Michelangelo- A Constant Learner

Image credit: abcgallery.com

Learning is continual and constant and creative learning is an individual  journey.  What can we learn from the above quote from the great Michelangelo?  Whether you are an emerging leader or artist. If you are a seasoned veteran at your craft, there’s always more to learn and new ways to grow within that field . At 87 years old, Michelangelo said it well: Ancora imparo (“I’m still learning).

Club Creative Studio appreciates the learning curve and supports curious minds in pursuit of creative knowledge.  Like Michelangelo,  the continual association with learning can be a passion and a reality to get the know=how to become better at something. Learning opens doors to growth and opportunity.  What do you think that Michelangelo at age 87 meant when he said “I am still learning.”  Do you think that he meant to express that he did not know it all? Did he perhaps imply that there is so much to learn about so many topics in the span of a lifetime?

Thinking about this quote today, what do you think this quote would mean to you if you were near the age of 87 versus now at the age you are now? 

This quote is great for many reasons if you ask me. It gives me a sense of wonder that the love of learning is a gift at any age, as well as a part of our life at any stage.  We simply can’t know or experience everything in our life-time.  We are in a constant revolution of thoughts and learning episodes.  We learn from our own life and from each other’s journey. We face trial and error daily and we are on a vicious cycle to catch up with the new as we hold onto and learn from the past.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known commonly as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance Artist: sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted unparalleled influences on the development of Western art.

This quote comes to mind for me whenever I attempt a new skill and I have much to learn.  Although we look at the list of talents Michelangelo shared with us, he had to have known that with each of his creative jumps, came a humbling thought that it was all  a learning process. 

My life and creative offerings take on a personal spin from what others have done on as well.  Each creative process brings me to the realization that I can be comfortable with my level of expertise but, I can also take notice that with each topic at hand, I have opportunities to learn even more.  Taking time as an example, to attend more art classes, workshops, seminars, teleseminars and hands-on lessons, I have gained a newfound love for learning once again.  I can take time to slow down for instruction from others.  I don’t have to learn it all by myself.  In this same light as Michelangelo, I can say today that I too am still learning. Still learning new techniques, skills, people, traits, still learning about history, present day events, creative expressions, and still learning the best way to learn.

As your learning adventure marches on, what can you share about the level of excitement of continual learning?  Share your comments below, we’d love to hear about your challenges, and success stories about learning something new that helped you grow creatively.

Sharing Bead Soup

Portion of the Bead Soup I sent to my beading challenge partner Susan,

Club Creative Studio is taking part in the Bead Soup Challenge #7.  It will be fun sharing Bead Soup.

Please review past posts regarding the details of this wonderful sharing and creating challenge for those making hand-made beads and jewelry from them. Since the arrival of my beads from my bead exchange partner, Susan I have had time to simmer the ideas I have and will soon begin my creative thought process and my design using the beads she sent me last week.  I am looking forward to the creative growth.

I have not gotten official word that my box has indeed arrived to New Hampshire however, it has had adequate time. With that in mind, I would like to go ahead and share what I included in my package of fun. The idea of sharing is to highlight some of your own hand-made beads and pair them with interesting items that can be utilized in a creative challenge for the artist on the receiving end to express in their own style.  Lori Anderson is the host and brain-child behind the organization of this particular bead challenge.  It is perfect “soup” , warming my soul on a cold winter day for me living in Philadelphia.  I welcome the challenge.

I included a variety of supplies and I hope she is inspired to do something fun and add her own components if she desires as well. I included items of stone, Czech glass, hand-rolled clay beads, hand-twisted wire worked beads, seed beads, ceramic, rhinestone and metal charm elements just to name a few.

Perhaps she will blog about her experience. I plan to document my creative journey on the Club Creative Studio Facebook page with photos and within this blogging platform. I am happy to share the experience of the creative thought process and creative expression of this beading challenge by sharing my Bead Soup Challenges.

