As many of you know I am writing about my adventures and insights with the book The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. In the book she has a questionnaire called Your Creative Autobiography. Twyla says:
"I devised this questionnaire because it forces us to go back to our
origins, our earliest memories, our first causes. We change through life, but we cannot deny our sources, and this test is one way to recall those roots.
The better you know yourself, the more you will know when you are playing to your strengths and when you are sticking your neck out. Venturing out of your comfort zone may be dangerous, yet you do it anyway because our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable."
Twyla says "if even one answer tells you something new about yourself you are one step closer to understanding your creative DNA."
It is important to answer the questions quickly, instinctively and honestly. I was surprised by some of the things that I realized about myself as I answered the questions. I am listing the questions here in the hope that you may get one step closer to understanding your creative DNA.
1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
Designing a plate for my parents in the third grade.
2. Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it?
It was a school project so yes there was someone there to witness it. I hope my parents appreciated it. I think they did.
3. What is the best idea you’ve ever had?
Don’t know for sure. What’s coming to mind is starting this blog and starting my Law of Attraction group.
4. What made it great in your mind?
Living authentically.
5. What is the dumbest idea?
Trying to write a county and western love song when I was a teenager about a man leaving me.
6. What made it stupid?
I don’t like country and western music and I hadn’t even had a boyfriend yet. Not sure why I was even writing the song. I think I was trying to rhyme some words that were floating around in my mind and it just turned into this silly song.
7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea?
Not sure if it’s talking about best idea or dumbest or both. What’s coming to mind is having a desire (to live authentically) and listening to and acting on the ideas that come to me. (rhyming words and writing a song)
8. What is your creative ambition?
To live the highest vision of myself and to create the most magnificent life I can imagine.
9. What are the obstacles to this ambition?
My thinking, money, lack of motivation at times.
10. What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition?
Align my thinking with my ambition.
11. How do you begin your day?
It depends. Sometimes I begin it very deliberately, waking up early, aligning myself with my intentions for the day and other times I get up late and hit the ground running and react to things as they happen instead of creating them.
12. What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat?
Snoozing the alarm, getting up late, arriving at work late, not preparing lunch ahead of time so I end up eating out, spending a lot of time on the Internet, watching and studying Abraham workshop tapes, writing in my journal, playing with tape, questioning my actions and motivations.
13. Describe your first successful creative act?
First thing that comes to mind is writing a story when I was in elementary school. Writing came so easy for me then and I remember writing this story and realizing it was really good.
14. Describe your second successful creative act?
I remember being able to draw really well when I was little. We used to have these ceramic faces of people of different nationalities hanging on the wall and I would sit down and draw them and what would come out on the paper looked like the ceramic faces hanging on the wall. I remember wondering how that happened.
15. Compare them?
Writing & drawing. Feeling no resistance in doing them, I just wanted to do it and I could. It was easy and it felt easy.
16. What are your attitudes toward money, power, praise, rivals, work, play?
Money – you have to work hard to get it and it doesn’t come out of the blue
Power – I love personal power. I’m at my most creative and happiest when I’m in my power
Praise – it’s good to praise and look for the best aspects of someone or something
Rivals – I don’t have rivals because I am the creator of my own experience. Other people are just mirrors for me
Play – I love to play and remind myself of my own childhood when I was filled with imagination and believed in magic and wonderment
17. Which artists do you admire most?
Michael Jackson, Claude DeBussy, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Maurice Ravel, Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Leonardo daVinci
18. Why are they your role models?
Created many things, created something new, was outspoken, had salons that stimulated conversation and new ideas, lived life in their own way on their own terms.
19. What do you and your role models have in common?
I want to live my life in my own way and don’t want to fit in to some specific role that someone has picked out for me. I want to create great things and have my life be an example of living life at your highest and best. They let their creations come forth.
20. Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you?
My nephews do because they aren’t afraid to take chances and stand out.
21. Who is your muse?
I don’t know.
22. Define muse?
A specific person or deity who inspires you to your greatness.
23. When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond?
With awe and admiration. People like that inspire me to be more in my own life.
24. When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?
Most times it frustrates me. Sometimes it makes me angry and sometimes it makes me examine my own limiting and narrow-minded views.
25. When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond?
It kind of scares me. I’m afraid of people noticing me.
26. When you work, do you love the process or the result?
Both
27. At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?
When I’m imagining the highest vision of something. When I’m writing and when I’m envisioning my life the way I want it to be.
