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Why Do We Create? And Why Now?
By Lain Ehmann
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As I’ve cruised around the web, following the seemingly endless chain of cool blog links from one site to the next and back again, a thought struck me: Are we feeling a greater call to create? Are more of us sensing a need to knit, sew, write, paint, scrapbook, crochet, or is it just my imagination? And if so, why?

After all, all across the Internet we can see “ordinary people” creating amazing works of art and craft (and let me just say that I do not attempt to distinguish between the two). Moms, neighbors, friends, co-workers, are all sharing their creations with the world through their blogs and online communities. I am continually blown away by the waves of creative genius that just pour onto my computer screen.

So what’s going on? Where is all this creative energy coming from? Is it a new phenomenon, or has it been around and I just didn’t notice it? For answers, I decided to have a conversation with life coach, speaker, author, artist, visionary, and my good friend Jennifer Louden. Jennifer writes, teaches and speaks on the topic of women and creativity, art, spirituality, and self-care.

Jennifer agrees that there is a tangible trend of greater creativity sweeping our culture. “I see it as a conduit for a rising consciousness, a ‘God’ energy,” she says. The trend can be traced in part to the greater availability of free time and monetary resources than ever before. “We don’t have to spend all day Monday baking bread!” she laughs. The combination of a world in pain and a class of women who have the resources to spare makes the time ripe for an upsurge in creative energy. “It’s a very positive way to heal yourself and others,” Jennifer says. “Art is a community builder and a community healer.”

Here’s a synopsis of our conversation:

Lain: No question that the world could use some healing right about now. How does creating art help heal?

Jennifer: To create anything is to choose, to make choices. It’s also to do what you want to do in some way. Creating something – whether a scrapbook page or a meal or a painting – gives the busy woman the reminder that we are free, we are important, we matter. And that is so important. And if we can choose what colors to use in our next painting and see that it works, we empower ourselves to choose in other arenas too. It reminds us we have choices – in EVERY aspect of our lives. We need to remind ourselves that every moment of our lives is the same, whether we’re creating “art” or creating our future. Anything can happen. You can open yourself up and let yourself surrender and see what happens.

L: What kind of changes can art bring into our everyday life outside the studio?

J: Almost across the board, people say that when they create, they are in “the zone.” And that is where we want to live – where we are completely present in the here and now. Reaching that state through our art can give us a direct bodily experience, which we then can translate into other areas of our lives, like being with your kids and playing on the floor – being totally in that moment as you do it.

L: So, in a sense, how we create art can be a gateway into how we create our lives.

J: Exactly. You start asking yourself to be creative in how you get up in the morning, how you talk to your family. Those can all be just as wonderful and creative as picking up the needles or going to the loom. Truly, life is the ultimate creative act.

L: Let’s talk about the tendency to amass. Almost every crafter or artist I know goes through a stage of accumulation. What’s with that? And how do we know when it’s part of the creative process, and when it’s something more insidious?

J: Shopping can definitely become a shadow comfort. The creative energy rises in you like sap but instead of sitting with it and seeing what comes of it, you go shopping. You say, “I’ve got this energy and I’ve got to do something with it. I want to accumulate with it. I want to own it.”

L: I think it’s a way of taking an experience that can be uncomfortable and strange – creating – and making it familiar. We may not know what to do to create, but we can buy more art supplies. It’s productive!

J: And familiar. And comforting. It’s also that wonderful beginning place, where we haven’t hit the hard spot yet. And that’s what we have to have courage to see through – the point where you say to yourself, “This is really bad. Can I handle being bad?” You have to have the courage to stick with it, and have the courage to suck, and have the courage to keep going no matter what the voices in your head say.

L: How do you get that courage?

J: You remind yourself that you’re not the bad painting on the easel. You’re not. It’s paint and canvas. That is not you. You also can find your own conditions of satisfaction that are not assessment-based – that are not open to interpretation. Set intentions for yourself. For instance, for the next painting you make, you may want to set the intention of generating a feeling of movement, or using a new technique, or trying a different perspective. You can’t say, “I want to make a good painting.” It’s not building a stone wall. It’s not a three-minute egg. It’s not controllable like that. Creation is about self-discovery, and by definition it means we don’t know it all.

For more information on Jennifer’s workshops, articles, and books – including her latest, “The Life Organizer” – please visit her online, or check out her blog.

Inside Inspiration: Ali Edwards
By Lain Chroust Ehmann
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Anyone familiar with the scrapbooking industry is familiar with Ali Edwards. Anyone who’s familiar with Ali Edwards knows her style – a popular blend of clean graphics with fresh color combinations, warm photography, and Ali’s signature handwritten journaling. And if they’re real fans – as thousands are – they will have visited her blog where she writes candidly about the challenges of downsizing, keeping things “real,” and combining parenting a special-needs child with pursuing your own dream.

The author of numerous articles and a design book (“A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking”)and teacher of workshops around the world, Ali says her success in the multi-billion-dollar field of scrapbooking was a surprise, one she still marvels at. “It’s totally bizarre,” she says. “It’s not anything I ever planned or anticipated.”