It is my hope that you find the steps that I take interesting and keep in touch as I share the trials and tribulations of this beading challenge. Please check back for future posts on this topic here and on the page: http://www.facebook.com/clubcreativestudio

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Special Arrival: Box of Beautiful Beads

 

Club Creative Studio’s post today highlights the special delivery from the mail this afternoon. My special arrival came today, it was a box of beautiful beads. The beads in my photograph were sent to me specifically for the Bead Challenge called:  Bead Soup Challenge & Blog Party, #7.

Susan Sheehan is my Bead Soup Bead Challenge Buddy.  We were paired from over 500 participants in Lori Anderson’s Bead Soup and Blog Party Challenge. She is from New Hampshire and works primarily in glass, creating wonderful beads, many with the floral motif theme (which is right up my alley). We exchanged boxes and I received mine today! She should get the box that I sent her by Monday.

The excitement starts to build the minute you are assigned your bead partner’s name and location. I had a chance to look on Susan’s website and read a few blogs once I knew she was assigned to me.  With exchanged contact information we are able to keep track and communicate along our creative journey.  It is wonderful that we have put together totally different packages to inspire each other.  She creates in her studio and can be found selling her art at: http://www.susansheehan.etsy.com  The challenge aspect comes next as we sit in front of the bead stash wondering what to create and how to use the elements in front of us.  I anticipate using a few of my own items as well, but, the majority of the supplies will come from the pile she has gifted me.

 What’s in her shared treasure box?

 

Admiring this selection, the first impression that I had was she has a great sense of color. The combinations are wonderful and I am inspired to create starting with a good color palate in front of me from the get-go. She included an array in styles of beads which will certainly make for an eclectic feel of whatever I end up creating from this collection of bead types. I am faced with working with a variety of shapes, sizes and weights of beads and that is a challenge unto itself.  I am not afraid of mixing metals so the copper-colored chain and the silver clasp and bead caps don’t frighten me.

Susan has challenged me to basically create using pink, turquoise, and brown. There are many larger beads all of which can combine to become focal beads or serve as a focal bead all alone. The obvious choice is using the large amber-colored glass round as the main focal bead.  It made me think immediately of using it as part of a center tassel, at first glance so I will see if that changes when I hit the design table or not.

The tube beads dotted with mini-seed beads and floral theme motif are about one inch long, there are four of those. Two brown rounds are not identical but have been made with the same feel. She included six interesting pink glass mosaic feel beads that shimmer in the light, those are cool as well.  With an interesting mixture of tiny crystals and Lucite, I can  imagine using them as little accents of color and dangle beads right now at first glance.

The highlight of her box are of course her hand-made glass floral beads. She has included ten for me to use in my creation.  They are dotted with spots of turquoise, pink, brown, orange and a little bit of purple. Wonderful!

After I let my  “soup” simmer overnight, I will think about what I want to create and then sit down and design, arrange and question.  I plan to document my creative thought process and share the development of my special arrival…my box of beautiful beads. Be sure to visit this blog again as well as the Club Creative Studio Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/clubcreativestudio for updates on my beading challenge process.

 

 

 

 

 

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Enjoy Bead Soup

 

It’s winter where Club Creative Studio is located and  it’s cold.  It’s time to enjoy a little taste of bead soup.  No, I have not decided to actually EAT, sleep and breathe beads no matter what others think that I already do.  I am taking part in a beading challenge called Bead Soup founded by artist Lori Anderson.  This bead soup challenge pairs up persons creating hand-made beads and places them in a challenge together where they put together a goodie package and mail them to each other, challenging them to create from the stash. 

This challenge has three separate reveal dates so that bead artists have time to complete their projects. Most like me, plan to document the journey.  This is the first time that I am taking part in this event.  I first got word that my “Bead Buddy” Susan was from New Hampshire a few days ago. We have a means to communicate and keep in contact throughout this project.  

