Creative People Podcast

“We need new and unusual experiences to think differently. In fact, cultivating a mind-set that is open and explorative might be the best thing we can do for our creative work. As Jack Kerouac said - ‘the best teacher is experience’. 

That’s a quote from my favourite book on the topic of creativity (and one of my all time favourite books), called Wired to Create by Scott Barry Kaufman & Carolyn Gregoire.

Hey, I'm Krista Kankula.  I'm a creativity coach who focuses on helping adults pursue their creative expression & do it in a way that’s fun and true to who you are. 

Today I’ve got a challenge for you, if you choose to take up the invitation. 

Since -  changing our perspective and having novel experiences are so important to our creativity, I’m inviting you to go create somewhere that feels NEW or unusual to you. 

That might mean, you take your sketchbook down to your laundry room in your basement, or you lay on the floor on your back and paint, or you try illustrating from your car (while parked of course), or dancing barefoot in your backyard. Maybe you go to the mall, find a place to sit and write your novel.

You don’t have to plan a trip somewhere far to experience something new or to look or think about what you’re creating in a different way. You can do it within your own space, by switching around your furniture, your body positioning, or creating in a different room than you normally do - like a hallway even.  Trust me, painting in on your hallway floor is more fun than it sounds or at least I found it to be.

Consider thinking about the spaces in your community that maybe you haven’t visited in a while or have never spent time creating in - a bowling alley or a  restaurant…or going to a friend’s house or garage.

Let yourself experiment with creating somewhere just a little bit different from where you normally do and see what happens. Keep this practice in your back pocket so you can pull it out if you’re not feeling inspired or creative or maybe you simply want to make a habit of challenging yourself to create in new spaces.

If you feel inspired, snap a picture of the new spot you’re creating from and tag Ryan @creativepeople.podcast and me @kristakankula. I’m committing to trying this practice out again myself - stay tuned to see where I go. 

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Clarissa Diokno performs her recent single, Haunted live at the podcast studio!

https://www.creativepeople-podcast.com/episodes/clarissadiokno

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

This week we are in studio with singer/songwriter Clarissa Diokno.  We’re talking about forming a band on Facebook, talent shows, and blowing glass. She tells me about her writing process and puppets!  Then she performed her song Haunted!  Great one!

https://www.instagram.com/clarissadiokno/

https://www.instagram.com/kristakankula/

https://www.instagram.com/creativepeople.podcast/
https://www.instagram.com/ryanleacock_/

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Hey, buds!  Today we’re talking theatre with Innovative Productions theatre creators Marley And Sidney!  They have a production happening this week called “That' One Act Thing” - which I am lucky enough to be a part of.  The duo talk to me about friendship/partnership, Canadian Theatre, and using frustration as a motivator.  Great chat!

https://www.theinproductions.com/

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Hey buds, today on the podcast we're talking animation with animators Hannah, Carla, and Michaela.  The trio tells me about their animated short, "Ashes" and all the time, love, and effort that went into making it.

We get into it about perfectionism and the bitter-sweet feelings that creatives go through at the end of big projects.   

Great chat, do it up!


Watch the short:
"Ashes" - Short film


Haanimation links:

https://twitter.com/haanimation_s
https://bio.link/haanimationstudio

https://twitter.com/little_ms_mouse
https://bio.link/little_miss_mouse

https://bio.link/lovelyhone

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Jaguar Sun performs Cold Wind Live at the Creative People Podcast Studio

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

• Display your creativity/put on your own art show
• Do it in your house - could be just for yourself to see and appreciate or you can invite friends/family
• First let yourself view what you’ve created 
• How to appreciate your progress/creative journey and build in time to pause and celebrate
• Sometimes when our projects get stored away in a file in our computer, in a sketchbook, we can forget about them, we can forget about the progress we’ve made, the different styles we’ve attempted 
• Remind ourselves where we’ve been, can inspire/help us identify where we want to go next 

—------------- 

Hey, I'm Krista Kankula.  I'm a creativity coach and I’m here to offer short exercises to help you cultivate and express your creativity and do it in a way that’s rooted in joy, playfulness and self-belief.

The exercise I’m about to share with you is great if you’re:

• Wanting to work up the courage to share your art with more people 
• Feeling like people don’t see/recognize your creativity or art
• If you’re experiencing a lot of self-doubt about your progress and creative skills
• Or if you have a dream to one day have your work featured in a gallery, festival or some sort of public space.

The practice today is this:
You’re going to imagine you’re hosting an art open house and it's going to be featuring your art/your creations. 

You get to curate and design how you’ll display your art and which pieces you’d like to feature.  

And then once you’re done you can decide if you’d like to invite friends, family, colleagues - the people in your circle to view it OR if for right now you’d prefer to view it yourself, and share it with others later.

Often we don’t spend a whole lot of time with what we’ve created when it’s finished. It might stay in a sketchbook and after we’re done we’re flipping to the next page, or it gets tucked away in a box or it lives in a digital folder, on our phone, on a social media feed or our camera roll. 

