The irony of this essay title is really getting me right now, because I feel like July 2020 has been the least productive month of maybe my entire adult life. I always want to be careful to avoid the “highlight reel” phenomenon we’ve grown to expect from each other, but I also DO want to do my best to send thoughts and ideas and content that will light up your brain in an artful way…

And honestly, all of that has been a bit of a struggle for me in these past several weeks. I feel little flickers of motivation, and sparks of creativity, but have mostly been feeling draggy. If you’ve been feeling the same, here I am in solidarity.

LUCKILY, my gorgeous Artifice guests have been slowly and surely filling up the inspiration tank with their stories of channeling creativity into practical action. Could there be a timelier subject?

July 2020 Featured:

We often think about creatives as predominantly working on the ART itself, but most (all?) creatives will tell you that SO much of our creative energy goes toward building connections, crafting the nests where our art will eventually live, mindfully meandering near the periphery of the worlds we want to inhabit, borrowing skills from our various interests to combine in new ways, etc. There is so much creativity AROUND the art we display publicly.

In my opinion, it’s an important distinction when considering what makes an artist viable. Another drop in the not-about-talent bucket. And I guess you could argue that applying creativity to one’s zoomed-out path IS a talent in and of itself, but more than anything I think it’s evidence of an outpouring of creative energy, a testimony to the insatiability of a creative spirit.

Paul is such a beautiful example of this kind of thinking. I can see a life-infused creativity so clearly in the way Paul works to build his unique life. As an aspiring artist, he took a part time job at a print shop where he could hone his art skills, soak up plenty of business acumen, AND have all the time he needed to hike and explore and BE in nature. I think it’s very easy to get caught up in what “success” means to other people…and it’s so incredibly important to remember that success needs to be measured by your own happiness. And for Paul, that was being able to wake up in a hammock in the middle of the forest in the morning, and hike in to work for an afternoon shift at an artful job he also loved. Paul now has his own business, and I’m continually impressed with his ability to marry his love of art with his love of nature in so many ways.

NOTE: In case you missed it…Paul is the creator of my GORGEOUS Masks Muse. And he’ll forever have a special place in my heart for that. I just love her so much.

Creative Action-Taking

I felt similarly inspired listening to Marianne talking about the ways she thought creatively about HOW to secure a creative life for herself. She thought about the kind of life she wanted to have, she weighed all of her creative interests against their respective lifestyle requirements, and made a CREATIVE decision to study architectural design (rather than theater, another of her great loves). Then, she proceeded to apply creativity to her life as she built her (now booming) floral business—harnessing all of the design skills from her studies to give her an aesthetic advantage.

** Unrelated to the main theme of this email, I want to just say…hearing Marianne talk about how her older sister modeled and nurtured her creativity WRECKED me. If you’re needing some warm fuzzies, definitely listen for that!

Back to action-taking…Chelsea describes such a gorgeously brave history of taking herself out of her comfort zone—moving to Philadelphia as a teen (to study ballet), taking on a phenomenally rigorous pre-professional schedule in her high school years, joining the Tulsa ballet and SIMULTANEOUSLY becoming a certified yoga instructor, getting her behavioral science degree while dancing professionally, starting a podcast…SO MANY THINGS! I see all of these steps as creative choices leading toward a balanced adult life. It’s easy to imagine a perfect balance of interests just landing in someone’s lap, which is why I love love love hearing stories of how an individual goes out and FINDS these things through creative discovery, through risk-taking, through bravely exiting a comfort zone, or a well-trodden path. It. Is. My. Entire. Jam.

And to wrap up a SPECTACULAR guest list for this month, Brian completely blew me away with story after story of going for it with all of the guts. He knew from a young age that he wanted to end up on big stages playing drums, and he just made it happen. He joined ALL of the projects, he made the calls, he did the leg work, he explored all of the options, he took on the challenges again, again, again, again. I talk a lot with my guests about how one of the behind-the-scenes (“artifice”) things we do is see our current selves (A), see our biggest, most other-worldly dreams (B), and CREATIVELY imagine what sorts of steps and branches will connect those points. It is a fully creative, fully tenacious endeavor. And Brian is such a good example of this kind of thinking. All of these precious baby steps linking a child’s dream to a grown up artist’s reality. And I think it’s safe to expect that Brian will change absolutely nothing as he continues to execute his life with creativity and exploration and the most mindful sort of action-taking.

WHEW!

Ok. I’m giving myself a little break in August, so I won’t be doing a full August recap. But I wanted to just give a shout out to my two wonderful August guests!

Both such cool guys with great stories to tell, and plenty of creativity-filled gems to share.

Also…I am THRILLED to report that in the past two days, I have been feeling some of my regular creative-energy sparkling back into my brain and body. I am tentatively hopeful that it will remain (if also totally prepared for it to wander away again because this year is WHACK), and therefore tentatively hopeful that I will have the wherewithal to write soon about some of the art I am working on, thinking about, and enjoying.

In the meantime, be nice to yourself! Count the tiniest of lovely victories. Seek out the littlest of beautiful things.

Love love love,

Em