Creative Lift

In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Collaborating in the Cafe, we’re getting practical about how we might invite feedback in the most helpful way.

Rather than asking someone to tell you what they think of your work, how might you shape a question that makes it possible for them to give you information that will illuminate the next steps of your creative process?

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Designing with Collaboration in Mind , we’re considering the importance of collaboration in the creative process. How might we outfit physical spaces and design our mindset to make the most of the varied perspectives and possibilities that arise when we work creatively with others?

What approach might we take to sharing our ideas, inviting feedback, and then processing that feedback in a way that furthers our creative work's goal? How might we offer feedback to others in constructive and concrete ways that boost their momentum (rather than taking the wind out of their sails)?

While some parts of the creative process may be served best by working on our own, collaboration is also an essential part of shaping and sharing creative work that expresses your unique voice. Let's lean into some tools and strategies that add energy, flow, and joy to working together.

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Learning in the Library, we’re building on last week’s exploration of an expansive library space, dedicated to learning, which houses artistic masterpieces of all kinds.

Today, we’ll step into that space and learn a reverse-engineering strategy. This strategy will make it possible for you to apprentice with any creative hero in an approachable way. First, spend intentional time studying their work, figure out what makes it so impactful, and then personalize those strategies so that you can use them in your own way, in service of your own creative work. 

Roll up your sleeves and try out this powerfully simple strategy that will multiply your creative skills exponentially.

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Designing with Apprenticeship in Mind, we'll explore another essential mindset for creative thinking: apprenticeship. So far in this season, we've considered the importance of improvisation, critical thinking, and reflection, and their related skillsets. We've given each of these thinking modes a specific space in our mind. We've visualized a building to hold these rooms, our creative Illuminary, and considered the look and feel that each room might have. We've noted how these rooms can provide shortcuts into a particular way of thinking, and help us to effectively approach the specific creative work in front of us.

In books like Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, or Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon, long-time creatives have emphasized the importance of deeply studying the work of other artists. The goal isn't to copy, but rather to learn by heart, and after that learning process, build beyond what we've learned. In this way, we navigate using the light of those artists who have illuminated the path before us. We're apprenticing with them, even if we can't sit in their studios with them.

Today's room is a Library. Instead of thinking of that Library as a place filled with only shelves and books, I invite you to allow your Library to be expansive. Give it listening rooms, art galleries, and even a live stage. Regardless of what your artistic medium (or mediums) are, you aren't limited to apprenticing with artworks that look and feel like your own. In fact, sometimes you'll learn much more about pacing or tone by apprenticing with an artist who uses those tools in an entirely different way than you do as you create. 

Inspiring works of art are all around us. How might we use them as tools of apprenticeship? How might we create an inviting space for ourselves as learners that guides that reverse-engineering and skill development process?

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Reflecting in the Attic, we’re building on last week’s exploration of an inner, mental space, specifically designed for reflection.

Today, we’ll step into that space and try an activity together called The Emotion Jars. You’ll consider the emotional fuel you currently have for your creative work through a hands-on experience. I encourage that you listen to this one with pen, paper, and some colored pencils in hand.

Why consider our emotions in relation to our creative work? In Brené Brown’s book, Atlas of the Heart, she describes a survey that she gave as part of her research on shame. Over 7000 participants were invited to list all the emotions they could recognize and name as they were experiencing them. The (shocking) average number of emotions named across the surveys was three: happiness, sadness, and anger. What about shame, disappointment, wonder, awe, disgust, embarrassment, despair, contentment, boredom, anxiety, stress, love, overwhelm, surprise, and the many other emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human?

Through our creative work, we craft experiences that evoke emotion. We open doorways that make it possible for hearts to expand with wonder, and to contract with disappointment. Through experiencing art, people strengthen their emotional range and each artistic touchpoint clarifies their compass. By returning to your song, your story, your poem, your painting, they intuitively feel the slight difference between surprise and shock, or between embarrassment and belonging.  The emotional fuel we use for our work shines through in it, whether it is remembered emotion, current emotion, or sometimes even unacknowledged emotion. Taking the time to ground ourselves in our emotional landscape helps us to see ourselves, our work, and others more clearly, and deepens the impact and meaning of our creative work.

Let’s take a look, then, at where your heart is, today, through this activity in the Illuminary’s Attic. 

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Designing with your Voice in Mind, we’re continuing our series that explores the Illuminary. The Illuminary is a visualization tool that invites you to picture your creative thinking process happening in various rooms. Our goal is to make the abstract and sometimes confusing creative process more tangible, giving ourselves tools to see the way we move through the creative process with clarity and flow.