Going through what you’ve created is an opportunity for you to be present with what you’ve made. To fully take it in and appreciate it. 

It’s an opportunity to see your journey as a creative, how your skills and perspectives has changed over the months and years. 

Through this process of reviewing and displaying your art   you can look back and admire what you’ve created and maybe even get inspiration from these past creations. This process also gives us the opportunity to appreciate something we made, that maybe at the time we couldn’t fully appreciate because self-doubt  or perfection was clouding our perception at the time.

So find a way to display a collection of your art, your creations. Use this exercise as a way to pause and appreciate your progress. Use this exercise as a practice in seeing your creative gifts and seeing yourself as a creative/artist - often we want other people to recognize our gifts/creativity, but what are we doing to recognize ourselves? What are we doing to really see + honour our creativity?

As always Ryan and I would love to hear from you. Take a photo + share your display/collection with us or let us know what this process of reviewing and displaying your work was like for you. Tag Ryan @creativepeople.podcast and me @kristakankula 

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

This week we're in the studio for a conversation and live performance by Jaguar Sun.  Chris Minielly talks to me about the evolution of his music and how stepping outside of his comfort zone was part of that process for him.  We talk about navigating social media while staying true to ourselves   Then Chris caps off the podcast with a fantastic live performance.  Do it up!

Jaguar Son
https://linktr.ee/JaguarSun

Krista Kankula
https://kristakankula.com/activateyourcreativity

https://www.creativepeople-podcast.com/

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Hey buds,

This week we’re talking comics, imposter syndrome, and store ownership with comic book creator Alfonso Espinos of Studio Comix!  I met Alfonso when I stopped in on the way to my barber, and I immediately knew I had him on the podcast.  Alfonso’s passion for comics and helping creators is infectious and it was interesting to learn about the history of comic books in Mexico.  We had a great time.  Do it up.

https://www.studiocomix.com/

https://www.creativepeople-podcast.com/

www.creativepeople-podcast.com

Hi I’m Krista Kankula! I’m a creativity coach that helps adults make time for + access their creativity & do it in a way that’s rooted in joy, playfulness and self-belief. 

Have you ever been working on a creative project or maybe marketed something you’ve created and found yourself thinking “do I just say the same thing over and over again”

Or have you ever found yourself bored with the very topic you’ve centered your creative project on - not necessarily because you find it terribly boring…you’re maybe bored because you’ve spent some much time with it  and spent so much time thinking about it/loooking at it in the same way.

Well today’s exercise will help you if you’re finding yourself in one of those scenarios,  if you’re feeling stuck or if you simply want to activate your imagination and experiment with a little creative challenge.

I’m not sure exactly where I was/what I was thinking when I thought about this exercise, but let’s pretend I was sitting at my desk, opened my drawer - that let’s be honest is probably better described as a junk drawer/mish mash of stuff and the first thing that caught my eye was an eraser.

Today’s exercise is to challenge yourself to write for 20 minutes about an eraser.

Why an easer? Well it’s not the most exciting object in the world, but likely one we have some familiarity with.

The focus of this exercise is to think about the eraser in different ways - what other uses could it have/how could it get repurposed, get curious about it (maybe think about where/how the eraser was invented, how the first eraser was made vs. the ones that get made now) and also to use your imagination and play with telling a story about an eraser. 

Let’s break down how this exercise can help you a bit more:

#1 - it’s giving you some constraints to work with. Instead of saying write about anything for 20 mins, you’re given the topic of an eraser. Constraints can work in our favour and help us generate more ideas/solutions.

#2 - It’s a creative experiment with a slight (but not overwhelming) sense of pressure. There is a time limit and so it challenges you to come up with some bit of writing in just 20 minutes. And it can help challenge our thinking of what’s possible to create in a smaller chunk of time. And hey if you have a writing deadline, you can recall that time you did an exercise like this and you were able to be calm, cool and creative under pressure and get it done.

#3 This one sort of contradicts the last one - but I think you’ll get where I’m going with it. Even though the time may induce a bit of pressure, the exercise itself is low stakes. There’s no assignment to turn in, you don’t have to publish it as a blog post or turn this draft story about an eraser into a novel. You don’t have to worry about whether it’s interesting or your audience or editor or anyone for that matter will like or read what you wrote - because its just for you.

I hope you give this exercise a try - for the record I did and I began a story about the last eraser on earth who kept escaping its glass case in the museum where it was to be on display, so it could go live in the forest with its best friend the pencil. Cheesy? Yeah, but its an exercise I’ll definitely lean on in the future to bring some fun into the writing process, challenge myself and see what other stories I can come up with.

Think about how you can apply the elements of this exercise to what your creating - constraints, being curious, looking at it from different perspectives, making things up/using your imagination.

Let us know what this exercise was like for you + what it inspired in your writing. Tag Ryan

www.creativepeople-podcast.com