Creative Lift

Naomi Kinsman

Creative Lift is for you if you are a writer or any other kind of artist who takes your work, your practice, and your growth seriously enough to dare to play your way to the page. Each episode includes an invitation for your curiosity, a game or thinking experiment, and a question or two to take into your week.

  1. 22/11/2024

    Creating Space - Finding Flow

    In this episode of Creative Lift: "Creating Space: Finding Flow," we're revisiting the ideas offered in season eight. Join me to reflect on our journey through the Illuminary's five rooms - the Studio, Workshop, Attic, Library, and Garden Cafe, in Creative Lift episodes 60-70. Each of these Illuminary rooms offer unique tools and mindsets to support different aspects of your creative process. In this episode, we explore: How each room in the Illuminary serves a specific creative purpose Real-world examples of using these spaces to overcome creative blocks Ways to reframe creative challenges into opportunities for growth Practical strategies for maintaining creative momentum Featured Tool: The Why Game - A practical tool for understanding the root cause of creative blocks. Check out that tool at this link: https://naomi300.typeform.com/to/PJ43egu9 Key Takeaways: Different types of creative blocks require different solutions The importance of identifying the underlying cause of creative resistance How to transform "work" into play to maintain creative flow The value of reframing our creative narratives   Credits: Recorded and edited by Alex Doherty   Episode Links: Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty   Support the Show: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Creative Lift on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast platform. Your support helps others discover these tools for their creative journey.

    13 min
  2. 10/04/2024

    Creating Space: Designing with Apprenticeship in Mind

    In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Designing with Apprenticeship in Mind, we'll explore another essential mindset for creative thinking: apprenticeship. So far in this season, we've considered the importance of improvisation, critical thinking, and reflection, and their related skillsets. We've given each of these thinking modes a specific space in our mind. We've visualized a building to hold these rooms, our creative Illuminary, and considered the look and feel that each room might have. We've noted how these rooms can provide shortcuts into a particular way of thinking, and help us to effectively approach the specific creative work in front of us.   In books like Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, or Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon, long-time creatives have emphasized the importance of deeply studying the work of other artists. The goal isn't to copy, but rather to learn by heart, and after that learning process, build beyond what we've learned. In this way, we navigate using the light of those artists who have illuminated the path before us. We're apprenticing with them, even if we can't sit in their studios with them.   Today's room is a Library. Instead of thinking of that Library as a place filled with only shelves and books, I invite you to allow your Library to be expansive. Give it listening rooms, art galleries, and even a live stage. Regardless of what your artistic medium (or mediums) are, you aren't limited to apprenticing with artworks that look and feel like your own. In fact, sometimes you'll learn much more about pacing or tone by apprenticing with an artist who uses those tools in an entirely different way than you do as you create.    Inspiring works of art are all around us. How might we use them as tools of apprenticeship? How might we create an inviting space for ourselves as learners that guides that reverse-engineering and skill development process?   Episode Links: Sign up for Creative Lift tools and resources Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

    10 min
  3. 03/04/2024

    Creating Space: Reflecting in the Attic

    In today’s episode of Creative Lift, Creating Space: Reflecting in the Attic, we’re building on last week’s exploration of an inner, mental space, specifically designed for reflection.   Today, we’ll step into that space and try an activity together called The Emotion Jars. You’ll consider the emotional fuel you currently have for your creative work through a hands-on experience. I encourage that you listen to this one with pen, paper, and some colored pencils in hand.   Why consider our emotions in relation to our creative work? In Brené Brown’s book, Atlas of the Heart, she describes a survey that she gave as part of her research on shame. Over 7000 participants were invited to list all the emotions they could recognize and name as they were experiencing them. The (shocking) average number of emotions named across the surveys was three: happiness, sadness, and anger. What about shame, disappointment, wonder, awe, disgust, embarrassment, despair, contentment, boredom, anxiety, stress, love, overwhelm, surprise, and the many other emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human?   Through our creative work, we craft experiences that evoke emotion. We open doorways that make it possible for hearts to expand with wonder, and to contract with disappointment. Through experiencing art, people strengthen their emotional range and each artistic touchpoint clarifies their compass. By returning to your song, your story, your poem, your painting, they intuitively feel the slight difference between surprise and shock, or between embarrassment and belonging.  The emotional fuel we use for our work shines through in it, whether it is remembered emotion, current emotion, or sometimes even unacknowledged emotion. Taking the time to ground ourselves in our emotional landscape helps us to see ourselves, our work, and others more clearly, and deepens the impact and meaning of our creative work.   Let’s take a look, then, at where your heart is, today, through this activity in the Illuminary’s Attic.    Episode Links: Sign up for Creative Lift tools and resources Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

    17 min
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Creative Lift is for you if you are a writer or any other kind of artist who takes your work, your practice, and your growth seriously enough to dare to play your way to the page. Each episode includes an invitation for your curiosity, a game or thinking experiment, and a question or two to take into your week.