I've meaning to do Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way for about a decade now. And I've been told that it's more fun (and easier to go through) if you have some other folks on the journey. (Plus, I'm going stir crazy with the lack of creative outlets in my life at the moment!) So 2012 is the year that I stop procrastinating. And invite others to do the same.
I'm starting an unofficial "Artist's Way for Improvisers" group. (Ann Ciccolella from Austin Shakes leads a group that meets on Fridays downtown, but I'm liking the idea of going through this with my wonderful AIC peeps.)
The Artist's Way is a 12-week program that goes through steps to finding and working through individual blocks to your own creativity. It doesn't take much beyond buying the book and making the commitment to take the time to do the exercises--usually around 5 hours a week. But from the little I've done in the past, the payoff is big. And you can do it alone, but I think everything's more fun with support.
Send me your email (smokydana{at}gmail{dot}com) (or just PM me) if you'd like to play, or if you want some more info about it, or if you want to argue with me that you're an improviser, not an artist, damn it.
I'm going to start in a couple of weeks, around the 14th or so. *****************
What makes you an artist is connected to how you practice and exercise your creativity—not the label society pins on you. It is more important to look at the enormous number of people who have been taught to ignore their creativity. The seed of creativity sometimes falls on fertile ground: a supportive family, a mentor, friends to provide support and guidance.
It also happens that the seed is trapped in someone from a family that is terrified of creativity. And that person may even be punished for expressing creativity. It has nothing to do with how gifted the person is.
One of our culture's great myths is that there exists a “tribe of real artists.” These are supposed to be people who are born knowing that they are artists; who have no doubt at all, ever, that they were meant to be artists. It is my experience that such a mythological tribe of real artists does not, in fact, exist. What I am trying to do is encourage people to act as if they have real talent. We do a wonderful job of acting as if we don't!
The real question you need to ask yourself is: “What if I am genuinely gifted? What if the tragedy of my life is that I never had the courage to act on my dreams and use my gifts?”
--Julia Cameron
http://www.soundstrue.com/articles/The_ ... a_Cameron/
