Artistic Accomplices

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.com

Sarah’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.