28. What is your ideal creative activity?
Imagining and daydreaming
29. What is your greatest fear?
That I don’t live out my vision for my life.
30. What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening?
Very likely but it is all up to me what happens.
31. Which of your answers would you most like to change?
I don’t want to change either of them.
32. What is your idea of mastery?
Focus and deliberate thinking.
33. What is your greatest dream?
To live my own life and to be an example of what’s possible when you live your life as a deliberate creator.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Creative Habit - Week 2 - Your Creative DNA
The chapter this week is on your creative DNA. Twyla says:
"I believe that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations. These strands are as solidly imprinted in us as the genetic code that determines our height and eye color, except they govern our creative impulses. They determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how we tell them. I can't prove this. But perhaps you also suspect it when you try to understand why you're a photographer, not a writer, or why you always insert a happy ending into your story, or why all your canvases gather the most interesting material at the edges, not the center."
“If you understand the strands of your creative DNA you begin to see how they mutate into common threads in your work. You begin to see the “story” that you’re trying to tell; why you do the things you do (both positive and self-destructive); where you are strong and where you are weak (which prevents a lot of false starts) and how you see the world and function in it.”
She talks about different aspects that determine an artist’s creative identity. One of the aspects mentioned was focal length and how each of us finds comfort in the way we see the world either from a great distance, at arm’s length or close up. But once you see it you will start to notice how it defines the artists that you admire.
I grabbed a pen and my notebook and began writing down the artists I admire and why. I wanted to see what common threads would emerge. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this. I only wrote down the people that immediately came to my mind. Here’s my list:
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Claude DeBussy
Maurice Ravel
Now of course there are many, many more artists that I admire than just the four I have listed. But these four are the biggest creative influences. Just about every room in my house has a Monet or Van Gogh print hanging on the wall. And the music that is playing throughout my house is mostly Claude DeBussy, Maurice Ravel, Charles Griffes and Frederick Delius. It’s also the music I listen to at work.
I love Impressionist paintings and have ever since I can remember. And I was very pleased and surprised to find out that the composers I love so much are considered Impressionist composers, how about that! I didn’t know there was such a thing as Impressionist music but there is and all my favorite composers are included in it. Ok, so there is one common thread for sure – Impressionism.
What I understand about Impressionist painters is that they didn’t seek to show a picture perfect image of their subject but instead to give an overall “impression, so I get their focal length. Impressionism in music seeks to create a mood or atmosphere.
I started thinking about why I love their work so much and another common thread arose – feeling. When I think about what I love about the work of these artists it all comes down to how their paintings and music make me feel. I can see a picture in my mind when I listen to their music. I love the happy, contented feelings the paintings and the music bring me. I have loved these artists and composers for as long as I can remember, even before I knew what Impressionism was. I just remember looking at the paintings and being affected by how the picture made me feel.
When I think about what motivates me to create it has to do with feeling. I love creating atmosphere. For example, I looked back through some of my household decorating notebooks and what I noticed was that the first thing I did was determine how I wanted my home to feel. What atmosphere did I want each room to have? How did I want people to feel while they were in my home? How did I want to feel in my home? I even thought about how I wanted my home to smell and the kind of food that would be cooking? What kind of activities would be going on in my house? I envisioned poetry gatherings, movie nights, book club meetings, intimate dinner parties, cook outs, etc. Before I took action on anything I got clear about the feeling I wanted to evoke. Then once I knew the feeling I could go about finding items to decorate with that would support the atmosphere I wanted to create.
I’m starting to create mental atmospheres as well. Thinking about the kind of mental atmosphere I want to have in my mind and also how I want people to feel when they are with me. I want them to feel loved, appreciated, empowered, motivated, happy, etc. Once I know the feeling I want to extend then it’s easier to act from that place.
There are more common threads emerging but I’m not going to list them all because this blog post will be too long! But I will say this book is giving me so much clarity and inspiration about my creative habit. It’s really helping me focus on what my creative process is. I feel like I just got a creative battery charge.
At the end of the chapter on Your Creative DNA Twyla lists a questionnaire that will help you determine your creative autobiography. I will list my answers to the Creative DNA questionnaire in a separate post
Twyla said that “even if one answer tells you something new about yourself, you’re one step closer to understanding your creative DNA.” I encourage you all to take the questionnaire. Be sure to answer it quickly, instinctively and honestly.
