The Art and Science of Building a Creative Process with Jamie Blume & Zach Morris
Begins Wed, May 15, 2024
4 sessions - $215 per person
We’ll dissect the creative process, exploring commonalities between creative practices across disciplines to articulate & enact step-by-step plans to bring a big creative undertaking to fruition. Students will have a concrete plan to achieve one of their artistic goals.
Stymied by writer's block? We know the feeling! Here are some tips from author Steve Almond on how to overcome it or even accept it as a potential ally to our creativity. "The first thing that needs to be said is that writers get blocked almost constantly. During the composition of this very paragraph, I stopped typing thirty-seven times (I counted), stumped as to what I wanted to say next, and how," writes Almond. "I got up and made a snack. I went outside to chase away the woodchuck living beneath our storage shed. I came back inside and turned off the app that turns off my internet and spent a solid half hour researching how to poison a woodchuck."
This is an excerpt from Almond's book, "Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories," featured in LitHub.
I just saw an image of a stave church someone built in Valheim (just like Borgund), and my mind is blown.
I LOVE that the game makes it possible. Love that it's not just about slaying monsters and gaining XP. It's so much more - and that makes it great fun.
Now I want to build a great hall and a fortress... but first, I have to fortify my current homes.
Two good questions this morning from Andrew Simonet. The second is one I don’t think we talk about enough: you can’t just have the greatest art from the greatest artists, without the whole cultural ecosystem that produces and nurtures them. The minor artists and the failed experiments all play essential roles too.
A comment about “winnowing” reminds me of another way I’ve heard* this idea put more succinctly: “You can separate the wheat from the chaff, but you can’t grow the wheat without the chaff.” (And in art, we don’t have to decide which is which.)
*Anyone know who said this first? I don’t remember where I heard it.
I have this recurring pattern where I procrastinate putting time into creating #art: the longer i put it off, the bigger the specter of self doubt, shame, and excuse-making piles up.
And every time I finally get around to just making something, anything, I instantly feel better.
So this afternoon I went outside, got an iced #americano and did a quick #ink study while basking in the sun. 20 minutes later and I feel so, so much better.
Creative people, especially if your creative work is also a big chunk of your income, you might want to read author Vanessa Chan on giving your brain a break and doing joyful things without feeling guilty about it.
@simon_brooke Ah Galloway's still lovely, like. Don't let the weather get to you, it's the same for everyone and you can't change it so you shouldn't stress about it.
It'll be summer before you know it.
And programming is good : It's creative and it blots out everything else. And you have usually built something at the end! How awesome does that make you? #creativity
Sending ya midweek positivity vibes and hopes for non dreich windy bollocks....