You never know where it’ll take you and what you’ll discover, and you might just break out of your creative slump.
by Gloria Hansen
hether an aspiring professional craftsperson or a seasoned pro, at some point the feeling will hit: the creative slump — those times when nothing seems to be going right. Designs aren’t working, words aren’t flowing and everything seems at a standstill. I found myself in such a slump as I was mentally tossing around ideas for a project. Then I thought about Google (www.google.com).
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| Illustration by Dave Fontaine |
Google has a nifty feature called “I’m Feeling Lucky.” You type in a phrase or word, click the button, and Google will take you straight to the number one site for the searched term. I typed “creativity slump” and was taken to an article called, “Jump start your creativity: question yourself!” by Bobby Hobgood (www.learnnc.org/articles/timesaver0503) of Learn NC from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education.
Hobgood asks, “Have you experienced a creativity slump lately?” The article is geared toward educators and talks about the value of asking questions. For me, the best thing about the article was the reference to the Creativity Web site (http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/index2.html). I remember this site very well, as I wrote about it in a book some years back, but I haven’t visited it in some time. It’s a resource center with the sole goal of helping you become more creative. It’s loaded with articles, links and various tools to stimulate thinking. In the “Kick start your creativity” section, I found a link to Robert Alan Black’s “Broken Crayons” site (www.cre8ng.com).
Black’s site includes “Cre8ng” articles, an online version of “Cre8v Thoughts,” his Creative Thinking Newsletter, which he invites you to read and share. In the “Broken Crayons” section, Black includes the entire contents of his book “Broken Crayons,” chapter by chapter, in PDF format. I’m particularly interested in chapter 11, “Using Creativity on the Job.”
Feeling more optimistic, I returned to Google and typed “creativity help” and came up with Bella Online – Creativity Help and Information (www.bellaonline.com/site/Creativity). Clicking around on the site, I discovered a post with mention of a link to a free download of a book on creativity called, “Bumped into the Wall – A Tool for Unblocking your Creativity and Releasing your Creative Spirit,” by Amyn Lalji (www.youperform.com). I downloaded the book and quickly perused its 139 pages (with plenty of white space). Not bad, especially for free.
I also discovered a link to WomensCreativity.com. While the site’s content is somewhat limited, its link list got my attention. It included The Everyday Artist (www.everydayartist.com), Artella Words and Art (www.artellawordsandart.com), Coloring Therapy (www.coloringtherapy.com), and the Creativity Portal (www.creativity-portal.com) — all sites worth bookmarking. It also directed me to The Practically Creative Quarterly (www.practicallycreative.net), a free Webzine and creative community from Nancy S. M. Waldman on “exploring the creative process, increasing creative productivity and enjoying the creative life.” I subscribed.
I also found Soul Food Cafe, (www.dailywriting.net), a portal site for artists and writers (and another keeper of a site). After perusing the site, it was clear to see why Writer’s Digest named it one of the 101 Best Web sites for Writers. And, of course, that banner begged me to click on it. A small adjustment to the URL presented me with “The 101 Best Web sites for Writers” (www.writersdigest.com/101sites), including links to the 2001–2004 lists. Better still, the sites are divided by category, including one on creativity, which directed me to “Tera’s Wish” (www.teras-wish.com), a site by Tera Leigh that I also recall but haven’t visited in some time. The workshop section includes a large variety of “exercises, challenges, topics and ideas to get your creative juices flowing,” and the articles section includes a selection on marketing yourself as an artist (www.teras-wish.com/marketing.htm).
“I’m Feeling Lucky” with “art and creativity” resulted in an article from Psychology Today called “The Art of Creativity” by D. Goleman and P. Kaufman (http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19920301-000031.html). It’s a lengthy and fascinating read that looks at creativity and how it can be encouraged.
“Quilt creativity” took me to Women Folk (www.womenfolk.com) and a link to Exploring Women’s Creativity (www.womenfolk.com/creativity) with a selection of articles.
“I’m Feeling Lucky” with “art quilt creativity links” resulted in a stunning surprise: the link page of my very own personal Web site! I could not resist revisiting several sites. The ArtLex Dictionary (www.artlex.com) features “definitions for more than 3,600 terms used in discussing art/visual culture, along with thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, great quotations and cross-references.” Artsource (www.ilpi.com/artsource) is a “gathering point for networked resources on Art and Architecture.” Color Matters (www.colormatters.com) is a site related to all things color. The art world’s source for income and exhibition opportunities is ArtDeadline.com. The site boasts the art world’s most comprehensive database in exhibitions, jobs, grants and more.
The Virtual Library Museum Pages (http://icom.museum/vlmp) is a portal directory of links to museum sites throughout the U.S. and around the world. It’s easy to get lost here, as many museums offer a wealth of visual treats and compelling reads. Some of my favorites are London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk), New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (www.metmuseum.org) and the Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org).
“Art, Design and Visual Thinking” (http://char.txa.cornell.edu) is an interactive textbook by Charlotte Jirousek of Cornell University. While this site is intended to supplement an introductory course on design concepts, it’s a fabulous online resource covering the elements, principle and media of design.
Although I could just stop here, I found myself returning to Google and trying other phrases. “Color and creativity” brought me to Nita Leland’s Exploring Color & Creativity Web Site (www.nitaleland.com); “colour and creativity” presented me with Color Theory: An Overview (www.worqx.com/color); “design and creativity” to How Design (www.howdesign.com).
Because Google updates its database daily, sites will change. What I found today may not be what I find tomorrow, which is part of the fun — always something new to discover.
“I’m feeling lucky; I’m feeling lucky; I’m feeling lucky.” Seems a good mantra. Try it. You never know where it’ll take you and what you’ll discover, and you might just break out of your creative slump.
Gloria Hansen is an award-winning quiltmaker and author or co-author of 14 quilt and computer-related books. She is co-owner of GloDerWorks (www.gloderworks.com), a Web design and hosting company with offices in the U.S. and U.K., and also produces Web and print work for a major non-profit organization. Gloria resides in East Windsor Township, N.J., and invites you to visit her site at www.gloriahansen.com.