Category Archives: illumination

The Creative Epiphany – When Creativity Messes With You, Part 1

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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You know that feeling – you are drained of ideas, you are parched of imagination, desperate for inspiration – you are wondering if you will ever have another burst of brilliance in your lifetime. You try to force it, using your “last resort” tactics to entice the lovely vixen, CREATIVITY, back into your control. She is nowhere to be found – she took the last train for the coast. She always does this when you need her the most; she is fickle and she cheats on you with other guys. You are feeling powerless without her. You have been robbed of your favorite distinction – you feel so ordinary – so without your edge – so blank – so nowhere.

What to do, what to do…  Music? Food? Shopping? Sex?  Dancing? Running to nowhere? Mingling randomly with your fellow human beings? You wonder how long this vacancy will last. This exile from productivity. This emptiness.

The following is excerpted from my Introduction of my book, “THE CREATIVE EPIPHANY – Gifted Minds, Grand Realizations”:

“Creativity does have a down-side. After all, she is only human, isn’t she? She has ongoing relationship issues with Loneliness, Self-Doubt and Criticism. You have heard the expression, “There goes an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.” Bingo. She does not always play well with others. She has problems fitting in. In spite of her flamboyant, life-of-the-party behavior, she can be quite shy. She sometimes leads a solitary life, fleeting in and out of thought incessantly at odd hours of the day and night and then disappearing for months at a time, completely off the radar. Creativity finds it painful to be taken for granted and does not ever come when she is sternly summoned. Even being labeled “creative” is a heavy load to carry through life. People expect a lot of Creativity. And she tires easily. Sometimes she burns herself up in a colorful flame-out. Then there is Depression…circling around Creativity’s camp like a hyena waiting for pieces of flesh, steadfastly marking his territory. Creativity is sometimes deeply fearful. She is plagued with insecurity. She has foot-stomping anger management issues. She hates criticism and feels tricked when it is called “creative criticism.” She is easily offended. But after a dry spell she appears again, rested and giving, ready for some fresh endeavor because she says, smiling, that she was missing you. To make up for her absence and undependability, Creativity takes you on serendipitous journeys you had never dreamed of taking. She shows you the world in one blink of her exotic eye.”

When Creativity finally decides to return, riding on a grand epiphany, lucky be you.

The next blog entry will explain what to look for and how you can facilitate that experience.

In the meantime, go have some fun, put it out of your mind – and relax!

Link to book –  www.epiphanysfriends.com

The Creative Epiphany – Proust and You

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire: by Graydon Carter and Risko –

101 Luminaries Ponder Love, Death, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life 

published in 2009

 “An intimate look into the inner lives of our most prominent cultural figures— pulled from the celebrated Proust Questionnaire page in Vanity Fair magazine. The probing set of questions originated as a 19th-century parlor game popularized by

contemporaries of Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that an individual’s answers reveal his true nature.”

The final page of Vanity Fair magazine is always the first place I go when my new issue arrives – the page where my favorite Proust Questionnaire asks prominent people to answer timeless questions first posed by Proust, the famous 19th century author. His questions are probing, brief, and compelling, still, more than a century later. You almost cannot read them through without taking time to compose your own answer. The editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter,  has written a compilation of some of the more sensational entries , available on www.Amazon.com and the authentic Proust family has a website  www.proust.com  that will assist you in compiling a family chronicle based upon the questions and answers given by all your family members. The questionnaire has become a means for truly knowing a person; revealing the character and even the motivation behind people’s personalities.

Without using the exact words of Proust, which I am certain are copyrighted, I would like to ask you a couple questions that will give you the flavor of  the game – because, in its time, it did become a parlor game, to go around the room so that people could take turns and thoughtfully answer them. We played this a couple years ago at a dinner party in my home, with about four married couples present, and me too, about a year after I had lost my husband. The process was hilarious, at times profound,  occasionally sad and yet always fascinating. There were some moments of dead silence, everyone kind of sucking for air, stunned at an answer. As well as satisfying the curiosity of everyone else, you can be sure that many people surprised even themselves with the answers that sometimes came flying out of their mouths like flapping red ribbons of honesty. Shock & Awe. Blush. Gulp. It gets more risky after a couple of adult beverages.

So here we go – now keep in mind these are my own take-offs on his famous questions, and I am no Proust.

Define what happiness is for you.

What scares you the most?

What do you dislike about yourself?

And what do you like about yourself?

When have you lied?

Who is the person you care most about?

Is there anyone you wish dead?

Do you have a favorite quote?

What is your finest accomplishment?

What will you always regret?

Do you have a personal hero?

These few inquiries are about half the number usually found on the final page of Vanity Fair – but I will leave it at that. If you answer these honestly you will probably either love this exercise or hate it. I do believe that age factors into your answers. Younger people will have a younger perspective. Older folks might be less conservative than you might believe, hanging it all out there for everyone to hear. Age often comes with a what the hell attitude. Ouch. But in any case I do find the game intriguing, and of course you can think of some great questions of your own.

What? Me? What are my answers? They vary on any given day.

I am a constantly changing, fickle, second-guessing, never sure, hard to define kind of person. Actually, on second thought, about all the important things in life, NO I  AM NOT. My basic core remains unchanged over time. Some of those questions would have answers that have never changed for me. The questions I can be creative about would probably never be answered the same way twice. Because if there is one steady thing about me it is that I am creative. What I do with it goes racing from one end of the scale to the other but it is a given, written in stone. One component of that creative nature is that I question myself 24/7.

Do you?

The Creative Epiphany – If Not Now, When?

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Are you by any chance contemplating throwing yourself into a huge creative project of some kind? The kind of undertaking that involves an enormous investment of energy, time, dedication, perseverance, determination, problem solving skills and bullets of sweat? Not to mention possible disappointment. But also to mention the possibility of great gratification and success.

Does the thought of the thing haunt you? Do you toy with it 24/7 in your mind? Do you have a love-hate relationship with it? You would love to do it but you would hate to have to actually spend the time to do it? Could you live without ever doing it? Or would you always regret that you did not? But if you decided to take it on, and you were wildly successful, would that not be fantastic?

Being on a creative fence is a sharp and uncomfortable perch. You are kind of tortured by your thoughts, feeling poked by spiking jabs of doubt. It is a real pain in the ass. Because after all, that is what it’s all about – the doubt. You constantly inquire of yourself, could you actually pull it off? Are you up to the challenge?

Deciding to do this creative thing would not be hide-able. Everyone would know you were working on the thing. And all your fav people would say WOW.  Some would even go on to say Yippee for you! Go for it! Others would remain nearly silent, behind mocking, eye-rolling  expressions that revealed, Oh brother, here she goes again. How is she ever gonna do that. And they walk away to go pick up their dry cleaning.

Would not doing this creative project thing mean you are just a chicken? Or would it reveal your wisdom in knowing what is just going to be too much for yourself? Playing chicken with yourself means that you pretty much meet yourself coming and going as you circle around and around the thing idea and if you fail to swerve you run head-on into your own self and your un-engaged goals, absorbing the impact and proving your grit and resilience….and you decide you simply must accept the challenge because it has hit you so hard….or you abandon that fruitless game of monotonous dodgeball and make other goals, sacrificing your big dream. And the doubters are thrilled. They can’t wait to see the next crazy game you play with yourself. They are keeping score.

But perhaps gutsy you proceeds with your plans and dreams for the thing and yet along the way at some juncture during the doing of the thing you then actually allow the doubters to insert themselves midstream. You let them monopolize your thoughts. And what if the result of that is you never manage to finish the thing or make it a success, after being obsessed and absent for weeks at a time and spouting off enthusiastic progress reports over your busy shoulder to anyone within talking distance? So what if that happens?

What if the sky falls and pigs fly?

Some would say you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Either way brings periodic agony. Each way brings uncertainty. Big deal. Why don’t you swallow your pride and proceed into the unknown territory of the high achievers? You will find many friends there, all of whom were accosted by doubters as they fought to clear the path to their dreams.

The Creative Epiphany – Yawn

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Perhaps you don’t know that from time to time we bloggers here at WordPress are given a “prompt” or an idea for a blog entry. It is up to us whether or not we take on the challenge. To tell you the truth, I have seldom done that…..and I probably ought to accept the “prompt” challenges more often, because they do inspire and it does “prompt” us to think and ponder and express ourselves on many subjects we might not choose for ourselves.

And so today the challenge is “YAWN”.

What makes me yawn, with boredom and mind fatigue? What sends me spiraling toward a deep coma-like sleep? What forces me to tune out of a conversation or a situation with utter detachment and flat-line non-reaction?

Not a lot of things do that for me, because as an artist I am constantly engaged in a dialogue of visual,  verbal and auditory stimulation with my environment. It’s in my job description. But I do admit that I experience with some degree of repetition certain recognizable scenarios and a handful of stereotypically  yawn-inducing types of people  that bore me and exasperate me. In these situations I attempt to be tolerant in spite of my mental, gargantuan, gaping, hippo-like yawn – sometimes I succeed and sometimes not. My best defense is to remove myself from the immediate suck of air that I know is coming, quickly escaping to another location which might be as easily accessible as just 10 ft away from the conversation or the primary person offender, and yet on the other hand it might require leaving houses and geographic places to escape the constant boredom. ( Constant yawning boredom and lack of sensory stimulation was not the reason for my recent move, by the way.)

So what, in general, prompts my apathy and lack of brain wave activity?

OMG – here we go.

People who see themselves as constant victims in life. They believe that everything unpleasant that happens to them is beyond their control; happening to them. Oh poor them! If it is bad and it happens, it was thrust upon them. They accept little to no responsibility for their lives, as if they have played no part whatsoever in its unfolding. They fail to see the consequences of their poor decisions. They have little self-awareness.

On the other side, people who see themselves as constantly entitled in life are also a source of boredom to me. We all know them – the shining ones who believe that life owes them everything. The ego-driven, I’m so great, give me more, and I-will-also-take-some-of-yours kind of person. They want it all and they are not crazy about the idea of working hard for it, and if it looks like they might not be getting it they will find a way. Right or wrong.

Those 2 types of people make me yawn with their oh so predictable behavior. They are in the news all the damn time – you know them when you see them – and you will of course run across them in your personal life as well. They trigger a fight or flight response in me…and since I am choosing my battles carefully these days, I will usually flee. They make me yawn with disinterest and loathing. The toxic nature of their thought processes pollutes my mind.

I like this subject – because yawning is multi-faceted and there is a lot to say. I believe it might be the flip-side of life’s epiphanies….if you have had some epiphany experiences of self-realization that changed your life then I would imagine you are the kind of person who is seldom bored. You are a student of life and always OPEN, like a neon sign blinking, to new and wondrous mental discoveries; people, places, possibilities and life lessons. How can you be bored if you are aware, awake and alert? You must be present to win.buddha

The Creative Epiphany – Wherever You Go, There You Are

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

fragile From Northern California back to Denver…..

On the fifth night in my new residence, dead tired from unpacking and lifting and climbing stairs and settling in, I woke in the night wondering where I was. It was as if I had been in a coma and regained consciousness, and had no idea of my location. Without moving a muscle I looked around. There was bright moonlight cutting through the deep purple darkness  in long narrow slices made by slatted blinds I swore I never bought.  I was wondering – which window was it? I don’t have a window like this one, do I? What room am I in? Where am I? Oh yes, I gradually realized. Someone had moved my bed across 3 states and put it down in a room that didn’t make any sense to me…yet.

When you change your residence you don’t have to be half asleep to wonder where you are. Moments of confusion come at unexpected times when you can’t comprehend how it all happened, although it was a 3 month process. You need something from the fridge and you open the pantry, you turn right headed for the bathroom and it takes you into the laundry room. If you get up at night for a drink of water you impact the wall where you thought there was a door with such force that you wonder if you broke your face.

Moving is not easy. But it is worth it, if you are fortunate enough to have done it for all the right reasons. In my previous blog post, titled SURFACING, I gave you enough info to know that this move of mine has been a wonderful leap, coming at a time in my life when recharging the batteries of my heart and soul was the right decision. Moving is always a major jolt and a chaotic endeavor, however, no matter how you plan it and attend to details. The members of my family do a lot of it. We are all gypsies who will leave point A and flash forward to point B for reasons of career opportunities, quality of life and being closer to those you love most. They said one night on Animal Planet that all the great migrations of the animal species are made for just 3 reasons – plentiful food, water and mating opportunities. Some things are just universal.

My brother and sister and I were born in Ohio and we have made our individual journeys to the West with relish and perseverance. Kind of like Sherman’s march to the sea. We burned some bridges behind us in the process but it was worth it and no one was injured. Then one of us moved back east again, but south. We Ping-Pong around.

It is an energizing event in life – the move. It wakes you up at your deepest core, at the very least. It requires a great, complicated  thought process to purge and pack. I have it down to a system, having moved about 25 times in my life. Each of those times, I learned more and refined my process. I have dozens of tricks and short-cuts up my sleeves by now, learned in the deep trenches of relocation suffering. My sister says I ought to write a book about it. But I am too busy doing other fun stuff.

I actually enjoy waking up in the night wondering where I am. I look around for clues and it comes to me eventually. And maybe some far off night when the clues in the darkness make no sense at all to me, and the familiar answers as to my location do not filter into my mind, well then…..my moving days will be over.

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The Creative Epiphany – Surfacing

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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I am back up to the surface, gulping pure oxygen again and no longer swimming against the current of circumstances beyond my control. That statement is far more deep and wide in its scope than it appears, because it is not just about THE MOVE. For those of you who know me, you know it means that my move from California to Colorado is complete and all the difficulties of that enormous transition, and the couple of years preceding it,  have smoothed out and gone away. The entire procedure of moving, from the tiny bud of possibility to the finish, was a gargantuan cleansing and a new beginning. I shed a lot of dead weight, both spiritually and otherwise. I left my past behind me and moved forward instead of treading water. For those of you who do not have a clue who I really am, just let it be said that after everything I have gone through in the past several years, surfacing is a very good thing.

With the support of many fine friends and family, some strangers met along the way who were instrumental in easing the journey, and one special man who wisked me away from the chaos of unpacking for an evening of relaxation, good food and music, I have made it through this monumental change. At this moment I am sitting in my new studio space, window open to a glorious Colorado morning, enjoying the luxury of the quiet and this remarkable thing called blogging. It is lovely to have a voice, to have my art, to have things to look forward to again. I have finally come out of the far end of the tunnel and the light is almost blinding. To have taken control of my life once again, after a period of time when I put my own needs on the back shelf and sacrificed my own free will,  feels exhilarating. I am giddy with anticipation. The experience of this particular epiphany has come late in life for me, on the heels of other epiphany realizations, but perhaps the universe saved the best for last. I am still young and healthy enough to enjoy my new freedom yet wise enough to grasp the blessing of it.

Returning to a beloved place where you used to live is brand new. Change is a very good thing. It reinvents you, instantly, and it requires great flexibility and resourcefulness. Setting up camp in a new area, no matter how familiar that location is to you, forces you to see it again for the first time. You feel like a kid again, discovering each wondrous thing. Why did I not remember all this from before? Because the circumstances were different then….that context was painted a darker shade.

I invite you to share in my joy this morning. Truly realize where you are in life and make a decision to love it or leave it. If I have one suggestion to offer as a result of this move of mine, it is to act now and not waste a lot of time wallowing around in your indecision. Years go by – decades – and you are still in the muck of uncertainty. Get your fine self going and do something. The status quo can be fine if it is what you authentically want, but if you are restless about anything in life – not just where you live – take control and put your needs first. You are all you have got, even though life does take a village. At the end of the day, it is you. Only you. And you are so worth the effort.

The Creative Epiphany – Your Place or Mine?

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

I have said it many times.

If you have a place where you can go to find peace, renewal, solace, healing, inspiration, joy, refuge, answers, enlightenment or comfort then consider yourself fortunate and blessed. It need not be an actual physical visit to a place. It could be a mind’s journey, a meditation, a visualization, a remembrance of a place. But being there – in this special place – whether in body or mind – provides you with what you require to proceed with your life, with your year, with your month , with your day, or with merely another hour. You gain courage, purpose and  desire just by being in the aura of this place that is so magnificent in its restorative powers that it brings chills to your arms and strength to your soul. It is a place, but for you it is also a shrine. You worship there, in any sense of that word that you desire.

This place need not be grand. It might be as humble as a bench under a tree. But to you it is a connection to the universe, as grand as any cathedral. You know things after you pay a visit there. Answers come to you, or the peace of knowing that it will be alright to live without them. When something happens, some thing that disturbs and confounds you, you get to your place. It might take some travel to get there – it might be a true pilgrimage getting there. You might be saving things up for when you will arrive, carrying an agenda of all the concerns and worries accumulated from days and weeks, so that as soon as you make it to your place you can place them before the universe and learn how to solve them or perhaps find the strength to continue to carry the burden of them until you are given greater insight as to how to lighten your load.

Or you might arrive at your place brimming with joy, running ahead, laughing and carrying only the need to express thanks for the many blessings you have received. That is the experience I had this week…being in one of my own favorite places where I could express my thanks to the universe for all that I have experienced in this life, this glorious, amazing life. I worshiped nature, I drank it up in big gulps, I was in awe at the beauty around me and as a humble artist I was vastly inspired and reminded of my own place in the greater scheme of things. I felt truly alive, every nerve ending at full attention. Sensory overload unabated.

Where did I run away to, from here in the midst of utter chaos, as I prepare to make my move to Denver? What extraordinary place could lure me away from my endless, compulsive schedule of packing and preparing to take my entire life to another location? Where did I feel it was most appropriate to say my fond goodbye to the incredible geographic diversity that is California?

I was in Yosemite Park of course – the place where magnificence was born.

 

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The Creative Epiphany – I Ache to Paint

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Mixed Media Collage titled For Roy by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

I dedicate this Blog entry to Roy Stauth….writer, adventurer and friend of Africa

With my previous blog entry I discussed the tendency of creativity to be dormant and downright absent in times of severe stress, but then, if you are not blocking its entry, to gradually come back through the door of your soul when you need it most. Creativity is your lifetime companion, there for the longest haul. It is a human quality awarded to you and all others free at birth. You need only be present to win it. Creativity’s presence is multi-purposed – to heal you and to be your companion when you most need her; to provide an emotional release; to communicate a message; to channel your angst (or your total joy) into a creation that might live on beyond you, thus leaving your unique mark on the world. Creativity almost always offers the world a message of your choice. Thanks to our predecessors who forged the path toward freedom of expression, you have the ultimate choice of deciding what to say and how to say it through your creativity. People are no longer compelled to paint for the emperor….they have a choice.

The process of being creative requires an opening up of your soul which brings an exposure of your human vulnerabilities and a willingness to take responsibility for what results. If the result of your creativity is a painting, for example, you will most assuredly always remember what it was you were going through at the time you painted it. It might reveal your deepest secrets for careful interpretation by the viewer, or to the casual viewer it may reveal nothing. But YOU know what is there, and if you are asked what prompted you to create such an image you will spill it out unapologetically. As with writing, if you are willing and able to “open a vein” and let it all bleed out of you, you are on the way to healing and communicating what you are all about. You are also on the way to greatness, because great works of art or literature always reveal passion. Only a handful of the great painters and writers, photographers, musicians and other creative folks ever gain recognition – there are many more out in the trenches whose greatness is never exposed to the public eye. I see their work everywhere and it thrills me.

During this time of moving to Denver I have had no time to paint. My brushes and tubes have been packed up for about 6 weeks now because I have had no time for the release of that passion. I feel like an explosion waiting to happen. Or Hoover damn about to spring a huge gushing leak. I am storing up creative energy and I pity the person who might be standing in my way when my new studio is finally set up and I am ready to walk in there and paint again – I will  mow over them like an 18 wheeler. Blood could be shed.

It is super strong, this need to create. It is a force of nature, its evidence still on the walls of ancient caves. With humanity came creativity, with creativity comes greater humanity and understanding. It is a thirst, almost equal to water and air and food in its ability to satisfy a yearning. My old college fine art professor told us that unless we were willing to sell our shoes to buy paint during a blizzard, we were not a true artist. Fortunately I never had to do that, but I probably would have if I had needed to, because my creativity would have instructed me how to make shoes out of something I had on hand.

The thousands of people who blog are manifesting the human need for expression. The need is all consuming. It is undeniable and larger than life, and yet many people around the globe have no means of creative expression available to them. Think how that might feel. We live in a day and time when the people without a voice are growing and the people who do have the means to express themselves are also growing. The wide disparity between the voice-less and the voices is alarming. I feel so fortunate to have several means of expressing myself. Many in the world do not. But that is an entire other problem of such enormity that I can barely stand to address it. Creativity is nothing to be taken for granted, and I never do. If you are among the relatively few on the planet who enjoy the freedom of giving it expression then lucky be you. The creativity you employ as your loyal and dedicated servant is your light in the darkness, and hopefully you will use it wisely and for the greater good, and heal your soul with it as well.

I live, I love, I paint. And I do write.

The Creative Epiphany – The Scheherazade Violin

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

2vioThe violin Scheherazade by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

While we are on the subject of creativity, let me tell you a story within a story. Just a little personal experience of sadness, discovery, healing and joy. A recent chapter in the biography of my art – a true tale, unembellished, able to stand firmly on its own merits. It has always seemed to me that my long career in art has provided me with more than enough fascinating stories – enough for a lifetime of enlightenment and inspiration. Stored in my mind are humorous anecdotes, disturbing happenings, brilliant realizations and numerous other categories of true occurences that have enriched and enhanced the initial act of creating a piece of artwork. Let me begin with this one…..

In the fall of 2010 while living in northern California I received an honored invitation to create a piece of artwork – a painted violin – for the DYAO – Denver Young Artists Orchestra. This long established, prestigious, charitable project involves the yearly selection of about 20 artists  who are invited to paint an actual violin (one that has been put out to pasture) in whatever flavor and style they are comfortable with. The violins then tour galleries for viewing, over several months in the Denver area, culminating in a gala event in the spring, where the violins are auctioned, thus funding the youth orchestra for the next season. www.paintedviolin.com   www.dyao.org

In that fall of 2010 my husband was very ill. I was thrilled with my violin invitation, and yet it was placed in my mind on the very back shelf of priorities…  As December arrived with holiday preparations and obligations, my husband worsened and finally died on December 7th. A week or so later the violin arrived at my door by UPS in a lovely case….at first I had no idea what the DYAO could possibly be sending me, and then I remembered. I made a mental note to notify them that I could not possibly participate in the violin event, as honored as I was to have been selected. I did not have it in me to paint.

After holiday season spent in Tahoe at my family’s gentle insistence, while recuperating from cataract surgery on my first eye and grieving the death of my husband, I arrived back home to face the hard reality of dealing with nasty insurance issues, ugly Social Security issues, clearing out my husband’s closets and office and trying to not have a meltdown. Trying very hard not to lose it, when I ran across the violin. The violin committee was expecting that it be shipped to them, all finished, by April 1st. They requested that it reflect my characteristic mixed media collage technique. I was convinced I could not possibly muster the artistic inspiration and strength to accomplish that. I had only emptiness where the creativity used to be.

As the weeks passed I began to wonder what I would, theoretically, do to the violin if I somehow could do it….if I decided to accept its challenge. Ideas gradually came to mind, creeping in under the  blanket of my sadness. Sort of warming me up. I reminded myself of other circumstances when my art had been my solace and my escape. As a diversion from the sad tasks I was dealing with all day long, I thought about the violin. I remembered when I was young and Mom used to play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade on Saturday mornings; music inspired by the ancient Persian Tales of the Arabian Nights. The music was haunting and exotic, and told the poetic fable of the handsome Sultan who demanded a different virgin be brought to his tent every night, then killed them the next day so that they could not be unfaithful to him. Enter the beautiful Persian Princess, Scheherazade, who made love to him, then told him an intriguing tale and promised to finish the story the following night. She returned, continued the tale night after night, and kept herself alive for many thousands of years, bearing his children and making him very happy.

I approached my collage papers and my paint with doubt and trepidation, wondering what would happen as I attempted to pull my creative gestures and thought processes up from the depths of my misery. I decided to incorporate meaningful mementoes and papers into the collage as omens of good will and peace of mind. I collaged the violin with the same coral and gold leaf paper I had used for the cover of my handmade wedding invitations as a tribute to my husband,  I used a gold circle, a link from a broken necklace of my mother’s. Then some polished stones that my daughter had given me were used to circle the arm of the violin like a bracelet. I added a hunk of clear crystal for good karma. I antiqued the  entire violin with gold paint, made a keyhole design on the backside as a symbol of entrance to a new life, used an East Indian paper around the edges…and I was quite happy and amazed with the results. I titled the violin Scheherazade, in honor of the Persian Princess, and nicknamed her “Scher”.

The story does not end there – with the violin project I was taken through a door to a new place in my life. A place where I was reassured that my life was going to begin again and there was still much to look forward to. As of this day I am still entering that door, leaving soon for my move to Denver where both family and some special friends await me with open arms.

Scher and I have been telling tales for years and years…..but mine are all true. People ask me often if I have any new stories. And I always do. This particular story is one of my best and will always be remembered as a pivotal point in my long life of change, resilience and renewal, three conditions upon which creativity thrives. The violin and my continued enthusiasm for life are my proof positive of that. I live, I love, I paint.

To see the 2010-2011 season of painted violins in which I participated, plus archives and the current season, visit www.paintedviolin.com or http://www.dyao.org

 

 

The Creative Epiphany – High on Life

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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For quite some time now I have wanted to post a blog about creativity and its connection to being high on life. You know that feeling – well I certainly hope you do – when you wake up feeling like you might burst with potential. Your energy level is over the top, you somehow managed to acquire a handful of new ideas overnight and you will tackle and throttle anyone who stands between you and your desire to manifest this moment in time with a creative achievement. Whether you are an artist, a writer, a musician, a chef, a designer, an inventor, a mother of young children, a tour guide, a choreographer, a photographer, an architect or even a retired person who has the entire day free to create as you please, this rare day of open-ness and possibility is like nothing else. It is a luxury and a gift to have such enthusiasm.

Oh I have produced some of my best paintings on less than perfect days as well. I am not one of those artists who can’t paint, can’t think, and can’t be at all productive when my life is not ideal. In fact I run to my work table when I need comfort and escape. I usually get some good stuff done when I wring out all of my sadness and frustration and drip it onto a canvas. I find that process cleansing and therapeutic.

But those sparkling days of illumination and inspiration that come rarely and inconsistently are the ones I am talking about. They almost always arrive un-announced, because the element of breathless surprise is what gets your adrenaline going. However I personally believe there are things you can do to call out to them and tease those brilliant days into showing up…..

1) I believe it is important to take some calm days to incubate and marinate your ideas, keeping those infant ideas quiet, dormant and unexpressed while they form into full-fledged creative beings. Don’t feel like you must work at things every single day…..being creatively driven does not mean constant special FX action.

2) Get a good night’s sleep – your dreams often provide the answers.

3) Exercise outside, away from the gym, even if it’s raining or windy – notice things!

4) Keep an incubation file of ideas. Go to it for fun and profit.

5) Listen, be aware and communicate with friends and strangers. Ideas flow everywhere and from everybody – the smallest interaction can provide huge inspiration.

6) Last but not least – brand new is great but try to also build upon your best successful ideas. Think about how they can be tweaked and altered to grow them into bigger and better ideas. Rework, rebuild, recycle and get new improved results.

What is a creative epiphany? It is an answer you have been waiting for – new information – new inspiration – a light clicked on in the darkness that illuminates and feeds your creative efforts. A creative epiphany provides you with a grand realization that is sometimes life-changing on a day when you woke up feeling open and eager to receive it….a day when you were so high on life that you made yourself a magnet for such an experience. Lucky be you.