Creativity

Sanford and I head out on an evening walk. The air is lukewarm, the temperature of bath water against the skin, and the clouds are tufts of white high in the sky. It has been sunny for weeks, although the morning’s chill presses the leaves to turn gold, and the first layer of autumn crunches beneath our feet.

We set out on one of our usual trails up into the bush and veer up a hill, which starts my heart pounding and Sanford panting, dusty drool streaming down from the sides of his droopy mouth; his St. Bernard mouth, splayed at the sides, red shiny gums perpetually showing like strips of bacon hanging in a butcher’s window. A gaping mouth I try, sometimes unsuccessfully, to avoid brushing my hand against on our walks.

I see a path ambling into a clutch of trembling aspen and decide to take it. A well-worn game trail, new to us, leads us to one beautiful sight after another—to a view of two rivers crossing, marking their thick “x” of aqua water beneath yellowing leaves, to fallen logs whitewashed by the sun, to a hillside of fir closing out the evening light. Just myself, a dog, and the mysterious beauty of the great outdoors.

I’ve been going through an intense bout of creativity lately, perhaps due in part to this glorious weather we have been having, and perhaps due to the ease of sticking around to do the one-room school thing for the second time. It’s like summer still lingers, and with the warmth my mind is abuzz with fresh ideas and the excitement of living. Perhaps it was being away for most of the summer, and now that I am back at home in my creative space I feel renewed and reinvigorated with outside inspirations. I’m feeling serendipitously at ease here, like my life is flowing as gently and effortlessly as a river through a wide, shallow canyon. This is a period of intense, creative calm, if that makes any sense. The creativity is flowing gently through me, in drawing, in my pictures, in my writing, and I am finally stepping aside and letting it be.

Just over a week ago I went and took a one-day workshop with an artist, Diego Samper, who lives with his wife in Langdale on the Sunshine Coast. It was an absolutely amazing day as we discussed art, photography, painting, drawing. He is an artist who works in many different medias, and he gave me so many ideas that I can use in my own practice and in the classroom with my students. Our discussion and looking at all of the beautiful pieces of art in his home made me realize that I can dabble in a number of different creative outlets because they all complement and fit with each other. In the end it’s the process of creating, of causing something to come into being, that is the same, regardless of the medium in which it was done.

It has taken over a week to let the thoughts from that day settle into my cells, and I imagine I will continue to go back to my notes, taking different messages of inspiration away each time. It was truly an amazing day. There were a couple of moments when Diego and I were talking and my eyes became ringed with a lining of tears. It was as if this was the message I had been waiting for all my life. That it’s okay to explore everything you want to explore. That you don’t have to specialize and be a “painter” or “sculptor” or “photographer” or “writer”. That you really can be all of those things. But it takes time. And patience. And dedication. And trust. In the process and in yourself for being able to commit and follow through and let go and explore. The message I took away was that if you let go and explore then you will find the essence of your creative self. You will find your process of creating, and I believe we all have a creative self living somewhere inside each of us, waiting to be let loose on the world.

I’ll write a more usable summary of the workshop with Diego as I get into photography with my students but for now you get the artsy version as my mind is still whirling with ideas and enthusiasm. Diego also does day-long photography and art workshops, and obviously I think it is an invaluable way to spend a day. If you live in Vancouver you should get in touch with him and let the inspiration seep in :)

I have been meaning to go back and go through my journals from my Fraser River trip, and I will. I suppose I’m just squeezing the last juices from the rind of summer before the sun packs it in and we are left with short rainy days. The dark is a good time for writing and re-hashing ides, and I plan on doing lots of re-examining during the season between mountain biking and skiing.

This weekend I spent a good deal of time at a friend’s place on Gun Lake. It was fabulous. An alternative view to gaze at and be inspired by. I wrote in her studio, was treated to a couple of intensive waterskiing sessions (I even got up on a slalom ski!), and picked up the guitar again and started re-learning some songs that I wrote last year. If anything the long break from playing guitar strengthened the songs, as I was able to come at them with fresh ears and tweak some things that seemed a little off when they were so bright in my mind.

I think that is what I learned from my time with Diego too: I can take a break and come back to something, and if I have been true to myself, all the other things I have done on the break will give me a fresh approach to whatever it is I have gone back to, and it will be new and fun again, and the time will be right.

Like the walk with Sandford tonight, creativity is starting out on a path with the intent of exploration on your mind. It’s being open to seeing what is right there in front of you rather than being so entranced by the view that you forget to look at the late-season lily in bloom at your feet. It’s living in the world with a spontaneous heart and letting your intuitions guide you. And that is what I have been doing.