The Secret of Great Creative People, Einstein & Fairy Godmothers

Feel stuck...unmotivated...less-than-inspired?  

Try asking yourself these 5 questions: 

1. What sparks my curiosity? 

2. What do I find myself googling again and again? 

3. What's my favorite section of a bookstore? (Remember those?)

4. Which pinterest boards (or magazines) could I pore over for hours at a time? 

5. What do I find myself daydreaming about when I "should" be doing something else?

Pondering the answers to these questions can help you tap into the things you're curious about to help you quickly and easily reignite your creative energy! 

In her book, The Nine Modern Day Muses and a Bodyguard, author Jill Badonsky introduces Albert, the muse of imagination and innovation inspired by Albert Einstein. 

In the Albert chapter Badonsky writes: 

"Curiosity is an attitude that can be cultivated and expanded. Our curious attitude can find new possibilities in anything. Curiosity is a form of wonder ~ being in a state of wonder is being open to all there is still to learn. Being in wonder is to be in love with life. It is a return to childlike expectations, untainted by adult rigidity and cynicism." 

What's one small way you can use your curiosity to tap into the wonders of life and play with new creative possibilities in the coming week? 

Until next time, all the best from my curious Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post please share on Facebook and twitter using the buttons below!  If you'd like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Looking at Life Through Crazy Glasses

The more I look at the photo above, the more I think I look a little crazy. And, I'm okay with that. 

It was taken a couple of summers ago during a super fun getaway weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado (my home away from home) with my dear friend Jane Baldwin. (Check out her wonderful blog here.) 

We came upon these silly sunglasses while shopping around town and snapped a few pics. 

This photo reminds me that it's so important to get away, spend time with a good friend and embrace that "childish enthusiasm" Fellini mentions.

In her book, Nine Modern Day Muses and a Bodyguard, Jill Badonsky introduces us to Bea Silly, the Muse of Play, Laughter and Dance. According to Badonsky, Bea Silly is the go-to muse when you need to:

~ Relearn how to play, lighten up, release rigid thinking 

and remember how to make creative expression fun

~ Remember and reawaken to the wonder of being a child 

and know the positive implications this has for your creativity

~ Release resistance towards your creative process because:

   A: You just don't seem to want to do it.

or

   B: You feel a childlike power struggle inside you. 

You want to do something creative, but you never  

        actually do.

Any of this sound familiar to you?

If so, I invite you to join me to put on your crazy glasses and tap into your own childlike wonder and enthusiasm today.

Need help getting started? Here are a few prompts to help with that:

~ Think of a creative activity you loved to do when you were a kid. 

Such as: 

* Coloring in coloring books 

* Dancing

* Playing in a treehouse with friends

~ Ask yourself, "What's one easy way I could enjoy that activity or something similar right now?"

For example: 

* Color in a mandala

* Turn on some music and dance

* Doodle plans for your what your dream treehouse might look like now

~ Then ask yourself, "What if I put on my crazy glasses?"

You might: 

* Draw a huge mural on your driveway with sidewalk chalk 

 * Turn on some music and dance ~ in your front yard!

* Create a space in your home (inside or out) that feels like a tree house 

~ Give yourself permission to spend five or ten minutes enjoying your chosen creative pleasure. 

(Remember that ten minutes is less than 1% of your day 

and you deserve to enjoy some creative fun!)

Until next time, all the best from my sometimes crazy Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

No time to read this? This Day Trip is for you!

Finally – time management for creative types! 

If you barely have time to read this, you'll definitely want to join me for this exclusive Creative Oasis Day Trippers event! 

What:

Marney K. Makridakis, author of new book 

Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life,

 will present an exclusive Warm-up Workshop only for the Creative Oasis Day Trippers prior to her public book launch in. She'll share a behind-the-scenes look at the her process with writing and publishing Creating Time, and guide us through several fun ARTsignments – self-discovery exercises infused with art and creativity – to help up get even more from her formal presentation. (Click here to contact me to reserve your space today.)

After Marney concludes her Warm-up Workshop, we’ll have time to share and discuss as a group before convening to enjoy her public presentation, to be followed by a reception and book signing. (We Trippers may mosey over to Blue Mesa after that.)

