Artistic Accomplices

Inspiration can feel mystical and hard to understand, and we can feel like we are merely copying or imitating others. But if we look at the things that we consume — the artists and designers, the music, the movies and tv shows, and the books — we can get a firm grip on the things that really influence us. This is a great well of meaning that we can draw from for our creative work.In this episode, I discuss the is ideas of inspiration, and how answering for questions and reflecting on the patterns and connections our answers reveal can give us some great inspiration.If you're interested in diving deeply into your creative work, I have a new workshop that I will be teaching in May 2021 that is all about looking at these influences and inspirations to push your work forward.Find out more about my Emergence workshop here: https://ericscottart.com/emergence-workshop

It's easy to feel stuck or stagnant in our creating. It's easy to feel like we don't know how to move ourselves forward. In today's episode, I share three strategies for moving yourself forward creatively. These three ideas are great for creators at any stage, and though they may seem simple, they are powerful in getting us moving and creating.Listen to my take on how working small, working fast, and working outside of your comfort zone can help spark new ideas, new works, and new directions.

The magic of creating may be just tapping into our intuition, and by tapping into our intuition, we give ourselves permission to play — to try new ideas and to explore new territory. We get into a flow that can take us in new directions.I take a look at the role of intuition in making and creating, and discuss several strategies that can help us tap into that instinctive voice.

I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I've already gone into the earth, fire, and air elements, and today I dive into the water element and how we need to stay flexible. If we are rigid and stiff and if we know exactly what we want to make and create, we don't leave room for possibilities, and it's the pursuit of possibilities that can lead us in unexpected directions.

How do you come up with ideas?In today's episode, I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I've already tackled the earth and fire, and today I discuss the air element. The air element is all about our ideas and our imagination, and I share a few ways of coming up with ideas.

In today's episode, I dive further into how we can understand our creativity through the lens of the four classical elements — earth, fire, air, and water, and focus on how we can focus on the fire element and think about our passions. It's the things that we are passionate about that drive our creative endeavors and motivate us to sustain our efforts.

In the second part of talking about this notion of being grounded in our creativity, I talk about some of the practical things that we can do to get ourselves into a sustainable creative practice. I touch on setting up routines and talk a bit about routines, and I discuss grounding ourselves in the fundamentals of our creative practice.

Keeping ourselves balanced as we create can be a difficult task, but thinking of a readily accessible framework can make it easier. In Episode 38, I talked about the four classical elements of art, fire, water, and air in relation to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and suggested that these four ideas can give us a we'll rounded idea of creativity and give us a way of keeping ourselves balanced.In today's episode, I dive into this topic a bit further, and discuss how the earth element and the notion of grounding can give us an entry way into better understanding and greater balance in our creativity. I dive into mindset and discuss not only fixed vs. growth mindset, but also scarcity vs. abundance mindset.These are just some burgeoning thoughts that I have around this concept, and I'm working through them, and I hope they make sense. I'll be diving more into these notions in future episodes.I hope that you enjoy!

We're all heroes of our own story.Recently, the Hero's Journey has been popping up in my life. I've heard it mentioned on a couple favorite podcasts, and I've been contemplating it a lot in my art, my writings, and my musings. How can understanding the Hero's Journey help us on our creative journey? I examine the convergence of ideas that brought Joseph Campbell's monomyth to the forefront of my creative endeavors and how I can understand my own creative journey through the story structure that is the Hero's Journey.

I still have balance on my mind, but I take a look at it from a couple different points of view. As a fan of Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender, I look at a framework for creativity and finding balance through the lens of The Force and the bending of elements. Like a spinning top, we can keep our creativity balanced, but not just by keeping it spinning, but by keeping our creative weight equally distributed.On today's episode, I share some ideas about Star Wars, The Last Airbender, and how we can approach our creativity in a wholistic way. I hope that you enjoy!

When the pandemic hit back in March, it was like hitting a big pause button. As everything was cancelled or postponed, I hunkered down in my house, making art, creating videos, livestreaming, and working on podcasts. It was a great time to reconnect with all of these things, but then I pivoted to teaching online classes, and the world slowly began to reopen. I even got to do some in-person teaching in the form of kids summer art camps at the art center that I managed. And unfortunately, so much fell to the wayside as camps swung into high gear, and I continued to teach online. I had little time, and my life became completely unbalanced.On today's episode, I discuss this feeling of being out of balance, and share a few ways that may help you to regain some of your balance if you're feeling the same way.

I interview collage and encaustic artist Crystal Neubauer. Crystal shares her artistic journey and discusses how many of her ideas and themes for her works develop organically as she works. We also, dive into making art and teaching art workshops, and we discuss the impact that the coronavirus pandemic and the recent racial tensions and protests have had on Crystal and her work.

We are walking through the fire now, and recent events have me pondering what's important. Even though the pandemic, protests, marches, and political turmoil have stirred up a lot of overwhelming emotions and ideas, creating and making allow us to process our emotions, our reactions, and our thoughts. Turning the energy of the turmoil into creative energy allows us to focus on what is most important as the fire burns away what is not. We can either allow the fire to consume us or we can allow it to make us stronger as we realize what is truly important.

In the simplest of terms, creating is a spiritual act. Creating is a way that we make sense of the world and discover understanding and meaning. Author Brené Brown says, “As long as we're creating, we're cultivating meaning.”I share some ideas on how art and creating can help us discover meaning and purpose in our lives, and I share a bit about my own spiritual journey.

I interview Kansas City artist Amanda Jolley. We talk about her journey from accountant to artists, and we discuss how she come to her main passions of encaustic painting and paper folding and where she gets inspiration for her work. We also talk about how the pandemic has helped many folks focus in on what's truly important and how art can be a process of letting go of things that get in the way of our authenticity.

We are in an unprecedented crisis that has left many of us panicked and scrambling. But can we find the time and the energy to figure out what is truly important and reprioritize some of the things in our lives right now. I speak straight from the heart as I talk about how this difficult time has been a way for me and many others to reassess our core values and come away with a new outlook on our priorities.

I interview good friend and artist Steve Loya, and we talk about our current situation with the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders. Steve gives some advice on how he's dealing with the crisis and how he's finding time to stay creative and keep his sanity.Steve is an artist and an art teacher who lives in Sterling, Virginia. Steve is a lover of nature and of music, and uses both as inspiration for his art. He has created a wide range of artwork from his fun and fanciful Splotch Monsters to his thoughtful Endangered Kingdom series — from his drawings of trees and animals to his abstract paintings and Tone Poems.

What a crazy time right now! So many folks are affecting in so many unpredictable ways. Things are unpredictable, and there's a lot of stress and anxiety in the world. Instead of closing down and shutting ourselves in, I am encouraging people to open up, connect, and share — all in an attempt to amplify and uplift others.I share some thoughts about this time of upheaval and what we can do to support each other and encourage one another.

Instead of setting out to make a work of art, or to write a novel, or to create a symphony. What if we simplified our approach? What if we set out to have at least one artistic action each day? Instead of overwhelming ourselves with grand notions, and deciding that we're just not up to the task, what if set out to do just one small action. These little notions — these little artistic actions will accumulate, and over time, they will build.

“Your hand needs time to wander enough to be able to find something you weren't aware of…” Lynda Barry There might be a fundamental misunderstanding about making and creating. Many people feel that creating is about making some thing — that the creative person simply imagines this thing — a painting, a song, a new dish, and then sets out to make that thing. I believe that creating is an act of discovery, and I share thoughts on how we need to make space to allow our hand to wander so that we can discover something new as we create.

We all have a story, and that story helps us navigate the world. It shapes our world and how we view it. And I think that story is how and why we create the things that we create and share the things that we share.In this episode, I share more of my story as I get a bit personal, and discuss the magic gift of sharing our creations and our stories.

Talent is a word tossed about a lot when we talk about creativity, and in this episode, I dive into the topic and how I believe that a lot folks use the notion of talent as an excuse to not even try. They believe that you either have the talent or you don't. But like Bob Ross, I believe that talent is a pursued interest, and if we're willing to practice and to work we can do anything. Join me as I share some of my views on what talent is and isn't.Sarah Anderson, Sarah's Scribbles: https://sarahcandersen.comSarah's Scribbles, December 20, 2017 on GoComics: https://www.gocomics.com/sarahs-scribbles/2017/12/20

In this short episode, I discuss the notion of resonance and how something can resonate with us as it vibrates with the right frequency and pulls us and moves us, often quite literally. Though we all have different things that resonate with us, we know it when we witness and experience it. We might see a performance or hear a certain piece of music or watch someone paint, and we are overcome with that deep reverberation that is resonance.

Life can easily be thrown out of balance, and we can feel like we don't have enough time to do the things that we want. Perhaps we simply clutter our lives up physical, mentally, and emotionally. In today's episode, I share how my life has been cluttered up recently, and how I am beginning to change things around and declutter a bit!

The act of creating can have a very powerful and transformative impact on our lives. I've seen it in my own life with my work in the visual journal, and I've seen it with others in the work they do. Creativity allows us to connect with ourselves, to connect with others, and to find meaning and purpose in our lives.I share a bit of my story and how the visual journal has helped me to find focus, to reflect on my life and art, and to grow and change.

We could do this creativity thing all alone, but it can be very lonely. It also can be hard to grow and to keep ourselves motivated. When we seek connection with other creatives, we can impact we can impact the lives and creativity of others and have our lives and our creativity impacted.I explore the notion of connecting with others and why that is a vital thing in our creative endeavors.

How authentic is the creative work that you're making?I discuss the idea of authentic making in this episode and talk about how in schools, studios, and artists' workshops, many instructors teach projects where they make all of the decisions, and leave little to no decision making to students. If this is the case, whose artwork is it then?How can we open our practice if we're teachers to allow our students more of a say in their artmaking? And how can we as creative individuals work in a more authentic way?

We often can get overwhelmed with sheer amount of stuff that we have or that we feel that we need. The materials that we use are vital to our creating. Artists need paint or clay or pens. Bakers need ingredients, pans, and baking sheets. But many of us fill our creative spaces with a lot of stuff — stuff that we might not necessarily need — stuff that we might not necessarily even use.

Bob Ross once said, “Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.” Too often people use the notion of talent as a cop out to not even try anything creative believing that you either have the talent or you don't.I like the notion of talent as pursued interest. But of course we have to be careful because we can overly complicate out pursuits and end up frustrated since we may not be able to bring them to fruition. If we keep things simple we can make things more manageable, and we can be more successful.

Social media is such a part of contemporary life, and for anyone trying to make a living as a freelancer, it is a business essential. But too often people try to create Pinterest perfect posts that show an idealized version of reality, and sometimes, individuals project a persona that seems inauthentic.In this episode, I discuss how there seems to be a rise in the number of Pinterest perfect posts and personas in the social media world of visual arts and art education and how these create a superficial or inauthentic feeling.

Getting started can often be difficult, and it can feel like we haven't got any ideas. But often it's the opposite, and we can be overwhelmed with too many choices. It's very important that as we move forward with our creative endeavors that we learn to set limitations. It's this act of limiting our materials and our ideas that our creativity can take off.

How do you get started? I answered this question a few episodes back, but I dive a bit deeper into the idea of play as a way to get started. Using ideas that John Cleese discussed in a talk on creativity, I discuss closed mode vs. open mode, and how I use play and experimentation to generate ideas and explore materials and concepts.

Feeling like the last podcast was a bit rambling, I want to come at this topic again, and see if I could wrap my head around this notion that the universe is indeed conspiring with us. I focus on the idea that positivity, generosity, and compassion bring about positive, generous, and compassionate results in our lives.It might be the stuff of cheesy self-help books, but we create our reality with the thoughts, emotions, and attitudes, and we can choose the path of the cold-hearted and stingy or the path of the generous and kind.

I go in a bit of a ramble about how we can often feel that the universe is conspiring against us when in fact it works with us to create our reality. When we become aware of this relationship, we can move ourselves toward the life we want to live.

How do you get started?It can be difficult getting started on any artistic endeavor — from procrastination and laziness to feelings of uncertainty and being overwhelmed. in this short episode, I share a small personal struggle with procrastination and give a bit of advice on how to get started on your personal creative journey.We must make a commitment, play and explore, start small, and learn some of the basics.

I sat down with good friend and artist Steve Loya for this week's podcast, and had a good conversation about making art, being kind, and not seeing life and art as a competition. I have known Steve for nearly 30 years having met as freshmen at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1991. It has be great being an eye witness to Steve's journey as an artist and an educator. I hope you enjoy the interview.From Steve's website: www.steveloya.comSteve Loya is a true believer in the power of art and creativity and makes every effort to explore this in his own life. A Bachelor of Science in Art Education major from Edinboro University of PA, Steve's work is motivated by a strong desire to communicate and express visually something beyond words or spoken language, however serious or playful his approach and subject matter may be. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibits, juried and group shows, galleries and small businesses throughout the Northern Virginia region, DC, NV, PA, MD, NY as well as in Japan, Greece,and the UK. His work has also been featured and published in a handful of physical and online artist publications and books during the past decade. You can follow his work at his frequently updated art blogs, Go Flying Turtle, and Splotch Monster Island.

I conclude the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of attachment and how we cling to our identity, ideas, and materials as a way to stay in our comfort zone. We get in our own way by grasping at these notions and prevent ourselves from moving forward.By being open to non-attachment we can become aware of our attachments to the past and the future and can stay focused on the present. Attachment can have us stuck in the mire, unable to move forward, but by recognizing those times when we grasp and cling, we can decide to act and get ourselves unstuck.

I continue the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of judgment. Our inner critic can rear it's head anytime we create, and it can seem like it's an endless loop of criticism. Unfortunately, it's one of the ways the ego tries to convince us to stop creating and maintain the status quo.Why do we diminish and denigrate ourselves so much as we criticize and condemn our creative endeavors? Only by becoming aware of this inner voice, can we lessen the self-defeating talk and stay present with our creativity. By opening ourselves for non-judgment and recognizing the truth about our skills and our creations can we diminish the grip our inner critic has on us.

I return to some topics from earlier episodes as I explore the creative block of Resistance and how we often get in our own way as we create. Though I discussed this a bit in the episode on Creative Blocks, I delve deeper and focus on how we may overcome this resistance.By denying our creativity, by avoiding our creativity, and by staying trapped in our comfort zones, we resist our creativity and keep ourselves stalled and blocked. Only by becoming aware of those moments when we are resistant can we open ourselves and allow the creativity to flow.

It seems that there's a lot of emphasis on the product over the process in many cart classes, whether you go into a public school art room or you go to the nearest art studio or art center. In part this push may come from our own personal experiences as students.But how can we as educators, teaching artists, and students push ourselves away from the notion of a finished project and toward the notion of embracing the artistic process.I delve into this topic in the latest episode and share some insight from my 20 years of teaching art in public schools as well as in the private sector of artists' studios, art retreats, and art centers. I hope that as you explore your art that you can open to the process and not get so caught up in the end result — the product.

I've been contemplating community lately, especially since I've been feeling a bit lost and disconnected from my creative community. In this episode, I discuss how David and I became artistic accomplices and how important it is for creatives to have a community of support.Nothing takes the place of being in the same physical location as your artistic accomplices and creating together, and the ability to get positive feedback and to grow is much greater when creating in a community than it is when creating in isolation.This episode is a bit of a ramble though it's a short one, but I just wanted to share somethings that I am dealing with and feeling at the moment, and to give a little bit of advice on connecting or reconnecting with a creative community.

Samuel Peck holds a BFA in Printmaking and Drawing from the University of Rhode Island, and an MFA in Printmaking and Drawing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Sam is currently a Phd Candidate in Art Education at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.I have known Sam now for ten or twelve years, and in this episode, I talk with him about his art about where his desire to make interesting images comes from and how process is important to him and his work. We discuss how he explores the notion of surprise in his work and how he works with finding artistic problems.It was a pleasure to sit down with Sam and talk about his printmaking work as well as his drawings and paintings, and to get a glimpse into his ideas about art education. I hope that you enjoy the conversation.

If everyone is creative, why do so many people believe that they are not? This is the question that I posed in Episode 4: Creative Myths, but in this episode, I explore this question even further by taking a look at creativity as a spiritual act, examining the role the ego plays in creative blocks, and exploring how we can recognize when our ego is stifling us and preventing us from being creative.By taking ideas from Eckhardt Tolle's book, A New Earth, I delve into how creativity is all about becoming present and how resistance, judgment, and attachment are the ego's way of stopping us in our tracks and keeping us from tapping into our innate creativity.By recognizing when we are resisting, judging, and attached to things, we can become more aware of our creativity, and the quality of our creativity can and will change.

If everyone is creative, why do so many people believe that they are not? In part people may have simply closed themselves off from their creativity, and over time they may have bought into some common myths about creativity. We live in a culture that speaks of creativity in magical, mystical terms, and it's easy to get caught up in the misconceptions that many of us have about creativityKen Robinson defines creativity as the process of developing original ideas that have value, and perhaps at it's root, creativity is more mundane than we believe. I discuss this and more in this episode as I look at the myths that surround creativity and how we are all creative in our everyday lives. We simply take it for granted and don't see it for what it is.

David R. Modler is an artist, researcher, and professor originally from Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Education in Art Education from Towson State University and his Master of Fine Arts in painting from James Madison University. He currently works as an Associate Professor of Art in the Department of Contemporary Art at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.David creates mixed media work and assembles the work into site-responsive installations, and the visual journal is a key component of his work. As an off-shoot of his journal work and as a way to explore creative collaborations, he has teamed up with good friend Samuel Peck to create the tet[R]ad: Draw and Play Here project where they facilitate one-on-one journal exchanges.

About ten years ago, I came up with some rules for myself as a reminder for me to get in the studio and make art. Now, these are not completely original and I borrowed heavily from the likes of nun and artist Corita Kent and writer Patti Digh, but I put my on slant on them and adapted ten basic principles to help guide me.They're not hard, fast rules that cannot be broken, but they are reminders of the things that I need to do in order to keep myself creating and making, and when I feel disconnected from my art, I turn to these rules to help give me a kick in the pants.In this episode, I share the rules and try to give a little insight into each of them through general discussion and personal anecdotes.

As an artist, educator, and a writer, I believe that we are all creative — that we all have this innate creativity, but we may have gotten disconnected from it. In this inaugural episode of Artistic Accomplices, I introduce myself and lay out the reasons why I wanted to begin this new venture. I give a little bit of my personal history, discuss my mission of helping people connect with their creativity, and share my vision for the podcast.