Reimagine 2021 – reflecting, reviewing & planning in uncertain times
Welcome to January! Typically this is my month of reflecting and planning, but this year I’m taking it slowly letting all that happened in 2020 settle. Why not join me as I lead a very low-key and mindful journey into 2021. Along the way I will share the process I go through as one year […]
What is it you do? I ask questions
Something I’ve been thinking about recently is my role in the work I do, and what happens in the sessions that I facilitate. I’m trying to understand it so that I can change the way I communicate about my work to others. Often the ways I’ve said things in the past, the explanations I give, […]
Happy 3rd Birthday Blog! Top 10 (ish) blog posts so far!
The blog turned 3 in March so I thought it would be fun to see which posts have been most popular in that time. Interestingly the top 2 posts (by a huge margin) are the ones about writing your Artist’s Statement. But after that it seems you are all widely interested in different aspects of […]
Books to inspire: Art & fear – observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking
In last week’s post on Acknowledging the Fear I mentioned the book Art & Fear: observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking. It’s such a helpful little book that I thought it deserved its own post. So here it is…
3 elements of your Creative Practice: community
This month on the blog I’m talking about a structure for thinking about your creative practice which I have borrowed from the DIY MFA writing programme and made applicable for most creative practices:
Output (Creative Work) + Input (Nourish Creativity & Skills) + Community Building = Creative Practice
In the last post I looked at Output – your artistic work, the things you create and produce. This week I’m looking at Community Building.
3 elements of your Creative Practice: artistic work
This month on the blog I’m talking about a structure for thinking about your creative practice which I have borrowed from the DIY MFA writing programme and made applicable for most creative practices:
Output (Creative Work) + Input (Nourish Creativity & Skills) + Community Building = Creative Practice
In last week’s post I looked at Input – the things you do as a creative person to feed your creative well, to nourish your creativity. This week I’m looking at Output – your artistic work, the things you create and produce, both the tangible and the intangible results of your creative endeavour.
3 elements of your Creative Practice: nourishment
Last week I talked about a structure for thinking about your creative practice which I have borrowed from the DIY MFA writing programme and made applicable for most creative practices:
Output (Creative Work) + Input (Nourish Creativity & Skills) + Community Building = Creative Practice
In the first of 3 posts I’m going to look at Input – the things you do as a creative person to feed your creative well, to nourish your creativity.
What makes up your Creative Practice?
While I was taking a break from the blog I found myself taking more time to listen to various podcasts – especially when I was on the train travelling around the country. I find it inspiring to hear how other people see the world, and how they navigate their own creative careers. One episode – on the 21st Century Creative – was so relevant and helpful that I got out my notebook and made notes right there on the tube. It was an interview with Gabriela Pereira, writer and founder of DIY MFA, an alternative to traditional post-graduate degrees for writers who don’t have the time or the money to enrol in a formal degree programme. She talked passionately about creative people taking their own education into their own hands, taking responsibility for and control of your learning and development.
In the interview Gabriela outlined the 3 elements of a writing practice that they use to structure the DIY MFA. It struck me that these elements apply to all creative disciplines and that if we just tweak the wording a little, then there are lots of helpful insights that we can learn from this approach.
With the long days comes time to reflect
I’m so pleased it’s finally June! There were many times all through spring where I wondered if the sun would ever return, whether the plants were going to just hibernate forever. But finally I feel I can relax, my warm weather clothes can stay in my wardrobe and I can finally put away my boots! […]
New possibilities in funding
I’m writing this with one eye on the sky, which is a luminous soft blue with such little variation in tone that it just seems to go on and on. I’m desperate to be outside but, in a flash-back to all school exams and university finals, I have to stay in and work. You see, I’ve given myself the task of making an Arts Council funding application and if I don’t chip away at it I won’t meet my self-imposed deadline.
This is my first application, and it’s a bit daunting. Mostly it’s the finance stuff that’s worrying me – pinning down the budget, trying not to think about how much money I might be responsible for soon. Luckily the writing and the explaining about the project doesn’t worry me too much. I know what we’re trying to do with this project, I know what it’s all about, who it’s for and what it will hopefully offer makers and participants. But still, it’s a big document and they don’t make it easy for you.
Luckily, I’ve found lots of helpful people willing to chat about their experiences making ACE applications, and there are even lovely people who have translated the somewhat confusing online forms into a handy cheat-sheet. I’m fortunate that the venues I’m partnering with are experienced at making applications and can offer me support once I’ve done all the groundwork. But what has been most helpful so far, is the chance to talk to ACE Relationship Manager for the SW region, Andrew Proctor. I popped to Bristol yesterday to have a chat with him about the project and get some advice about the application process. As well as discussing my project, we also talked about the changes to the funding streams that ACE introduced last month, and the possibilities they offer craft makers.