The full content of our packages are supposed to be a secret until they are received by mail. We are allowed however to give sneak peeks or “teaser photos”. These are two photos that introduce with curiosity concerning what I have included for this challenge.  When I asked Susan for a hint of what she was going to send me in her package, she said with a bit of wit and humor that my beads all had holes…included something old, something new, something purchased, something hand-made, and something blue. Hummm…I can hardly wait!

My reason for taking part in this beading challenge is to experience a creative challenge and go through my steps of creative thinking with beads sent to me.  I am also in total support of the artist paired with me as I am of all of the artists also taking part in this creative process (which totals over 500 participants).  They all eagerly use their creativity and talent to make hand-made beads and share with others for artistic growth.

Please stop by this blog often as I continue to share photos and information about how my first Bead Soup challenge is going. I am ready and willing to enjoy my Bead Soup and share it with you.

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Creativity is Expression

It is no secret that creativity is a form of expression.

Have you discovered the reasons why creativity allows you to express yourself?  There may be several reasons why allowing creative thoughts and actions into your life can benefit you. In today’s Club Creative Studio’s blog post I want to touch on  few aspects explaining how creativity can  help you define who you are.  While it is true that “you are you” as a unique being and you are capable of expressing your individuality in several ways, how you express your creativity is where being creative comes into play.  Being creative and allowing yourself to be true will give you the chance to express yourself to the fullest.

Let’s say you are naturally a shy person. There is nothing wrong with having this quality at all, I am thinking of a word that has a reference to a characteristic many seem to want to overcome in some degree level.  Some people wish they were more outgoing, more brave and daring, louder, more showing of self-confidence.

Whatever the challenge we see as a potential shortcoming which by we identify with for any reason, I believe that by adding creativity into the mix, we  allow ourselves to tackle those challenges more readily.  Art therapists will probably be among the first of many to tell you that the use of art in many forms will free you of many things. I too believe in the power of art as a means of expression and a break through to many situational problems or concerns.  Letting out what is inside is a release of sort that can have a healing and revealing process associated with it. Do you know how being creative can benefit you?

 My Five Benefits to Being Creative

1.  Release.  Using creativity as a means of release can free you up of unwanted stress and tension. Free your mind of worries for a bit, or share what is considered over-load information in a different venue.

2.  Answers an Inner Need. Being creative allows you to be satisfied with the needs that you have to express what your imagination fosters. Do you have a need to be expressive and share your inner thoughts? No matter if a creative need is expressed to yourself in a private journal entry or sung out loud to the roof tops, creativity can call upon your inner needs and be filled.

3.  It’s Natural.  It may not seem that way sometimes but, we all have the potential to be highly creative. It is only when we become older that we lose sight of how easily creativity can flow because of all of our hang-ups. Being creative can become automatic and freeing we can appreciate the natural built-in drive to strive to be creative we already have, naturally. Creativity is natural and it is contagious. Creativity begets Creativity.

4.  It’s a Brain Game.  Looking at creativity growth as a personal challenge is a way to increase it with intended purpose. It takes practice to be creative without having to think about what you are doing.  The more times you are calling upon yourself to think or act on a creative thought or impulse, the faster those opportunities appear when you need them the most. Your out-of-the-box thinking concepts will become more frequent when you train yourself to be more expressive and imaginative every chance you can.  I believe being more creative can become a personal challenge and attainable goal.  Practice of anything will bring about a change.

5,  Shake It Up. Expressions of creativity shakes up our senses.  Adding a new view to a situation, a twist on a solution, or a vision of enlightenment stemming from a creative thought adds spice to life.  Even if you are not the one being creative but you are listening to a creative person or thought, their creative actions or words can inspire you to act in a creative manner as well.  Why not use creativity to shake up your world?  The world needs MORE creative thinkers. We need different solutions, we desire our days to be exciting and worth remembering. When creativity shakes up and changes something, we take notice.