“We want our artist’s to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us.” – Twyla Tharp
P.S. Interesting thing happened at work today. I was writing about how much I love the paintings of Claude Monet and all of a sudden there was a knock on my office door. Two of my co-workers came in looking to possibly change office pictures, each office has one picture. I was indifferent to the picture that was hanging in my office and told the guy he could have it if he wanted it. Then he mentioned that the picture that was in his office was too girly for him but he thought I might be interested. You guessed it; it is a Claude Monet print!
"I believe that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations. These strands are as solidly imprinted in us as the genetic code that determines our height and eye color, except they govern our creative impulses. They determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how we tell them. I can't prove this. But perhaps you also suspect it when you try to understand why you're a photographer, not a writer, or why you always insert a happy ending into your story, or why all your canvases gather the most interesting material at the edges, not the center."
“If you understand the strands of your creative DNA you begin to see how they mutate into common threads in your work. You begin to see the “story” that you’re trying to tell; why you do the things you do (both positive and self-destructive); where you are strong and where you are weak (which prevents a lot of false starts) and how you see the world and function in it.”
She talks about different aspects that determine an artist’s creative identity. One of the aspects mentioned was focal length and how each of us finds comfort in the way we see the world either from a great distance, at arm’s length or close up. But once you see it you will start to notice how it defines the artists that you admire.
I grabbed a pen and my notebook and began writing down the artists I admire and why. I wanted to see what common threads would emerge. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this. I only wrote down the people that immediately came to my mind. Here’s my list:
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Claude DeBussy
Maurice Ravel
Now of course there are many, many more artists that I admire than just the four I have listed. But these four are the biggest creative influences. Just about every room in my house has a Monet or Van Gogh print hanging on the wall. And the music that is playing throughout my house is mostly Claude DeBussy, Maurice Ravel, Charles Griffes and Frederick Delius. It’s also the music I listen to at work.
I love Impressionist paintings and have ever since I can remember. And I was very pleased and surprised to find out that the composers I love so much are considered Impressionist composers, how about that! I didn’t know there was such a thing as Impressionist music but there is and all my favorite composers are included in it. Ok, so there is one common thread for sure – Impressionism.
What I understand about Impressionist painters is that they didn’t seek to show a picture perfect image of their subject but instead to give an overall “impression, so I get their focal length. Impressionism in music seeks to create a mood or atmosphere.
I started thinking about why I love their work so much and another common thread arose – feeling. When I think about what I love about the work of these artists it all comes down to how their paintings and music make me feel. I can see a picture in my mind when I listen to their music. I love the happy, contented feelings the paintings and the music bring me. I have loved these artists and composers for as long as I can remember, even before I knew what Impressionism was. I just remember looking at the paintings and being affected by how the picture made me feel.
When I think about what motivates me to create it has to do with feeling. I love creating atmosphere. For example, I looked back through some of my household decorating notebooks and what I noticed was that the first thing I did was determine how I wanted my home to feel. What atmosphere did I want each room to have? How did I want people to feel while they were in my home? How did I want to feel in my home? I even thought about how I wanted my home to smell and the kind of food that would be cooking? What kind of activities would be going on in my house? I envisioned poetry gatherings, movie nights, book club meetings, intimate dinner parties, cook outs, etc. Before I took action on anything I got clear about the feeling I wanted to evoke. Then once I knew the feeling I could go about finding items to decorate with that would support the atmosphere I wanted to create.
I’m starting to create mental atmospheres as well. Thinking about the kind of mental atmosphere I want to have in my mind and also how I want people to feel when they are with me. I want them to feel loved, appreciated, empowered, motivated, happy, etc. Once I know the feeling I want to extend then it’s easier to act from that place.
There are more common threads emerging but I’m not going to list them all because this blog post will be too long! But I will say this book is giving me so much clarity and inspiration about my creative habit. It’s really helping me focus on what my creative process is. I feel like I just got a creative battery charge.
At the end of the chapter on Your Creative DNA Twyla lists a questionnaire that will help you determine your creative autobiography. I will list my answers to the Creative DNA questionnaire in a separate post
Twyla said that “even if one answer tells you something new about yourself, you’re one step closer to understanding your creative DNA.” I encourage you all to take the questionnaire. Be sure to answer it quickly, instinctively and honestly.
“We want our artist’s to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us.” – Twyla Tharp
P.S. Interesting thing happened at work today. I was writing about how much I love the paintings of Claude Monet and all of a sudden there was a knock on my office door. Two of my co-workers came in looking to possibly change office pictures, each office has one picture. I was indifferent to the picture that was hanging in my office and told the guy he could have it if he wanted it. Then he mentioned that the picture that was in his office was too girly for him but he thought I might be interested. You guessed it; it is a Claude Monet print!
