. Simultaneously published at http://sparklines.blogspot.com.