A Creative Journey

When I was ten years old my favourite Christmas gift was a Jon Gnagy art set. Gnagy was the first TV art teacher and his kits contained workbooks, pencils, charcoal sticks and strange art erasers.

I happily created pictures at the dining room table while my grandma, aunts, and uncles all chatted around me. When I visited my other grandmother, she taught me to hook rugs, to sew on her old Singer, and gave me strips of fabric to braid which we then stitched into braided mats. And I wrote about all of this and much more in my little locked diaries.

Sometimes we think of creativity as perfecting an art. But creativity is really exploring new things without worrying about failure.

As a young teacher I used every bit of creativity I could muster to engage and instruct and nurture five to ten year-olds. Try keeping 35 little ones productively busy on snowy days when it’s too stormy for recess or lunchtime outings!

My own children developed their creative skills as I practiced with oil paints. And there were stories to write and games to create and portraits to finish.

Later we moved to a different province and there I worked on two degrees in education and administration. I was able to replace some education courses with electives and luckily the university had a wonderful art department. I studied art history, figure drawing, acrylic medium, and a variety of art techniques including working with clay.

My art journey had taken a shift from “same old” to “let’s explore”.

Alisa

Mums

Six years later we were back home and I was happy to join in the art community taking courses and joining art groups where I participated in juried exhibitions and art shows. I left acrylics and discovered watercolours. My creative journey was getting broader as I began working as an art gallery administrator producing art exhibitions and arranging art classes.

You can be sure I picked great instructors and participated in all of their classes! I became a partner in a small framing company that catered to watercolour artists and I travelled the area taking my frames to art groups and getting to know the local talent. 

Family Portrait

A new career presented itself, the development officer for a national church (translate as chief fundraiser.) Now my creative journey took quite a shift. I made materials of all kinds to facilitate support for the work being done worldwide: greeting cards, donation envelopes, Sunday bulletins, magazines, conference displays, public speeches, a website, a published book, children’s resources, and even sermons!

Nowadays as a retired senior, my walls are filled with paintings and I no longer feel compelled to create finished works. I doodle in my art journals and love experimenting with every medium and style I hear about.

Luckily, I have friends that join me and a daughter and grandson who inspire and teach me.

Creativity has been a journey as real as my world travels. Sometimes it has been about developing a skill or about making something that lasts. Other times and for all of us, I think creativity can be finding adventure in something new.

Or perhaps creativity is simply a way of approaching life.