If creativity or calling upon your creativity is not your strong suit, I guess I made this list for you in mind. If you can find one of the numbers helpful to inspire a creative spark and reason to be creative today, I’d love to hear about it by a comment below this post. Have a great day being “Creative Everyday”!

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Creativity Takes Courage

Creativity Does Takes Courage.

Creativity does take courage.

The Club Creative Studio blog today has a focus on five of the top reasons why I believe this is true. Can you think of anything to add to the list?

1. Being creative demands that you “put yourself out there”.  It takes bravery to express yourself as an individual.
2. Being creative explores unknown results.  Courage is needed to chart unfamiliar territories and step outside the box.
3. Being creative requires a level of risk.  Creativity has a risk of failure and success.
4. Creativity is a give and take experience.  Creativity gives satisfaction to self and others. Creativity also includes a part of the creator’s soul.
5. Creativity has an element of investment.  Being creative uses invested supplies and a time commitment.

These are the very reasons among others, that I am dedicated to Being Creative Everyday!

It is not easy to be the one that always stands out in a crowd.  But, it is probably the most satisfying result of having courage to create.  Expressing uniqueness is something that anyone can learn to be comfortable with.  When a creative person sits down to focus on a task at hand, they do so with the thought that the results are going to be unpredictable.  I love knowing that my creative endeavors are all part of my wonderful journey.  The path can take on twists and turns as fast as the ideas spark.  The exciting part of creativity is that it can evolve and proceed in many new directions.

Being creative always as an element of risk involved.  I know that my success and failure rates are experienced in record amounts. Creativity is a learning process.  It is an expression as unique as the individual.  While any creative person dedicates a part of their soul to their art, creativity does not always take away from the creator. Creativity expressed and shared gives greatly to those willing to receive and reach out to connect with another’s creative ways. For me, Being Creative Everyday is not only my personal and business model canvas mantra, it is also a means to the end result of being the best I can be in creating art and sharing it with others.

My hope for you today is to find a way to be creative and thrive in your own level of creativity.  The spirit of creativity lives within you, find what it takes to spark it, and see what it can do for you!

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Creativity As Stress Buster

Believe it or not, being more creative can allow you to also be less stressed.

Having a creative outlet opens your mind and eyes to new and exciting ways to distress.

What’s your creative stress buster?

I use the opportunity to be creative with art on a daily basis. In this TNT (This-N-That) Club Creative Studio post I’d like share ideas why creativity can come to the rescue in times of stress. My personal and business mantra is Be Creative Everyday!  Having this frame of mind has allowed me to use the arts as a means to be expressive and less stressed in my day.

Focus your mind and hands creatively and you are in for an escape (of sorts) of reality. Being creative takes my thought process to a different out-of-the-box, critical thinking stage.   It helps me forget about the other things that are stressors in my life.  When I am creative, my focus changes to thinking in nonconventional means and I allow myself to grant freedoms of imagination and growth from routine.

Being creative sets my mind free from rules and places me in a state of experimentation.  Gifting the opportunity to ask and act upon questions like “what if”. Recently, I had the misfortune of having technical difficulties.  Within two days of each other , I discovered that I laundered my cell phone and the motherboard of my computer was fried. Talk about some bad luck. My technical difficulties were woes that I had to solved quickly so I could get back on track to where I needed to be personally and in my business. Those are stressful times, when you have to worry about a cost associated with a solution, as well as the time you are going to sacrifice to get back to your normal life when there is a challenge in your mist.

Creativity gave me comfort. Creativity was the sweet diversion from my problems.  Creativity gave me something else to concentrate on while I waited for the outsourced help. In this instance, I had gained time to be more creative because I was not directly involved with my main concerns. You can use creativity as a crutch to help you become stronger in critical thinking skills and thinking differently in general. I think that stress become less prominent if you inject some level of creativity into each situation. Creative thoughts sure take the routine out of the day,  allow your personality to shine, and gift others with alternative points of views. We were all meant to be indivuals and I can think of no better way to express uniqueness than to show your creative side. Give the gift of creativity to yourself or others today and find out if it will serve as a stress buster technique for you in the future.