When:

 Sunday, April 15, 2012

Special Day Trippers Warm-up Workshop @ 3pm

Public presentation and signing @ 4pm

Where:

 Barnes & Nobel (Lincoln Park)

7700 West Northwest Hwy. Suite 300

Dallas, Texas 75225

Cost:

$15 

Click here to RSVP and I'll save your space and send your registration form right away!

Just can't wait to learn more about Creating Time?

You're in luck! Marney has put together a FREE 3 week Mega Time Extravaganza featuring live webinars, inspiring interviews from beloved leaders in the creative world (such as Jill Badonsky, Jennifer Louden,  SARK, Michael Gelb and more !), and lots of free bonus goodies too. To sign up, simply click here and they'll send you everything you need to participate in this amazing event which begins April 2, 2012. Why not sign up now? There's no time like the present! 

Bohemian Snow Day Play

“When life hands you lemons make lemonade,” the saying goes.  The first week of February life handed us school-closing snow and ice that kept many of us in Dallas/Ft. Worth homebound with kids that were soon bouncing off the walls. 

Bikini Snow Chick by Ashley Thames Brown

Snow Rita

What did we make with all that snow & ice? According to facebook posts, on the first snow day my friends made snow chicks in bikinis,  snow ice-cream and even snow-ritas. (The love of all things Tex-Mex runs deep down here y’all!) In other words, we made the best of it. We consumed mass quantities of hot chocolate and marshmallows, made fires, played games and watched old movies. 

Then came the second snow day…as my friend Juliana Finch would say write-play-repeat! We did it all again.

Next came day three. Insert *@*#*&&%%!!!* expletive of your choice. By the fourth phone call from school confirming that once again they would be closed due to inclement weather it was time to put on my get-really-creative-and-think-outside-the-box hat.  Thus “Boho Snow Day” was born.

I had several creative projects that I wanted to get to for a group class that I’m teaching here in Dallas called, “Welcome To Your Creative Oasis”, for a group teleclass I’m participating in with Jill Badonsky – “Blissfully Imperfect – Liberating Creative Joy” and for my Creative Oasis Day Trippers group.

Bohemian Dress Up

My daughter loves role-playing, so I figured if I offered to turn our dining room into a Soho-esque artist loft and us into bohemian artist-types (complete with the proper boho-chic fashions) I’d have a good chance of getting her to hang out and do some fun creative stuff with me for an hour or two and give video-chatting on her computer a rest. 

Scarves helped transform the
dining room into a Soho loft

It worked! The proof is in the photos. We had a blast dressing up, hanging scarves and shawls around the room (it helps that I have a slight Stevie Nicks fascination), lighting candles and playing with creative projects. We wrote in our journals. We made Artist Trading Cards. We listened to music. (The New Bohemians, of course!) And I got at least few things accomplished that I wanted to without locking myself in my office and leaving Riley Anna to her own devices.

Our Boho Snow Day was as fun for me as it was for her, and it was an excellent reminder that when we add an element of child-like play to anything we do – it becomes more joyful. Sounds simple…makes sense…but we can all use the reminder.

Journaling...

is fun!
(yes...we dressed up the dog too, poor guy)

As Bea Silly, Muse of Play, Laughter and Dance says, “Fun is an elixir of spontaneous ideas. Solutions that seemed so elusive earlier appear effortlessly in the midst of play. To engage in the kind of play that stimulates ideas, mortals need to take themselves less seriously and make room for making things up, kidding, and goofing off.” (Quoted from “The Nine Modern Day Muses and a Bodyguard” by Jill Badonsky.)

Artist Trading Card

Can you imagine how child-like play might open you up to the creative process? Why not fetch your feather boa out of the mothballs (or if you don’t own one – go buy one for heaven’s sake – everyone needs a feather boa!) and throw it dramatically around your neck then dive into five minutes of creative play. Write in your journal as if you’re a movie star from the days of the silver screen…create a collage like your Lady Gaga designing your next crazy costume…plan a menu for a dinner party for the rock stars you’re inviting over next weekend (and if you don’t know any rock stars…have your neighbors over to enjoy it instead.)

