Today I got to meet Leah Piken Kolidas! Leah is an artist who sells her fabulous work online, coordinates the Creative Everyday Challenge, blogs, and a bunch of other cool stuff.
She and I know each other from twitter, but we live on opposite sides of the country. When I realized I would be travelling to Boston to attend the Learning and the Brain conference, I contacted Leah immediately. This morning after a fun breakfast sharing stories, Leah took me to an art store to give me an art supply pep talk.
See, I’m intimidated. By art supplies especially. A quick walk around an art store by myself and I usually turn into gooey, disempowered mush. “Look at all this cool stuff that I don’t know how to use,” I think to myself. “I’m probably not artistic enough to use any of it anyway.”
Under the tutelage of sweet, supportive, fun Leah, though, I was confident. Happy even. The main message I got from Leah is this: even the best artists play around. They buy supplies they don’t know how to use. They experiment and get messy. They learn what they like and don’t like.
Oooooooooh. You mean, I’m not supposed to have it all figured out already? I can simply play around, notice what I enjoy, and go from there?! Huh.
So thanks, Leah, for the encouragement. And for being juicy, experimental, messy you. Inspired by your inkblots I created my own.
To me it looks like two birds kissing from afar.But I got too scared to try and draw beaks and feathers and eyes. So I just wrote words instead. I like how the words look like a heart.
Great post, Gretchen. I often find myself being frustrated that I can’t connect to my own creativity. I know it’s in there somewhere. I think I tend to let myself get in the way of my creativity.
I’ve been working with a book called the Creativity Book, by Eric Maisel. I’m hopeful it will at least break down some of the walls I’ve put up. I look forward to seeing more of your creativity posts.
Gretchen, it was such a JOY to meet you! I love that the words in your inkblot are shaped like a heart. Keep on playing. Perhaps next time you’ll add an eye or a beak or a feather. I love that you are taking risks in incremental steps that feel just right for you.
Thank you for sharing your new art tools last night! It was fun to experiment and play around with new art tools. Your willingness to try new art stuff is inspiring for me to do the same.