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The creative spirit is alive and well for those who commit to being creative every day. Craftzine recently highlighted a blog that showcases people who create something every day. Thing A Day is a yearly creative sprint that is held every February. It brings together hundreds of creative minds. The idea is simple: commit to create one new thing a day, every day for the entire month and post it on the collective blog. The participants can work in any medium and are free to follow-up on their commitment or not.
Could you do it? Could you create something everyday?
Interesting that this blog popped up while I was in the midst of reading, The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life, by choreographer, Twyla Tharp. This book stresses the importance of setting up a daily habit to sustain creativity. Tharp outlines how significant the preparation of finding and making a commitment to this habit is. She proposes that talent will only get you so far and then you must commit to a daily routine to stay creative. Tharp leads the reader through the first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work and getting out of ruts and into productive grooves. I find the book highly enlightening, especially since Tharp comes from such a creative place. She easily translates the principles of what she and others creative types do to sustain their creativity daily.
Twyla Tharp explains what you need to set up a creative habit:
"What works for one person is useless for another. The only criteria are this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there and once you find it stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming."
Winter's fierce grip has rendered many folks inside with cabin fever. Are you just itching to create something? Seems like a fertile time for digging into the creative side and producing art, craft, dance or music. Just starting a daily habit and seeing whether it sparks creativity may be worth a try.
For inspiration, go to Thing A Day, join the conversation and start creating. There are collages, portraits, photographs, graphic design, fashion, recipes, poems, sewing, knitting, jewelry, instrument making and more. Some of the photos on Thing A Day are sent from iPhones, while other images are well-crafted photos and there are videos also.
Both the book, The Creative Habit and the blog, Thing A Day are worth a look. Hey, it may cure your cabin fever and push you to get your DIY on daily.
Do you have a creative habit that you stick to? Can you create a thing a day?
Here's an excerpt from The Creative Habit:
Published by Simon and Schuster