What will you do to inc0rporate creativity into your life by thought and action? You may start by taking on a simple challenge as this: ask the question: “what if…”

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Creativity and Cardboard

What a great quote to start off this blog from Club Creative Studio.  I welcome you to take a few minutes to watch this video and be inspired from a nine year old boy’s creativity.

If you have ever wanted inspiration to create and use low-cost materials then take a look at what this YouTube sensation video has to offer. You’ll witness simplicity of dreams from the eyes of a child, using his creativity and cardboard. It’s CREATIVITY at its best. Bringing tears to my eyes having heard about this a while ago and then again as I post today on the Club Creative Studio blog: I share this highlight, as I continue to watch the wheels turn and confidence grow in creative thoughts of a young boy, Caine. Be inspired! Be CREATIVE!

Enjoy.

Admire and Inspire: Buds Buy Beads

Here’s a TNT (This-N-That) Club Creative Studio riddle for you.

Question: What do you get when you place two jewelry makers with different design styles together in the same bead store for a few hours?

Answer: A few long receipts!

Small package, long receipt.

Welcome to the Club Creative Studio blog where the focus is on CREATIVITY.

I recently blogged about a small bead shop that was closing its doors for public business. I learned that after eight years, the owners wanted to start reclaiming their lives and go fishing and enjoy and be near their grandchildren more often.  One can hardly argue with that! It takes dedication and many hours run a brick and mortar storefront and I totally understand their desire for a change of pace.  It will be a loss to many bead fans and jewelry-makers to no longer have the store in their neighborhood. In their final days of their close-out, they offered a great opportunity for customers to purchase their remaining tiny treasures at deeply discounted prices. I hit the bead store scene with a new bud to buy beads and we enjoyed our productive day.

I had a great time talking the “language of jewelry-making” with a fellow jewelry maker and friend: Anna Servati of Anna’s Jewelry Designs. We first met at a networking event and quickly started speaking our native language BEADS.  It is always a thrill for me to be able to meet or maintain a working relationship with someone who has similar passions and high levels of creativity.  We have very different design styles yet, we can still appreciate the same beads and techniques in the jewelry-making world. I suggested that when we both got home, we needed to photograph our “bead stash” from today. Here is Anna’s stash. She loves gem stones, and added some unique clasps to her collection.

This is Anna’s stash.

While shopping, we  had moments where we both admired the same beads even though we may have bought totally different beads in the end. We did agree to both purchase one bead alike, however.  This will be the bead that we will both use in one of our individual projects to see how each of us will create with it.

How fun is that?

This is the special bead we each bought to use in our own separate creations.

I wanted to use the photos to illustrate in this blog how two people can shop differently with their own personal art styles in mind, and let you see what caught our eyes long enough to want to purchase.  My hope is to have you admire the collections and be inspired to do something creative. You don’t have to be a jewelry-designer to use  or love beads, stones, charms or wire!  This is my stash from the shopping adventure.  You know I am always on the hunt for the unusual finding so leave it up to me to find the charms shaped like hands right off the bat as I entered the door! Some things just scream Club Creative Studio.

This is Club Creative Studio’s bead stash from 01/03/2013.

The best take-away aspect that I realized yesterday while spending time with my friend was that while we had our little conversations in between our glazed over eyes in auto pilot shopping mode, we spent some quality time doing what I love to do…admire and inspire.  The shopping spree also brought another aspect to the forefront of my mind. I feel that it is important to have at least one person that you can trust to have a listening ear near or word of honest advice when you need an opinion.

I have many different “go-to” pals who are very knowledgeable in specific areas that are willing to share and have a give-and-take conversation. If you don’t have people in your life-like that, I suggest finding a few because there is nothing better than having the opportunity to bounce off ideas and get feedback from a variety of people.

