2 - 2018 - We are Dream Big Sculpture

“Hard Times Require Furious Dancing”

is the title of a wonderful book of poems by Alice Walker.

Recognizing this as truth, Adam and I decided at the beginning of the year that we need more “furious dancing” in our lives. Since our lives are centered around art, much of our furious dancing will be centered around art as well.

As part of this “Furious Dancing” we’ll be

giving away small sculptures
and Adam’s napkin drawings,
holding contests
making new work
planning Dream Big events, adventures, and workshops.
We’re going to fill this year with unexpected joy and laughter wherever we can.

On Wednesday we gave away our first collaborative paperclay sculpture

We had busy schedule on the day of the drawing so we did it before we left home at 6 am. We wanted to take the sculpture down to town with us so that we could send it out right away. Here’s a 59 second video that I put together to show the drawing and the result. I am proud of my effort 🙂

I have to say, this give away made a difference in MY life.

I’ve been struggling daily with the sadness about my Dad’s rapid and extraordinary decline and with exponentially increasing concerns about my mom. I know that lots of you can relate. It’s been a tough 8 months or so.

From the outset, the decision to give the sculpture away has lifted our spirits. What fun for us to be able to do something that shows our appreciation to you.

We both so appreciate the people that support and encourage us in many ways

buying sculptures,
Sharing our work with others,
taking the time to tell us how our work impacts you
rooting for us and sharing and watching our journey and more

All of you touch our hearts and remind us that what we do and who we are has value.

Mary was SO happy

After we used the random number generator and found out Mary was the winner, I messaged her immediately so we could get her address and ship”Queen of Hearts” out right away.

Her response was fabulous!! …Something about jumping up and down in excitement. Her joy was so contagious that our happy, fuzzy feeling lasted all day long, and continues today, three days later.

We had breakfast…feeling so happy

We drove the 1.5 hours to Loveland…. happy, happy

We went around and met with the professionals and friends in the foundry business …checking waxes, checking metal, picking up sculptures, planning projects…..happy, happy, joy joy

Then we went to Shipper’s Supply in Loveland to mail the sculpture.

We always use Shippers. They do a great job and are wonderful human beings. Over the years we’ve watched them quietly make a difference in people’s lives and in the community, and we are proud to know and work with them.

Sheree knew about the give away, and she and Jim packed and shipped Mary’s fragile gift at no cost to us. She said she wanted to pay it forward.

Happy. really happy.

Finding a way to spread joy is an amazing thing. When people join in, it’s even more amazing. Mary and Sheree took my mind off my worries and created a fun and celebratory day for both Adam and I.

Like I said, we will be doing more of these kinds of things.

Because it makes us feel good.

We’ll be finding other creative ways to celebrate life, and play more, and of course, give stuff away to those of you who are following along with us.

We’ll announce our next give away soon. If you have friends who might want to play, please pass our blog on to them and tell them that just subscribing enters them in our next round of fun.

I wonder what should be next….

So, we’ve been thinking about creativity lately.

Since Adam and I are artists, one would think that we live a very creative life.

And we do….

But not often enough.

We think and talk about it a lot, but it’s easy to get stuck in our comfortable ways of seeing and doing things. It’s often a surprise to realize we are thinking along some deep rutted paths, even though we actively practice looking at challenges in new ways.

The truth is, creative thinkers have real advantages, not just in art, but in the real world. If you spend a few minutes surfing the web you’ll find articles about why creativity is important in the workplace, science, relationships, and in everyday life. Creative people are better problem solvers, and have less stress, and have more options in managing it.

What is Creativity?

Creative thinking is a way to look at and solve problems from a different perspective, avoiding typical solutions, and looking outside our everyday boxes. This creative process allows you to explore connections, meet new challenges and seek solutions that are unusual, original and fresh.

Creative thinking doesn’t just have to be about art or music or writing. It can apply in any occupation, relationship or life hack problem that you need to solve. The skills are transferable across all areas, and the better you get at thinking creatively, the more applications you’ll see in your life.

All things ebb and flow, so when we find that our creative juices are more at an ebb than a flow, Adam and I have come up with a few ways that we know will help us get back into the creative flow:

1. Play More

Yep. Play more.

It sounds counter intuitive to stop and play when you are already feeling overwhelmed. But it can change everything.

All kinds of play is important to enhance creativity. The act of physically doing something that takes your mind away from the seriousness of life will often open the door to new ideas. Taking hikes in the woods, drawing cartoons, ridiculous laughter, going to the beach, and making fun stuff just because it is fun takes our minds off problems long enough for new nonlinear solutions to show themselves. When we play we remove the constraints that limit our thinking to what we currently believe to be possible. We open ourselves us to a world of creative insights.

And when we do this often enough, these insights become our habit.

In addition to actively playing, approaching life with a spirit of play can be an essential part of creativity. Trying new things just to see what might happen is a great place to start. New foods, new kinds of movies; new colors of paint on the wall. Sometimes we don’t want to try something new because we’re afraid we won’t like it. When you approach it with the spirit of play, it’s not such a big deal.

Does it really matter if you don’t care for the new dish you tried or that movie that you weren’t too sure about? Nope. And maybe you’ll see or hear or taste something that you never would have otherwise.

2. Engage in the Arts

It’s true that our creative thinking doesn’t only apply to art, music or writing.

Some interesting news though, is that the arts actually make you a more creative thinker. In this Article coming out of the University of Michigan, they essentially show that the more successful a scientist is, the more likely it is that he or she engages in arts and crafts. Some of these artistic scientists found connections between their research and their artistic pursuits. Even Albert Einstein said “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition…my new discovery is the result of musical perception”.

You don’t have to be a master artist or musician. Just engaging in the arts stretches your mind and opens you up to perceive things in new ways.

In our studio and home, we play music and sing, learn new skills like knitting or crochet, or just for fun engage in any interesting art or craft form to stimulate the flow of creativity.

3. Feel the fear and do it anyway

“What if I fail? What if people make fun of me? What if people think I am stupid? What if I actually AM stupid”

Fear can kill creativity.

Writing this blog is really scary for me. What do we actually have to say that would interest anybody? I can imagine people asking why we think anyone would want to read about us.

Almost every time I make sculpture that explores new ideas or comes from deep within me, I am afraid of what people might think. Most the time I’m not even sure what I think. When I try new materials or try to learn a new skill, I have to consciously let go of fear because I know that it will not serve me to listen to it.

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic says that “Fear is Boring”. in this little blog post , she talks about how fear can “mistake creativity and inspiration for saber tooth tigers and wolf packs” , and that it is up to us to have a conversation with fear and tell it that it is not in charge. Every successful person I have ever met moves past their fear to create. It’s not that they don’t feel fear, it’s just that they do it anyway.

If we stay in our comfortable ways of thinking and doing, we can only think what we have thought before and we can only do what we have done before. We cannot grow. We cannot get better, be better, do more.

In this article in “BrainWorld” about the science of creative insight, the author sums it up beautifully: “In other words, embrace curiosity. Do stuff. Go places. Collect experiences and gain knowledge.” This will be what creates connections that will increase creative insights throughout your life.

How do you unleash YOUR creativity? How do you play, and how do you deal with fear that would keep you immobile? We’d love to hear your thoughts.