The Creative Habit - Week 1
It's exciting starting a book like this because I know I will be challenged and changed from the experience. I know I will gain a new insight and/or process that will help me live my life at a deeper level. I realize that good intentions are not enough for me to make real change in my life and that's what I'm intending here - real change that will allow me to live my life at a deeper level, to be more than I am currently expressing in my life.
I never know what issues are going to come up for me or how it's all going to play out, I just know something wonderful will occur if I open myself to the experience and remain authentic while going through the process. Having stated my intention for this creative journey I decided the best way for me to get into it was to start reading and stop when I felt an emotional reaction to something I had just read.
The first thing that came up for me was the importance of routine in learning and using the creative habit. I felt some resistance when I read the following statements:
"Being creative is a full-time job with it's own daily patterns."
"The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more."
I thought about my daily routine and what it was helping me create and as soon as I did I realized why I was feeling resistant. My daily routine on workdays goes something like this: I snooze the alarm clock for an hour which makes it around 8:00 - 8:15 a.m. before I actually get out of bed. Now I have to be at work by 9 a.m. so that leaves me about 45 minutes before I have to be at work. During that 45 minutes I've got to find something to wear, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, grab something for lunch and drive to work. Not exactly the routine of a deliberate creator now is it? I didn't realize until I purposefully looked at my routine against the backdrop of what I was wanting to create that I saw the difference between what I was intending and what I was actually thinking and doing.
When I write about my ideal life, what it looks like and how I start my day it looks nothing like what I described to you with my current morning routine and truth be told, my weekend routine isn't much better. In my ideal life I wake up without an alarm clock, full of energy and excitement for the day. I get up, make my morning coffee and then go outside and watch the sun come up. I spend some time writing and doing yoga and then I go to work. There is such a gap between what I'm currently living and what I wish to be living.
I'm currently working to incorporate some of the elements from my ideal life into my current routine. I tried to change everything all at once and it was just too much of a difference for me to maintain. I took a step back and realize everything didn't have to change all at once. I could start slowly by incorporating some of my ideal intentions into what I'm currently living and so far, that seems to be working out much better. I'm enjoying my time in the morning, sitting outside with a cup of coffee watching the sun come up. I find myself looking forward to doing this as soon as I wake up and at least for the past few days have not felt the need to snooze the alarm clock even once.
Here are the first three creative exercises listed in the book.
1. Where is your "pencil"?"
What is the one tool that feeds your creativity and is so essential that without it you feel naked and unprepared."For me, it's a pen and notepad. I'm always jotting down some idea that comes to me, an action step, a quote, etc. I never know when I'll receive an idea for something and I always want to be prepared. It's rare when I don't have a pen and notepad with me but in the few times when it's happened I really did feel unprepared. I don't know about feeling naked but definitely unprepared.
2. Build up your tolerance to solitude"
It's not the solitude that slays a creative person. It's all that solitude without a purpose. Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity, self-reliance is a happy by-product."I didn't have any real trouble with this exercise because I love solitude; it's my connection time. It's my time to focus on the higher vision I have for myself and I make time for it every day.
3. Face your fears"
There is nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks."This assignment really got to me. As I was reading the exercise this part stood out to me."When you sat in the brainstorming session at work, why didn't you speak up? When that idea for a story flitted through your mind, why didn't you seize it and pursue it? After you started drawing in that sketch book, why did you stop?"I asked myself why I always seem to stop myself before I really let myself take off with an idea. Twyla says to put our fears down on paper because it helps cut them down to size, so here goes...
My five big fears right now are:
1. Fear of getting criticized
2. Fear that if I step out on faith the money/resources won't come through
3. Fear of attention/being laughed at
4. Fear of not measuring up
5. Fear my dream is too big for me to realize right now
I knew this book would challenge me I just didn't realize how much.
I never know what issues are going to come up for me or how it's all going to play out, I just know something wonderful will occur if I open myself to the experience and remain authentic while going through the process. Having stated my intention for this creative journey I decided the best way for me to get into it was to start reading and stop when I felt an emotional reaction to something I had just read.
The first thing that came up for me was the importance of routine in learning and using the creative habit. I felt some resistance when I read the following statements:
"Being creative is a full-time job with it's own daily patterns."
"The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more."
