Creative Inventory Q&A

Earlier today I posted 9 questions from the book The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor. The purpose of the questions were to take an inventory on your creativity and begin to acknowledge your creative side. I journalled my answers to these questions and want to share them. I am hoping that some of my fellow creative friends will also desire to share some of their thoughts on these questions as well.

Q: When did your creative awakening (or reawakening) occur?

A: I feel like I have always been creating. I can't think of a time when there was an awakening in my creativity. As a very little girl, I was very ill and almost never slept. I spent my long nights wide awake, telling myself stories. I was always making up my own little games and adventures. I loved to color and play with building blocks. I spent more hours at the piano than is probably healthy for a little girl. :)

My mom, Sally, and my aunt Twyla were both insanely creative people. They were the right women to have around when it came to encouraging creative growth. The two of them often had hare-brained schemes that involved large amounts of paint and fascinating tools and fabrics. I remember a time when they decided to have a craft show - during the 80's when everyone's style was 'country'. My grandpa built type-set boxes for them that they painted in a variety of colors and embellished with stencils. Then came the wooden knick-knacks, the geese, bunnies, sock monkeys, pillows and painted sweatshirts and t-shirts. If we wanted to paint murals on the walls, we could. I f we wanted to cut an entire ball of yarn into tiny pieces because we were pretending to cut hair (like Mommy in the beauty shop) we were allowed to. There was no such thing as 'no' when it came to nurturing ideas in our household, and if things got out of hand, there were always suggestions for something else to try instead. My mom's motto in life seemed to be "It's only...." For example - "It's only paint! Just paint over it!" or "It's only hair! It will grow back!" 

 Then there was my grandma Betty, who was determined to make sure all of her granddaughters knew how to crochet, sew, embroider and cook. It was she who taught her poor left-handed granddaughter, ME, how to do such things - not an easy task. And it's because of her that I have had success with my crocheted baby Chucks and other designs. It's because of her that I have cross-stitched amazing pieces of art that are framed on the walls of our house. It was her coaching that led me to become a concert pianist.

And thusly, I can't think of a time when I haven't been creating or at least writing down ideas. Most of my ideas were unmanageable - either physical impossibilities or simply out of reach for the time being and then forgotten about.

How about you?