To view more interesting and unique hand-made items from Club Creative Studio, U.S.A. visit the website and check back often. You may see a creation that incorporates an item from this recent stash of goodies! Thank you for taking time to admire and be inspired. We love it when you wear and share Club Creative Studio hand-made ART THAT SETS YOU APART!

http://www.clubcreativestudio.com

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Veronica’s Visions

Welcome to a new year of posts with the focus on CREATIVITY.

Club Creative Studio has made creative business goals each year. They have been expressed in a visual way and used as an every-day display for the entire year.  This is a low-cost creative activity. It is a tradition that is also a type of visual communication.  By creating a poster (vision board), my focus on goals is always right in front of me, in a colorful way. I am reminded of the importance of them each time I look at the poster. It’s great to visualize goals, a poster board creation can serve as a prompt to keep you on track or inspire you to reach higher to obtain them. Try to make one for yourself, if you are motivated by this post.

Club Creative Studio’s 2013 Vision Board

A vision board is a creative way that anyone can express their vision of the future in poster form and keep a focus on where you want your efforts to lead you.

Ten Suggestions For Planning Your Board

1. Decide when you want to have your poster complete.  Plan accordingly so that you have enough time to finish your project. This is no time to procrastinate because your purpose of the whole creative exercise is to commit to your wants and needs. Make this a priority so that you can have success right away in completing your poster and use it as inspiration as soon as possible.  A good time to aim for completion is at the start of a new year or land-mark event.  It may take some time to gather cut materials, and construct it so plan ahead if possible.

2. Use old magazine cut outs, photos, inspirational quotes, written journal thoughts, computer software or scrapbook materials or a decorated plain piece of paper to creatively organize and decorate your poster board or foam core base.  It can be made in any size or shape.  Keep in mind however, that the larger your base board, the longer it will take to cover and the more material you will need to do so.

3. Use a key focus word or short phrase (sort of like a title) to aid as a theme for your poster creation.  This will give your board an over-all theme and make it easy to recall your goals at a quick glance no matter how detailed your other information on the board is.

I used a few key words to develop my theme. The word RAISE… reminds me of my goals to: RAISE Expectations, RAISE the Bar, RAISE Standards, RAISE my hand, RAISE questions, RAISE Awareness, Raise Profits and RAISE Eye-Brows.

4. Take advantage of using color or mixed media in our board to add variety and uniqueness. If it is eye-catching and generally attractive, you will find yourself looking at it more often.  This is key to using it to your advantage and bringing your goals to the forefront of your mind.

5. Plan to review your resolutions, habits, motivations, and goals daily. Place it in plain view so that you see it everyday and often.

6. Allow for space to add to your lists on the front or the back of your board.  One year, I wrote many of my accomplishments on the back of one board, making that side just as important as the front! Maybe your “buzz word” can be best serve you if it is repeated several times in the same poster. Consider making up your own power word by combining two or more words together like my example of the words CAN and  FANTASTIC to combine into: “CANTASTIC”.

Club Creative Studio’s theme word for 2013 is: “CANTASTIC”!

7. Vow to make a new board each year and keep the old boards as reminders of past success if you have the space.

8. Encourage others to create with you and share your goals. It is fun to share supplies, gather and celebrate your journey plans.

9. Keep your friends accountable for your goals and ask for help and support from them when you need it.

10. Knowledge is Power. Use the spirit of creativity to invite others to make their own boards, and tell how they are part of your life and how they serve you. Promote your success.

Club Creative Studio has a repeat word theme and that is “WOW”.

Have we inspired you to take some time to make a visual board with your goals?  Have a great time creating and a great time reaching those milestones in the New Year 2013!

We welcome you to visit our website as we share creativity and you can see for yourself how the goals on my vision board have been incorporated into creative art!

http://www.clubcreativestudio.com

We also welcome you to follow this blog and check back often as we start a new year of sharing on the topic of CREATIVITY.