In hindsight, though, the path to where she is now doesn’t seem totally unexpected. “I have always been very visual,” she says. “I used to cut out spreads from magazines (I loved magazines then just as much as I do now) and hang them up around my bedroom.” Despite this love of design, she went to college with the intent of becoming a marine biologist and working with orca whales at Sea World. When a couple of chemistry classes laid her low, she moved toward English and history, and, after graduating, got a degree in graphic design.

A few years ago, she began scrapbooking, entered the prestigious Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contest, and won. Since then, her career exploded, occasionally taking her away from her boys (son Simon and husband Chris) and home in Oregon and sending her off to the Netherlands or to Utah – sometimes in the same week.

Despite her celebrity, Ali has a casualness and openness that make everyone who’s seen her work or read her blog feel they know her, even if they’ve only “met” her through technology. But this assumed familiarity doesn’t throw her. In fact, when someone in Kentucky greets her with hugs and jumps into a commentary on how alike their lives are, she enjoys it. “I’m the kind of person who can go somewhere and feel comfortable starting up a conversation,” she says. So if her students already know that they both have husbands named Chris or kids with autism or were competitive swimmers, Ali has no problem keeping up with the exchange, and, in fact, appreciates the jumpstart to familiarity.

So if having thousands of strangers consider her their new best friend doesn’t bother her, what does? The pressure of having your art be your work is always there, she says. There’s also an expectation from the editors and from the audience that you produce a certain kind of work that can keep you somewhat limited. For instance, more free forms of creative expression that she enjoys – art journals, for instance, or the “cool little collages” that Keri Smith creates – aren’t what’s being published in the scrapbooking magazines. “That’s probably what I’d be playing with. But it doesn’t translate for most scrapbookers,” she explains. So, for the time being, those pursuits may be sidelined in favor of more “traditional” creations.  

Ali finds inspiration among other scrapbookers, paper artists, magazines, books, ads, product – everywhere. “I’m such a visual person that my inclination is to take it all in,” she says. But taking in so much means she can go into overload – too many images, too many ideas, too much everything. “I can feel it in myself [when I’m in overload.] That’s when I just stop.” She’ll shift to the written word which provides a lower level of stimuli.

When the ideas do come, Ali doesn’t have any one way of capturing them. “I have a notebook I write things down in, but a lot of things I don’t write down,” in order to make sure what she comes up with in the end is a product of her creativity, not someone else’s.

Ali tries not to worry too much about where the next idea is going to come from and let go of the push to develop The Next Big Thing. “I believe that I am a creative person,” Ali says. “I know there’s something inherently creative inside of me, and I just have to let that out.” That lesson is one that she wants to convey to her students and admirers. “I think that most people doubt their own creativity. I doubt mine at times as well. It is totally natural,” she explains. “I really try to encourage people to embrace themselves, whatever it is within them, their own stories and their own way of telling those stories – because we are all creative. I would love to see people taking the stress and the pressure out of the creative process. Let themselves go more. Sometimes all people need is a little permission to access the creativity they hold within.”

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Visit Ali's blog at: www.aliedwards.typepad.com
Visit Ali's Website at: www.aliedwardsdesign.com
 

Inside Inspiration: Marianne Roosa
By Lain Chroust Ehmann

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It’s okay to be different. For example, to wear colorful clothes even though all the other arty types you know seem to have only black in their closets. Or to pursue design as a career when others see it as just a really cool hobby. To collect Playmobil toys even if you don’t have any kids. And to create stuffed animals with only one eye.
Marianne Roosa knows about the joys of being different. A graphic designer living in Den Hague, The Netherlands, Marianne was trained in fashion design and graphic design at the Willem de Kooning Art Academy. She spends her days creating everything from logos to brochures, pictograms, and editorial illustrations. And she spends her nights on her Oneyes.

Oneye is a colorful handmade plush character that Marianne designs and creates. What started from a simple illustration has turned into a whole family of Oneyes. Currently, there are five different Oneye family characters, all with traditionally Dutch names such as “Piet,” “Bart,” and “Gijs,” and each with their own unique personalities. There are also a handful of limited edition Oneyes (think vamp”eye”res and angels), as well as a variety of paper goods and stationery, all emblazoned with the Oneye character. In just a few months, Oneyes have been sent to their new homes around the world – Canada, the US, Sweden, and Japan.

Whether she’s designing a catalog or a new Oneye, Marianne’s style is similar – colorful graphics with simple lines and bright, contrasting colors. Her work evokes a feeling of fun and playfulness that is kept from being too “cutesy” by its sophisticated simplicity. Because of this dichotomy, her work is appealing to both children and adults.
Marianne starts her creative process with a sketch to give her a rough idea of where she’s headed, but she allows herself enough leeway to make adjustments as she proceeds. And after she’s finished, she makes notes of changes, things that can be improved upon for the next time. “I am never satisfied with the work I have done,” she says. “I always see something that I could have done better, or maybe in a different way. I try to learn from my mistakes.”
Marianne says that she finds inspiration for her work everywhere – from pop culture, places she visits, films she sees, music she hears, “from shopping, from books I read, and from people,” she says. The Internet is another source. “I feel inspired by other creative people, seeing their work and the way they have made a success of their business,” Marianne explains. To keep all the information from becoming overwhelming, she suggests that others pick out only what’s important to them and let the rest go. “In the beginning, I read everything,” she recalls. “Now I have made a selection of sources that I use regularly.”

