Creative Monday!
Actually you can say that about any day of the week, depending on the weather, your mood, your itinerary, and your energy level.
Creativity is much more than starting a new painting or designing a new pop-up card.
But you already know that.
Being creative can mean taking a virtual online tour of magnificent museum slike the British Museum, London, The Guggenheim in Bilbao, in New York, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Reading is always a step towards creativity. There are milllions of stories out there of people who made history being creative — Steven King, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Henry VIII, Maya Angelou, Gertrude Stein. History is full of people with creative, interesting, exciting lives.
One of my favorite ways of expanding my creativity is finding new recipes online. I tire of the hot dog-french fries menu, so I periodically take a stab at foods I’ve always been curious about but too lazy to buy or make. My husband recently learned a smashing egg foo young dish, and I have stepped out of my comfort zone lately to experiment with a classic French Chicken Basquaise and Cuban Ropa Vieja. Cooking is fun, eye-opening, and very rewarding.
I have also been listening to different kinds of background music while I craft, write, or walk. Lately I’m into Spanish Guitar music and Ambient Japanese Instrumentals. There are podcasts about nature, astral travel, and who knows what else that can tip your scales one way or another to play in the background.
How else can you be creative without investing all your spare time and spare change?
I’m sure you can come up with dozens of ways to expand your mind. Books from the library, free lectures, arts and crafts classes, wine and painting parties — the list is endless. There are crafting challenges and writing challenges and cooking challenges all over Word Press and Pinterest and Facebook — there’s always something to pique your interest.
There is no such thing as being bored in this universe.
All you have to do is take the first step. Make the effort to learn something new or hone a craft you’ve been tinkering with.
I haven’t been writing lately (except for blogs), and the itch is almost becoming unbearable. I want to write about “visiting” Paris and its countryside for a while now, which takes research research research. That’s exploring to me. That’s creativity in yet another form.
Creative Monday.
A chance to start again, to continue, to excel and fly and explore.
Take advantage of this opportunity you’ve been given. And spread it out all throughout the week.