The Language of Creativity

I know a lot of people don't like reality television. Believe me, there's a lot of it that I don't like either. But, there's some of it that I do enjoy. I've been hooked on So You Think You Can Dance for years now. Master Chef is a more recent discovery. I've been thinking about why, despite all the cheesy drama, I still watch week after week, season after season. Here's what I've come up with. The creativity.
I love watching the contestants who get up on that stage and amaze me with their unexpected humor or   blow me away with the raw emotion of their performance.

(She starts dancing at 3:20 if you want to skip forward.)

Yes, I tire of those who take the stage because they "just know they're meant to be a star." What touches me are the people who are brimming over with creativity and their dance communicates a universal truth to their audience. Not look at me, I'm a star. But I'm a human being, I know what you're feeling. I've felt it too.

On Master Chef the contestants communicate with food. I personally, don't like to cook. (I do plenty of it, I just don't usually enjoy it.) But it's rewarding for me to watch these people who speak a whole different language - the language of food, which often has deep ties to their families, their childhoods, the community they were raised in.

I guess we all feel some of that each time we make a favorite dish for someone we care about. When my dad was alive, my sister and I would visit him every weekend in the nursing home. He had quite the sweet tooth and we'd take turns making things that he loved. After his ability for words dropped off, the food was a way to communicate.We'd open the cooler to reveal a slice of pumpkin cheesecake, or tiny squares of homemade fudge and his eyes would light up. He would open wide for bite after bite as we fed him. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes he kept his eyes closed and remained in his own world. But I believe those tastes held more than calories. I believe they unlocked memories.

So even though I can't dance and I'm not much of a cook, I am captivated and inspired by these forms of creativity.

Nourishing Your Inner Artist

Photo courtesy of Free Artistic Photos

It’s been several years since I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. If you’ve read the book you are familiar with The Artist Date: time that the author encourages you to set aside each week towards “nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist.” Some of my favorite artist dates I’ve spent at local art galleries letting myself get lost in the creativity of others. In each brush stroke or click of the shutter I find motivation, energy, and inspiration to fuel my own projects.

Reading is another way that I feed my inner artist and I am starting this week on yet another reading high.  I finished Sara Zarr’s How to Save a Life (Amazing!) and Margarita Engle’s The Firefly Letters (Lovely!)  I’ve also started Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (too soon to tell, but I’ve heard great things and have high hopes.)

I’m also a big So You Think You Can Dance fan. I just get lost in the emotion and artistry of so many amazing dancers. And I’ve learned that the most powerful artists whether they be painters, photographers, writers or dancers, are the ones who put their whole heart and soul into their work – something that we can forget to do when we focus too heavily on the technicalities of our craft.

I missed the first half of this season’s premier episode of SYTYCD last Thursday because I was at writing group, but I made it home in time to see this guy, Hampton Williams, who bares his soul and in doing so, he reaches ours. We all want to be that kind of artist/dancer/writer, don’t we?

In what ways do you nourish your inner artist?