I thought about my daily routine and what it was helping me create and as soon as I did I realized why I was feeling resistant. My daily routine on workdays goes something like this: I snooze the alarm clock for an hour which makes it around 8:00 - 8:15 a.m. before I actually get out of bed. Now I have to be at work by 9 a.m. so that leaves me about 45 minutes before I have to be at work. During that 45 minutes I've got to find something to wear, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, grab something for lunch and drive to work. Not exactly the routine of a deliberate creator now is it? I didn't realize until I purposefully looked at my routine against the backdrop of what I was wanting to create that I saw the difference between what I was intending and what I was actually thinking and doing.
When I write about my ideal life, what it looks like and how I start my day it looks nothing like what I described to you with my current morning routine and truth be told, my weekend routine isn't much better. In my ideal life I wake up without an alarm clock, full of energy and excitement for the day. I get up, make my morning coffee and then go outside and watch the sun come up. I spend some time writing and doing yoga and then I go to work. There is such a gap between what I'm currently living and what I wish to be living.
I'm currently working to incorporate some of the elements from my ideal life into my current routine. I tried to change everything all at once and it was just too much of a difference for me to maintain. I took a step back and realize everything didn't have to change all at once. I could start slowly by incorporating some of my ideal intentions into what I'm currently living and so far, that seems to be working out much better. I'm enjoying my time in the morning, sitting outside with a cup of coffee watching the sun come up. I find myself looking forward to doing this as soon as I wake up and at least for the past few days have not felt the need to snooze the alarm clock even once.
Here are the first three creative exercises listed in the book.
1. Where is your "pencil"?"
What is the one tool that feeds your creativity and is so essential that without it you feel naked and unprepared."For me, it's a pen and notepad. I'm always jotting down some idea that comes to me, an action step, a quote, etc. I never know when I'll receive an idea for something and I always want to be prepared. It's rare when I don't have a pen and notepad with me but in the few times when it's happened I really did feel unprepared. I don't know about feeling naked but definitely unprepared.
2. Build up your tolerance to solitude"
It's not the solitude that slays a creative person. It's all that solitude without a purpose. Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity, self-reliance is a happy by-product."I didn't have any real trouble with this exercise because I love solitude; it's my connection time. It's my time to focus on the higher vision I have for myself and I make time for it every day.
3. Face your fears"
There is nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks."This assignment really got to me. As I was reading the exercise this part stood out to me."When you sat in the brainstorming session at work, why didn't you speak up? When that idea for a story flitted through your mind, why didn't you seize it and pursue it? After you started drawing in that sketch book, why did you stop?"I asked myself why I always seem to stop myself before I really let myself take off with an idea. Twyla says to put our fears down on paper because it helps cut them down to size, so here goes...
My five big fears right now are:
1. Fear of getting criticized
2. Fear that if I step out on faith the money/resources won't come through
3. Fear of attention/being laughed at
4. Fear of not measuring up
5. Fear my dream is too big for me to realize right now
I knew this book would challenge me I just didn't realize how much.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
I stumbled across this book about a year ago at the library. I liked the title, The Creative Habit – Learn It and Use It for Life. I decided to check it out because I’m so interested in the creative process and am always looking for creative ways I can enhance my life experience. When I got the book home I looked through it, jotted down some notes and did one of the book’s exercises and that was about it. Then back to the library it went.A few months ago I was at a bookstore and saw the book again and decided to buy it. I knew there was something for me in the book, something I needed to look at that would help me not only live more deeply and creatively but would also help me creatively move through some of the blocks I’ve put up in my life. But for some reason I wasn’t quite ready to begin it so I bought the book and put it on my bookshelf knowing there would be a time for me to pick it back up again and that time is now.
From Chapter 1:
“It takes skill to bring something you’ve imagined into the world; to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that’s both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. Even Mozart, with all his innate gifts, his passion for music, and his father’s devoted tutelage, needed to get twenty-four youthful symphonies under his belt before he composed something enduring with number twenty-five. If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.”
I’m ready to build that bridge.
My intention in reading and applying the concepts in this book is to learn the creative habit and to use it to improve my life. And I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences and insights with all of you.
From Chapter 1:
“It takes skill to bring something you’ve imagined into the world; to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that’s both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. Even Mozart, with all his innate gifts, his passion for music, and his father’s devoted tutelage, needed to get twenty-four youthful symphonies under his belt before he composed something enduring with number twenty-five. If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.”
I’m ready to build that bridge.
My intention in reading and applying the concepts in this book is to learn the creative habit and to use it to improve my life. And I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences and insights with all of you.
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