Today's room is the Attic. In this mental space, you’re invited to think reflectively—collecting ideas, asking questions, and discovering personal connections. In today's episode, come into my Attic to explore the various possibilities, so that you can then design your own to fit your approach and style. What elements would make an ideal reflection space for you?

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, "Creating Space: Strategizing in the Workshop," we’re continuing our series that explores the Illuminary. The Illuminary is a visualization tool that invites you to picture your creative thinking process happening in various rooms.

Each room is designed to support a particular mode of thinking. For instance, your Studio is a space for divergent thinking, brainstorming, improvising, and experimenting, where your Workshop is a space for strategic thinking, craftsmanship, and decision-making. Both kinds of thinking are essential in the creative process. However, when you try to do them at the same time, the creative process slows to a crawl as these two approaches wrestle with one another.

In last week’s episode, we explored the Workshop and discussed how this space might support your creative work. Today, we’ll apply that understanding with an activity that invites you to roll up your sleeves, sort through your ideas, and make strategic decisions in your Workshop.

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Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

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In this season of Creative Lift, “Creating Space,” we’re making the abstract and sometimes confusing creative process more tangible. We’re giving ourselves tools to see the way we move through the creative process so that we can ideate, craft our work, gather feedback, and revise our work with more clarity and flow.

Today’s episode, “Designing with Strategic Thinking in Mind,” builds on the concept of the Illuminary, which I outlined in episode 60. In this imagined space, you can visualize different kinds of creative thinking inside distinct mental rooms. In our last two episodes, 61 and 62, we explored the Studio where you’re invited to think expansively—brainstorming, improvising and experimenting.

Today, we’re heading over to the Workshop, where you’re invited to think critically—making decisions, developing ideas, and revising your work.

When I spend too much time in the Studio, my ideas spiral out of control, leading me into intriguing, but often illogical territory. When I spend too much time in the Workshop, my work bogs down under the weight of my critical eye. 

Even though both rooms are essential, so is the wall between them. Without a wall to separate these kinds of thinking, your inner critic has clear access to throw darts at fledgling ideas. In retaliation, your creativity is likely to rebel and either shut down or tangle storylines into rats’ nests.

My recommendation is that you firmly close your Studio door, and march across the hall into an entirely separate room where you can envision your Workshop. You’ll want to be able to move easily between the rooms—often in one work session, you’ll start out in the Studio to generate ideas, head over to the Workshop to begin to shape those ideas, hit a snag and need to pop back to the Studio to brainstorm again, and then bring your solution ideas back to the Workshop to finish the day’s work. The more capacity you build in these two spaces, the more fluidly you’ll be able to use as you move between them.

Let’s explore the Workshop, which is filled with practical tools and the can-do optimism you need when you’re facing a pile of messy, but promising ideas.

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Today’s episode of Creative Lift, "Creating Space: Playing in the Studio," is a hands-on experience of playing in one of the Illuminary's rooms, the Studio. You can think of the Illuminary as an inner creative hideout that is made up of various rooms designed to support your creative thinking process. The Studio is a space for divergent thinking, brainstorming, improvising, and experimenting.

Last week's episode offered a tour of the Studio, and today's episode invites you to experience it. Since this is a hands-on experience, I encourage you to listen to this episode when you have a few quiet minutes to focus and a pen and paper in hand.

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In today’s episode of Creative Lift, dive with me into the first of the Illuminary’s rooms, the Studio. You can think of the Illuminary as an inner creative hideout that is made up of various rooms designed to support your creative thinking process. The Studio is a space for divergent thinking, brainstorming, improvising, and experimenting. In our episode, we’ll explore why play matters, no matter what age you are, and how play facilitates your creative flow and momentum.

What kind of environment would work best for you in your internal Studio? What colors, tools, and supplies invite you into a playful state of mind? Your Studio is a place to experiment, even when you have no idea whether a possibility will lead anywhere productive. In this space, making a mess is not only expected, it’s celebrated.

Don’t miss out on next week’s follow-up episode! In this season, we’re alternating between an episode like this one, that provides a tour of one of the Illuminary’s rooms, followed by an episode like next week’s, in which we’ll play through a hands-on activity together to get a feel for what actually being in that room might feel like. I encourage you to set some time aside next week to join me in the Studio and stretch your playful thinking skills.

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Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty