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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 – The Historic Denver Perrenoud Building, Where Africa Came Alive for Me

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

   photo courtesy of  historichomesofDenver.com

        photos courtesy of uptownonthehill.com

Little did I know back in 2003-2004 that this remarkable historic private residence, built in 1810, would play such a pivotal role in my life and my art career. The Perrenoud Building, originally designed and built as a family home at 836 E. 17th Avenue, Denver, Colorado for prominent Denver pioneer John Perrenoud and his wife and three daughters, showcases an eclectic mix of classical elements over an enormous span of six separate family apartments  on four levels. The only fully functioning brass and wrought iron birdcage elevator in Denver still transports residents between floors – and originally there were individual dumb waiters ( small elevators in each private kitchen) which delivered piping hot  meals to all residents from the main kitchen located in the basement. Maids quarters were located in the top attic, and a newly restored ballroom is found in the basement, where originally a speakeasy was hidden away, with blacked out windows and ample room to dance and drink forbidden adult beverages.The main floor atrium lobby rotunda with Italian marble floors and fireplace, is a rare gem of an entry foyer – a towering ceiling, open railings and stairways to all four floors and topped by a spectacular, original stained glass window in blues, depicting angels sitting on a cloud. Can you imagine the fascinating history of this place? Do you get visual images of carriages arriving, parties in the ballroom and the grand life?

Today this glorious residence is divided into luxurious condos, each offering old world living with exotic woods and carvings and a European flare right in the heart of downtown Denver, just a short stroll away from the Capitol Building. One condo was purchased by my dear friend Christine-Mahree Fowler. I had worked for Chris, as I call her, for several years as the director of her art gallery. She told me about her experiences in traveling to South Africa – she listened to me talk about how I had inexplicably loved anything African from a very early age. I clipped photos from Nat Geo and I must have watched BORN FREE a hundred times. I knew all about the Big Five before age five. The friendship took off and we became “partners in crime”, planners of ambitious undertakings, dreamers of dreams. We began to make things happen based upon Chris’s many travels to South Africa, my love of the continent and artistic leanings, and both of our knowledges of marketing, sales and event planning.

Within a short time we had partnered in an import business we named UNBUNTU and Chris was going back and forth to South Africa importing art & artifacts from several reputable sources she already had there; I was painting with an ethnic African theme as if I were indeed channeling visions of people and places I had actually never seen, and we were hosting “invitation only” gallery shows of our collection in her circa 1810, 4th floor condo in The Perrenoud. We were a great success for several key years, attracting local African experts and others who were eager to soak up the culture and learn…. The moral of this story is that things can get done if you are creative, persistent and alive with passion for a plan.

Years have gone by and our respective business careers  have evolved, yet stayed intertwined, into new completely different things yet  they are basically, logically and appropriately the result of those earlier seeds! Chris is now working as a consultant for Africa Adventure Consultants, Inc. assisting people with custom safaris.   visit www.adventuresinafrica.com  She is also writing a blog on that very subject here with WordPress – visit www.africantraveltales by CM Fowler that I highly recommend for its content and elegant style in reporting raw news direct from the bush as well as sophisticated Cape Town, its fine art galleries and shopping, wine country and the scenic South African coastal regions..

I am of course still painting, talking to Chris nearly every day and brainstorming with her on our common cause – saving the culture, animals and people of South Africa. The thrust of our creativity is now placed in the direction of making a difference in South Africa – a continent we both feel passionately about – a cause we feel equipped to lend our energy and devotion. I will be going on my first Safari in 2014, accompanied by art students I have taught and friends I have made through the years. Chris will lead us – having carefully arranged the itinerary and chosen sights and experiences that we have particularly requested. We have both decided that importing African art and artifacts should come to an end – Africa should keep and hold those indigenous treasures dear to its heart and its people. What we will continue to do is to learn, enlighten, participate and assist those people who feel as we do – that Africa’s future is at risk and there is much to be done so that much is not lost…and forgotten.

If you have an interest in accompanying us on safari – any variation of custom safari you might imagine – contact Chris, known by most as Mahree  (a South  African name) and ask for some information. You will find no one better suited to listening to your dream and making it happen for you and your traveling companions.

Mahree Fowler

Safari Account Executive

Africa Adventure Consultants

Tel: 720-612-0802  • Fax: 303-778-0633 • Toll free: 866-778-1089 • Emergency: 720 836-6531

Email: mahree@adventuresinafrica.com Blog:http://www.africantraveltales.com

Website: http://www.adventuresinafrica.com  Find us on: Facebook

 

The Creative Epiphany – Apple Crisp and Singapore

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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I know….sounds a little crazy…..but that’s what’s on my mind today, first and foremost. The weather here is very coolish – there were 3 inches of new snow at my house this week! The mountains had more of course. So when the weather turns on a dime and we are no longer having 75 degree days, I start  thinking of pumpkin bread, apple crisp, a fire in the fireplace and winter blankets on the bed.

Except I am going to SINGAPORE this month!! With a side-trip to Thailand!! Heat and humidity are in my future!! There was a mad dash around this week looking for sale items that would be suitable when the sweat is dripping down the entire length of your body underneath your clothes, puddling here and there along the way. Even the summer clothes as we know them just don’t cut it in Singapore – you need flimsier garments that float around your body rather than sitting right on your skin. Dressing one’s self there is a challenge. Think gauzy. Think filmy. Think two showers a day.

I have family in Singapore – my daughter and her husband. They will be living there for several years, adding that locale to a long and growing list of places they have traveled to and lived in for a time. They love it, not just for Singapore itself but for all the other enticing places you can see in just an easy weekend jaunt. This fabulous trip will be another addition to my quite small but growing trip-of-a-lifetime list. Do you know the New York Times best selling book “1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE  – A Traveler’s Life List” by Patricia Schultz?? It is in its second printing, with 200 more places added now and although it is a paperback book it is nearly 2 inches thick. You will get lost in this book so have post-it note paper handy. It will take you away to places you had no idea existed as well as reassuring you that your must-do places, like Rome for instance, will never not be a place to see before you die. You need a copy of this book  – you need several to have around when you need a great gift for delighting seasoned travelers or opening the eyes of others who want to broaden their horizons. And NO I am not making any money by plugging it.

Of my entire core family of two grown children and a former husband, I am the least well traveled. My son filled up his first passport and is on his second; he travels the world with his job, sometimes calling me on a satellite phone while standing isolated and alone out in the field of a place I have to find on a map after I hang up, and I do know my geography. I don’t really get around much, except in my robust imagination, and in that regard you might say I have been around the world several times. I have spent all of my life painting and writing and with other creative pursuits. I have, actually, been to a handful of great places including some across the pond, but I have never traveled farther west than to Japan and  Hawaii.  Singapore will be something very different for me. I do have reasons – valid reasons, for my modest travel schedule – and although it would be virtually impossible in the time I have left to catch up with the others, I am setting my priorities and intent upon crossing some of my dream trips off my bucket list. Oh I have always had a bucket list, don’t get me wrong, but my practical life got in the way of it. You know how it goes. I have had a big full life of many transitions, changes and challenges, much joy and great sadness and all that lies between. I would be just fine if I could not ever travel anywhere again – but I am fortunate enough to finally have the will and the way both at the same time.

Through the eyes of my nomadic children I have gained a great deal of knowledge, acceptance and pleasure for exotic places I have actually never seen myself. My kids are great ambassadors for the United States, through their genuine curiosity and respect for people everywhere and their consistent, unspoiled good nature and polite manners. I know that was first taught at home,  but is it not true that in many ways we learn more from our kids that we ever taught them? I have a fresh appreciation for the Buddhist way of life, for instance, and am now aware as never before, living in the now, and practicing a higher degree of tolerance after seeing their countless photos of temples  and shrines in Bhutan, Burma and other countries in that area of the world and choosing to read books that back up that visual experience with substance.  I have become a more well rounded person as a result of their travels. I am more enlightened and in tune with the universal plan.

These days, the world is our backyard. I am glad that my children and yours are finding it easier to navigate the globe than we ever did at their ages – it is true that in traveling we gain greater understanding and acceptance of eachother, and we could all use more of that. With travel, life becomes deeper in meaning; our purpose here clearer. As a favorite t-shirt says, “Life’s big questions. What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? …and where are the cookies?”

So I am making apple crisp today, secure in the happiness that a grand trip awaits me. I am ready and eager to learn about places I have never been, and perhaps I will gain the answers to life’s big questions. NAMASTE.

 

Top 10 things to do and see in Cape Town, South Africa

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

This is a relatively new blog – but well worth your attention! Christine Mahree Fowler is a dear friend and an expert on Africa – check it out! – jo

CMFowler's avatarTales of Africa

 

 

Okay, there are far more than 10 things in  Cape Town  on my list but I’ll start with these:

 

  1. Table Mountain: Table Mountain is both one of the new 7 Natural Wonders of the World and a World Heritage site. The mountain stands at 1,086m and rises up from the crystal seas of the Cape Peninsula. Its name comes from its flat surface which is often covered by a layer of clouds that seem to drape off its sides forming, what is often referred to as, the “tablecloth. If you’re feeling adventurous, the summit can be reached on foot, or mountain bike. If you feel like relaxing, take the efficient cableway to the top and back while soaking in the spectacular view.
  1. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront: The V&A Waterfront is a historic, cultural, and scenic treasure. Set in an actual working harbor…

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The Creative Epiphany -1830’s Rendezvous & Spanish Colonial Market at The Fort, Morrison, CO 2013

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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This weekend was the 1830 Rendezvous and Spanish Colonial Art Market at The Fort, sponsored by the Tesoro Cultural Center! The weather on Saturday and Sunday was perfection after a deluge on Friday night – more rain here in the Denver area we do not need, after September floods…but then Saturday the sky cleared and  transformed itself to that deeply saturated blue that is especially evident during Indian Summer in Colorado.

Oh what a fun weekend it was, just 20 minutes away from my door to the legendary FORT RESTAURANT, founded by the great Sam Arnold, now deceased. The Fort is located on the outskirts of the charming town of Morrison, adjacent to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater and just 300 yards off Highway 285, which winds farther up the canyon to places like Conifer and  Evergreen, my old stomping grounds. There was art, crafts, music, dancing, storytelling, Mountain Men, and more this weekend. In addition to the market, The Fort was also the location for one of the “paint out” opportunities offered to artists with the Colorado Plein Air Festival event, so artists were abundantly sprinkled on the restaurant grounds under massive red rock formations and out on the surrounding high meadows, with Denver off in the distance below. The hilly meadows are lush from the unusual rains – looking as though deep green terry cloth has blanketed the countryside. The trees are in various stages of turning, depending what altitude you are. In other words, the setting felt divinely inspired for this particular gathering.

If you like Mountain Men – the real deal – they were everywhere, dressed out in their local garb, all fringed and beaded, posing for pictures if you were polite enough to ask permission and staring you down with kind but beady eyes that reveal a wild but genuinely unique lifestyle at its best. I felt like I was at a photo shoot for Nat Geo, but ill-equipped with only my cellphone for taking pictures. Still, you get the flavor of things….

The food was elegant  “gourmet cowboy”, to put it mildly. Sam Arnold  used to be on Denver radio talking food long before foodies were named foodies, sharing recipes and folklore. We feasted at Friday night’s opening reception on Mexican chicken, guacamole extraordinaire, chorizo and refried bean dip, and  the beer and wine was flowing. In the main courtyard on Sunday, elk filets were being grilled on an open fire – whether or not you are a meat eater, whether or not you are a hunter, you had to admit the aroma was irresistible and the authenticity of the scene was genuinely 1830.

The craftsmanship of the silver jewelry, the leather and wool clothing, the folk art, the skins, the bows covered in rattlesnake skins was museum quality and the talent of the artists was evident in the fine plein air art ( art that is created out in the open air, taking into consideration the rapidly changing light, weather, sun patterns, etc) being accomplished that day. It was creativity heaven this weekend, especially so if you happen to believe that you were a cowgirl in another life – the only explanation I can think of for my deep affinity to this type of authentic 1830 era lifestyle and art. But that is for another time and a different discussion!

I have included many photos with my blog this time, revealing of the local color and the general ambience of the experience.

The Tesoro Society is “dedicated to protecting and making available to the community the artistic treasures of our American past” and they are such a success at doing just that. What an experience it was!

www.tesoroculturalcenter.org      www.thefort.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?

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Lines To Patterns

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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This is something new for me, entering a photo challenge! FUN! The photos here are a combination of some of my mixed media collage paintings and photos taken in the past year. The images that stir my soul, in life and in art, are most often about color, pattern and texture….and I am particularly fond of lines! I hope you enjoy them.

The Creative Epiphany – Report from Colorado – A LuLu of a Storm

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

          photos courtesy of www.dailymail.co.uk

Phew. I feel dryer today and more relaxed too. The weather is  now  sunny and warm with scattered showers expected tomorrow but a general forecast of better days on the way for the next week. When the storm was raging last week, they started out by calling it a 100 year flood; by about the third day of incessant hard driving rain and many damage reports coming in it was re-accessed as a 500 year flood of Biblical proportions, but this morning Al Roker of the NBC TODAY show pronounced it a 1000 year flood. I am just calling it a LuLu of a storm the likes of which I hope to never see again. Of course the water did not come gently, but  raced down the many creeks and rivers audibly snarling through the canyons of the Rocky Mountains and then widening out along creeks and rivers in an amazing path of destruction below – the South Platte is now 10 times as wide as it normally is and still spreading in a lot of places. Our gorgeous parks have suffered, huge chunks of asphalt have been ripped from dozens of highways, nearly 18,000 homes are destroyed and hundreds of people still missing. Babies were born during this flood as other folks were washed away in their cars and unaccounted for. The U. of Colorado is conducting classes again, but hundreds of businesses in Boulder, Estes Park, Evergreen and other quaint mountain communities are devastated. Sink holes are beginning to happen – OMG! those things. Rivers and streams have cut new erratic paths that were never there before and I can already imagine people saying, “Well I remember when the river ran in that direction until that damn flood of 2013.”

One quite elderly man was swept away, stripped of all his clothes by the angry water and left shivering and clinging to a limb high in a tree. They found his wife, who had also been swept away but survived with a broken leg, and asked her if she knew the naked man they had just rescued from a tree far away….”Well yes,” she gasped, “that is my husband.”

The local early news report is doing a story on Mail Delivery and stranded animals right now – regarding mail, thousands of people who have had to evacuate their homes are expecting medical prescriptions, SS checks, payments of all kinds and even deliveries of the animal variety that come to farmers on the plains east of Denver . Baby chicks, turkeys and even many insects used for pest control are delivered to farmers by US Mail. All those live things are being held at small town post offices, including accompanying responsibilities for keeping things alive as they have sleep-overs there while waiting to be delivered, belong now to the USPS.

There are countless images on TV of stranded animals – the lucky ones who have found some small patch of higher ground to rest on until help arrives. Many were not so fortunate. Helicopters are rescuing and evacuating as fast as they can, both animals and human beings alike. One lone horse stirred the compassion of all viewers, standing by himself in hip deep water and cold temperatures, tied to a small portion of a wooden fence within eyesight of the barn but unable to go there. No food, no clean water, for 3 days he stood there. Finally yesterday he got some help. The cows in the next corral finally made it through the water to a huge soggy mound of hay and burrowed inside to eat the edible innards of the mess. Some of them ate enough to practically walk inside it, nearly disappearing from view. They had not eaten for about 3 days. These are just a couple examples that we have seen – think of all the other unfortunate creatures who are struggling to survive.

I have survivor guilt – I don’t know how I have been so fortunate. I feel like I have dodged a bullet. Just 3 months ago I was in Denver prior to my move from northern California, looking for a nice place to live. I seriously considered a couple of the areas hardest hit. I chose this area instead, because I love being on hills or in the mountains. I thrive on constantly changing vistas, and this community of Palomino Park is on a rise overlooking the magnificent view of our Rocky mountain range to the west. I will now feel more at home here than I would have before, dry and safe as I am….but I feel the pain of the others who could not escape the wrath of the water. The power of the water is beyond our imagination. I have never witnessed such weather drama.

Mother Nature has been in a bitchy mood this week.

You can go to this website to help, as well as the Red Cross, but be sure to specify on your check or in your instructions that the money must be used to help Colorado, otherwise it will go into the general fund….

http://www.helpcoloradonow.com

Go to BING.com and search Colorado Flood Images for more visual info.

The Creative Epiphany – Colorado’s Current Biblical Flood

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

                       Evergreen Lake

Big Thompson Flood July 31, 1976

I have lived here in Colorado nearly all of my adult life, starting with my college years at CU in Boulder, and with the exception of  a few blocks of time when I had to be somewhere else. As most of you know, I just returned here, finally and permanently, after 6 years in California. Just 2 months ago I found a lovely place to live and re-settled back in.

Fast forward to now. I have never in my life seen unrelenting, violent, biting rain like this, and I have lived in some rainy, swampy places. A good year of precipitation in the Denver, Colorado area is around 12 inches of rain – we are considered the western “high plains” where tall grass naturally grows and herds of antelope used to roam by the thousands. Peaceful rivers run through us and Indian camps were plentiful along their banks just 100 years ago. In the high mountains, situated just right there in your face to the west, we almost routinely accumulate snow in the hundreds of inches, and we love that. But in this past 4 days, we along the “front range” of the Rockies, (an area which parallels and hugs the first steep hills that hint at the larger mountains to our west) have become a flooded area that stretches over 150 miles long from approximately Ft. Collins to our north down south through Boulder and Denver and its suburbs to Colorado Springs.  It also extends to our east, into those flat farming plains. I experienced 7 inches of rain two nights ago! 7 INCHES! And we were told to expect additional staggering amounts in the following 3 nights, and the weather guys and gals were correct. Since then, I have been drying out and waiting to see when the second shoe drops. I am in sunshine right now, at this nano-moment, here in south Denver, but the rains continue to the north and east of me. They are calling this a flood of Biblical proportions.

The charming mountain community of Evergreen, just 45 minutes west of Denver, where we raised our kids, has a dam at one end of Main Street that holds back the friendly, peace-loving, agreeably contained Evergreen Lake where fishing and ice skating are a few of it’s seasonal pleasures. The lake is  Evergreen’s water supply. Bear Creek flows into that lake from farther west and its water continues over the dam and down in a normally civilized and quite picturesque creek-form, along whose banks you can dine at outdoor cafes and sample wines at funky little wine bars. Farther into the village of Evergreen you can have a bawdy old time at the Little Bear Saloon where Willie Nelson used to drop in and play a set for free back in the day. If you are having an especially great time there, and you wear a bra, you might be invited at some point in the evening to remove your bra (either modestly pulled out from under your t-shirt or taken off proudly in full view) and sling it up over the rafters where it will live for the remainder of its bra life. You can shop for unique clothing, including a new bra, that you’d never find anywhere else, visit art galleries and eat ice cream at the Baskin Robbins where my son worked after school. Evergreen still has Fourth of July parades down Main Street where the street lamps are festooned with flower pots and America flags. Bikers show up and line their Harleys up against the wooden rail outside the Little Bear exactly where stagecoaches used to tie their horses. The history of Evergreen is fascinating and available in many nicely done coffee table books. We loved it there.

About 20 years ago – maybe longer – the dam was repaired, in spite of skeptical minds, to be capable of withstanding a 100 year flood. This week we are there……as some one said in the news today, “This could be the one that brings us to our knees.”

I just heard this minute that the Evergreen dam is holding and safe, but uncharacteristically angry Bear Creek has taken out half of a parking lot located along its roaring and raging  banks, directly across from the Little Bear Saloon. When the water leaves Evergreen it has to race down through Bear Creek Canyon – one of many canyons that pierce the mountains and enabled early settlers to travel west. These canyons are steep-walled and deep. If you would like to read about just one of them, Google the Big Thompson Flood which occurred back on July 31st, 1976, the first year we lived in Evergreen. As the mountain rain water accumulated in a surreal, film visual effects- type event and then picked up speed while careening down from higher elevations, it raced thunderously down the Big T canyon like a liquid freight train monster, widening out in some places and narrowing again at the tight canyon curves where, since it could not be wide, the water had to deepen up, scouring the steep rocky canyon walls of their higher mountain residences along with trees and rocks and mud. This all happened in a flash – thus the term flash flood. Resulting in total devastation.

Last night I experienced one of those reverse phone call warnings coming across on my CELL PHONE! A screeching alarm telling me to head for higher ground. Thank God I am in a community that is perched on a lovely green hill – but the intersection just a mile away from me became an instant lake and the exit ramps from the highway to the street in front of my home were taken out by fast-rising water. They are gone.

Who would have thought this could happen in a city renowned for being 5280′ above sea level? It would seem that no water could accumulate here! In truth, all of our water drains into the South Platte River which runs directly to the Mississippi River and then to sea, where all good water needs to go. But the mud – that is an entirely different story. Like chocolate pudding with debris, it lingers and clogs and traps cars. It sucks things under. We are told to expect a brief respite from the water starting now, until late tomorrow night when it will return, we are told, with several more inches. But one thing of which I am sure – this has not brought us to our knees. Local news pictures are of course all about humans saving humans and people being generous. Animals being rescued and hot meals being cooked. Like others you see all over the world facing adversity, we’ll be fine eventually. The difference is – this is HERE. First time I have ever seen this up close and personal. And now  I have new appreciation for all those other people and what they endure. I thought I knew – I thought I could imagine – but I was not even close. Being wet and cold and homeless and thirsty for clean water, and hungry. Worried to the point of being sick about friends and relatives and kids and elderlies and animals. With no answers for days and days. OK I get it now like I never got it before.  I am living it now. That’s actually how an epiphany happens.

For fine news coverage of this Biblical flood, go to www.9news.com or search for KUSA  Denver

The Creative Epiphany – Does Your Creativity Have Soul?

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

framed154 16×20 Mixed media collage titled AFTER RAIN by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The news today, in a segment on www.CBSTHISMORNING.com, brings encouragement and validation that one’s creativity does indeed improve and become enhanced rather than diminished through the decades of life. Your brain continues to form inventive paths of creativity, in many cases even more effectively than it ever has. This is your creative brain on youth – Incredibly alive and open to learning!!! Yahoo!!! Bring it on!!! – but this is your creative brain with some age on it – Wise, Experienced and Dense (in a productive way) with Creative Possibilities that you discover can be combined in innovative ways.

That has always made sense to me – as an artist, I plan to do my best work ever in the next few decades. It is a known “phenom” that artists become better as they age. Well of course they do – because when you combine life experience and soul with a constantly increasing skill level the result is usually a good one. Look at the big boys and girls in the world of art – Picasso. Wyeth, Frankenthaler, O’Keefe …. they didn’t really come into their own selves until later in life. The same is true of great writers. Great anythingers. Because it takes time – time to gel and percolate and bring things you have learned and absorbed over the years to the surface. Your surface.

People need to have their souls on display in their creative pursuits. Showing your soul comes easier as you age and evolve. At some point you make the gutsy decision to unapologetically hang it all right out there – as I said in my previous blog titled THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR CREATIVITY, available in my WordPress Archives, in regard to drastically changing the style of your art in your quest for stimulation, expression and evolution, just bleed it out and show people your personal DNA. Honesty goes hand in hand with age, and good art requires honesty…which equals soul.

Have you ever heard someone say, “That home is expensively decorated and superficially impressive but it is without a soul, like a hotel room. It doesn’t look like anybody interesting lives there.” With your creative pursuits you need to LIVE THERE. You need to shows signs of life. Or I heard this said recently, “I don’t like the food served at that place – it just has no soul.” Souls need to show up. Souls need to be present to win. We all see actors playing parts without a hint of soul. It never works. No Oscar for you. Houses and kitchens, living rooms, restaurants, gardens, studios, just as music and art and writing and cooking and all the other creative pursuits, need to have souls. What are the indicators of soul?

In my opinion they are :

Depth – Go deep and also go wide. Live your life 3 dimensionally. People are saying, recently, “Stay in your own lane.” An admonishment to behave and know your place! Well Hell No don’t stay in your own lane – take a road less traveled with your creativity! Be brave and be adventurous. Color outside the lines. Make a winding path instead of a straight one.

Experience – Display reflections of your experiences in your creative life, both good and sad and even bad. Show us your joy and your pain. Be real.

Weathering by the elements through years of use must be evident. Get some wrinkles. Marinate. But do not display an expiration date.

Honesty and authenticity are a must. Wisdom as well as street smarts. Character etched by personal knowledge. Make no excuses in your creativity.

Perfect imperfection is a fascinating thing – don’t be obsessed with perfection. Be vulnerable and make some mistakes. You are a human being. Just do it – don’t wait until it is perfect.

These are some of the things – the catalysts and conditions – that help art and other creative endeavors become brilliant and soaked with soul. You can’t fake having soul – ya either got it or ya don’t babe. Being a little older can only be good in this pursuit. Self-expression comes easier the older you get. Respect that. You have earned it, you own it and so do not apologize for it. You will want to be well remembered for your adventurous spirit and your soul.