When an idea does occur to her, she makes sure to capture it. “Ideas can pop up in my head at all times of the day. I’m always thinking. I usually write my ideas down on little memos or in a notebook.”
 Another key element to her creative process is her “moodbooks.” She makes collages with specific themes and colors. “Those books I use to inspire me when I am searching for ideas,” she explains. “I can use them for any kind of project.” (see examples of Marianne’s moodbooks here ).
Like most artistic types – and like most perfectionists – there is always more that Marianne wants to do. “Painting!” she says. “I really want to make paintings and get away from that computer. But I feel very insecure about it.” She would also like to participate in more art shows, and eventually move her studio outside her house. She envisions “a place where I can work, but also have a small gallery and shop where I can show my work, but also other people’s work.”
We can’t wait to see her – and Oneye, of course – there.

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Visit Marianne's website here.

Visit Marianne's weblog here. 

Shop Marianne's creations at her online store.

Inside Inspiration: Sharon Wisely
By Lain Chroust Ehmann

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With a husband, two grown children, and a store to run, St. Louis-based Sharon Wisely has every excuse in the book not to take the time to sit down and “do art.” The thing is, she doesn’t use any of them. She uses every opportunity around her to stretch her creative muscles – and to have fun doing it.

Sharon runs Red Lead Paperworks with her sister, Christine (whom she describes as “absolutely my heart and my soul”) – which is, in and of itself, more than a full-time job. Ask her about how she finds balance between “work,” her family, and her own personal art of cards, collages, ornaments and other paper arts, and updating her blog  and she quickly answers, “I don’t even think about that. If you start worrying about that, you start categorizing. And that’s when you get in trouble.”

Instead, Sharon focuses on enjoyment – and she says she truly does enjoy pretty much everything from cleaning the house to rearranging stock at the store.

Her art – largely paper-based, encompassing photos, ribbons, and other embellishments with a vintage spin, heavy on the reds – is distinct in its ability to blend elements of old and new, bold and delicate, in a simple and appealing manner. “I haven’t really ever thought much about ‘my style’ but I did read this quote somewhere that I think pretty well says it all: ‘Do Something. Do Something to it. Do Something Else to it.’”

She gleans artistic inspiration from everywhere. “I love to shop,” she says. She might notice how the delicatessen displays its food on black platters, and how it looks so much more attractive than those displayed on white. “It’s what I see when I’m out and about,” she explains. While she tucks the idea away in her memory banks, it’s not as though it goes in a particular spot for use later; it’s kind of tossed into the mix and left to germinate, only to emerge in a collage or design later.

Sharon is a voracious reader on a range of topics, from the technical aspects of glue, pigments, and paint, to more prosaic topics like cookbooks and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” “I read everything,” she says.

Another big influence is the venerable Martha Stewart – Sharon is a huge fan of the diva of the kitchen and admires the way Martha made household life a canvas for art and creativity. When Sharon’s children were young, she cooked, decorated, and found ways to fill her artistic quota. “I always was doing something,” she recalls. As her kids matured, she found herself with more time to pursue her own pursuits, which eventually led to Red Lead. Now, with a 40-year-old daughter and 26-year-old son, Sharon has a supportive husband who doesn’t mind splitting the household duties. “I love my children,” she says, “But I think it’s great that I can do what I want to do.”

With a store full of product, it might seem like a challenge to focus and create amidst the abundance – but not for Sharon. “I know what I like,” she says simply. “I’m not indecisive.” She’s also not afraid to take a stab at something, knowing she can make revisions in subsequent rounds. Perfectionism doesn’t even enter to the equation, she says. “I’m not like that,” she states. “I don’t fret over stuff like that.” Part of her ease comes from constantly exercising her decision-making and design muscles. She says, “I help people all day long. I help them make decisions.”

Come in for some help on a project, and you’ll surely get guidance on your batch of Valentine’s Day Cards or scrapbook page. “Let your photo be your guide, and take your time,” she advises. But you’ll probably leave with a little bit of guidance about the creative life, too. She doesn’t believe in worrying, in regrets, in thinking about failure. “Why would you worry about that?” she asks. “Give it 100 percent, then say, ‘That’s the best I can do.’ If you spend a lot of time sitting around thinking and worrying, there’s not a lot of action. It’s really about having time to do what you like to do, and enjoying the moment,” Sharon says. If something goes wrong, “Throw ‘em away. Even Picasso had a trashcan. I make mistakes every day,” she confides. “But as far as regrets? No.”

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Visit Sharon's weblog at: www.cut-up-paper.typepad.com

Visit Sharon's website at: www.redleadstl.com