I’d love to hear how you choose to use child-like play in your creative process! (oooo…and send photos too please!)

All the best from my creative oasis to yours,

Jill

Visit The Creativity-Portal to find this article and many more written by me and other certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaches.

The Creative Soul Sisterhood of the Traveling Paisley Velvet Pants & Sparkling Skirt

Mabel's at Sunset
photo by Liz Fautch

I’m sharing a few photos and remembrances from my recent trip to Taos, New Mexico partially because I want to keep the luscious memories alive, and partially because I love living vicariously through other people's travelogues and hoped you might too.

The mere fact that I finally went to Taos ranks pretty high on my “hot-damn-this-is-cool-o-meter.” That I went to attend, perform and participate in a Creative Retreat and Salon hosted by Jill Badonsky amped things up to the “has-the-potential-to-be-one-of-the-coolest-trips-ever” status. But what shot the whole eye-opening, breath-taking, awe-inspiring, first-time Taos trip over the desert moon was traveling with my creative soul sister Jane Baldwin. (Pranasalara & The Double J Hacienda & Art Ranch)

Soul Sisters

No matter where we go, time shared tends to be part therapy session, part slumber party, part creative retreat – usually with a dash of wine, delicious food and chocolate sprinkled in for good measure. And so it was this January when we headed for New Mexico – me the Taos/Santa Fe/Chimayo virgin and Jane the enthusiastic, free-spirited, well-versed guide who knew the lay of the land and even came equipped with the CD from “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” which made for the ideal soundtrack for our drive from Albuquerque to Taos.

Thank the travel gods, the night before we left we decided to rent a car rather than take a shuttle. This gave us the sacred space of a car interior on a long stretch of desert highway to catch up, and dream, and share stories from our pasts and plans for our future.  It also granted us the freedom to stop whenever and wherever we wanted. (I LOVE road trips with people who don’t mind that I drink gallons of water and need to pull over at every third gas station.)

Jill at Santuario de Chimayo
photo by Jane Baldwin

Jane suggested we stop to visit El Santuario de Chimayo – a famous holy site nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  I was especially delighted to visit since Doug and I own a wonderful painting by our friend Tori Pendergrass that features the church.

By Tori Webb Pendergrass

After paying our respects, we made a beeline for the Ranchero de Chimayo so Jane could get her red-chili sauce on in proper New Mexico fashion.  Once we'd refueled with a delicious lunch we stopped at the Ranchos de Taos to visit yet another iconic church.

Feeling Blessed at Rancho de Taos

Things turned slightly less holy when stopped at Walgreens for the essentials (bottled water, dark chocolate and wine) before heading to the Mable Dodge Luhan Lodge for the retreat.

The two Jills sing the praises of Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching

Chilling wine the Taos way

Paisley Pants

Sparkly Skirt

It would take more space than I have here to share all of the wonderful experiences and inspiring people that infused the next three days. So I’ll share a poem and a few photos and offer this gentle reminder:

Set Free
photo by Laurel Aston

If you’re given the chance to step outside your comfort zone, visit some place new, try on crazy ideas (or clothes), and dance wildly like a whirling dervish with people you’ve never met before – DO IT! I promise your life will be better for it. 

Mabel’s Ghosts

by Jill Allison Bryan

Spirits speak through these old adobe walls

In the pops and crackles of the wood burning the fireplace

In the creaking of the floorboards

In the ghostly black and white photographs from another time

“Feel creativity in your bones” they say

“Make creativity your comfort zone” they say

“Go ahead – pretend like you live here – we don’t mind” they say

“Sink into your creative process like the cushions of this well-worn couch” they say

“Give yourself permission to see aliens, awaken sleeping dragons, make crop circles in your mind, and play all day – it’s okay” they say

So I do

All the best from my creative oasis to yours,

Jill

P.S. – Jane and I are hosting a retreat of our own – “Embracing Creative Momentum” –  this summer June 10-12, 2011 at the fabulous Double J Hacienda and Art Ranch. Stay tuned…