Multi-passionate creativity, a new downloadable freebie and pickle costumes...

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Hello Reader!

The last few weeks I've been doing a deep research dive into theories of multi-passionate creativity in preparation for our upcoming Sensitive Creatives Meetup on the topic this Tuesday.

What's really shone out to me in this process is how important passion is for creative people. As a creativity coach I support both specialists who focus on one specific form of creative practice, and multidisciplinary creatives who will list many, many different art forms that they work in.

Creatives experience lots of challenges - time, money, resources and self-confidence can be difficulities to navigate. But it's having a passion for what we do to that inspires us to keep going despite these challenges, or to look for new ways to resolve the problems that stand between us and what we love.

Of course, passion alone can't carry us through the whole journey. Sometimes the disappointment of something we care so much about not working out as we planned can risk turning our passion into bitterness. Our passion for our craft might stop us from seeing practical realities we need to address to have a healthier relationship with what we do. Or we can rely too heavily on passion to keep us working beyond the capacity of our needs, leading us to burnout or exhuastion.

But generally passion lights us up and is the fuel of joy. And this is why I wanted to focus this month on understanding the experiences of multi-passionate, highly sensitive creatives. Because it's unlikely that someone who thrives on learning and bring curious just can't find long term creative happiness choosing the thing that is going to be most profitable for them, and yet this the advice we are given again and again.

What if instead of using all that energy to try and make ourselves behave like specialists we were supported to embrace our many interests and helped to understand how to make them work for us?

If it sounds like this will be useful to you then you can book your space below :) But this month's Creative Connection also includes a new freebie to download, links to my recent blog posts you might enjoy and an upcoming event I'm co-facilitating for visual artists in Cumbria. Enjoy!

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Coming up next week on Tuesday 11th July is the free monthly Sensitive Creative Meetup, 7pm - 8pm BST.​

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This month our topic is 'Multi-passionate creativity - How do we do everything we love?'.

Are you a creative wonderbeing with many passions and interests? Then this Sensitive Creatives Meetup is for you!

We’ve been told for decades that our goal as a creative should be to specialise in one medium. To do our 10,000 hours and become a master of our craft so we can stand out above ‘the rest’.

But as our understanding of the depth and breath of creativity expands, many of us are realising we aren’t actually meant to do one thing.

So how can you make space for the many creative interests that light you up inside? How do you identify what you want to make money from and what you want to do for joy? What opportunities are out there in the world for lifelong learners, multipotentialites and multi-passionate creatives?

In this free session we’ll be exploring:

✨ How the concept of being a specialist is relatively new and why it’s held such power over our creative cultures.

✨ The different schools of thought that already exist around being a person with many different interests, and which you feel resonates most for you personally.

✨ Some common challenges that appear for multi-passionate creatives, especially those of us who are sensitive.

✨ How you can identify and discover opportunities and ways of working that will work for you as the talented being you are!

As always, feel free to come along and participate in whatever way feels comfortable for you. This month, let’s explore how we can let all parts of our creative self thrive and grow! If you'd like to come along you can book your space below.

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💫 Come along to the Meetup 💫

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I've added a new free resource to the Freebies library!

Experiment and explore with these 6 approaches to making creative choices

A note: Based on a conversation from a co-working session around how we can choose what to do day-to-day when we have so many things that are calling for our attention, I created '6 Approaches To Choose What You Want To Create.' It won't tell you what to focus on for the rest of your creative life (and I would never do that anyway!)...but it might help you decide what you want to spend some time on this week.

In a world of so many possibilities where we can learn almost anything online or order materials to arrive the next day, a lot of us feel like there is just too much to choose from.

When we struggle to choose, we can begin to associate our creativity with feeling disappointed, our self-esteem being lowered and meeting with decision fatigue.

What if we lightened this load by experimenting with fun ways to choose?

This free resource invites you to try some playful ways to randomise or simplify the process of choosing, so you can unstick yourself and start creating!

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DOWNLOAD THE RESOURCE

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Catch up on what happened in May

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Super Sensitive Success: June's Sensitive Creatives Meetup conversation

Nearer the beginning of May I also met with a lovely group for the montly Sensitive Creatives Meetup where we discussed ‘Super Sensitive Success - How do we define success on our own terms?’. If you’d like to watch the replay you can find it over here.​

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Over in blogland

This month I've added two posts over on my 'On Creativity' blog.

​The journey to finding your authentic creative voice as a sensitive person explores how our experiences of being told to mask our sensitivity might show up as we try to work out who we are, and how we want to express this to the world through our creativity.

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​Is 'specialist' or 'multi-passionate' the right path for you? is my first post in a new series on this topic, opens up why trying to specialise doesn't work for multi-passionate people, and begins to ask what we can do instead to work out what works for us.

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Something those of you in Cumbria...

I've been invited by Cumbria Arts and Culture Network to co-facilitate their first Visual Arts & Crafts get-together!

This free event will be an open conversation for all those working in the sector in Cumbria. We'll be examining issues and challenges for visual artists in our region, making connections, and start to imagine solutions. Co-faciliated with artist Alison Critchlow.

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Reserve a spot

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And I'll leave you with a quick round up of some of the things that have been inspiring me of late...

Remember the fabulous Pickle Ladies I sent you last month? Well my small human wanted to dress as a pickle for a local parade so with the help of a pair of shiny green curtains from the charity shop I knocked together a Mini Pickle outfit. As predicted this combined with the The Great British Sewing Bee has reignited my enthusiasm for sewing and I decided to make myself a dress Just Because.

Of course, the Mini Pickle costume quickly got chocolate stains on it, and I can't fit in it anyway because I'm an adult. But here I am wearing my new dress, a cape make with the same material and a hastily crafted pickle hat (inspired by the super cute pickles in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2).

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Other then that my inspiration has mostly come from the topic of the month - multi-passionate creativity! Books I've been reading/ listening to include:

‘How To Be Everything’ by Emilie Wapnick

‘Refuse To Choose’ by Barbara Sher

‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was’ by Barbara Sher

‘The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One’ by Margaret Lobenstine

Have you read any of these, or anything else on the topic? If so I'd love to hear about it, or any other thoughts you might have around the specialist/ multi-passionate spectrum of creativity (for example are there any generalised specialists out there...apparently this is also a thing!).

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Have a wonderful (rest of) July!

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Sending you kind wishes and creative magic,