My Creative Autobiography

I have to leave in 30 minutes, so I'm giving myself 20 minutes to answer these questions from Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit:

1. What is the first creative moment you remember? My parents planned a restaurant night for our weekly family night. It was Chez Wixom and we made signs and placemats and menus and it thrilled me to feel French and Fancy right in our own house. 
2. Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it? Yes, our whole family was in on it together and I remember it as having a sense of celebration. 
3. What is the best idea you've ever had? To stay home with my kids and fully commit to being a mother. 
4. What made it great in your mind? It has given me freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I have learned that I don't much like working for other people and being home lets me work for myself. I have been able to learn that the greatest creativity is to create a life. 
5. What is the dumbest idea? Not finishing college. 
6. What made it stupid? It is a societal norm that has robbed me of confidence to view my talents as marketable skills. The skills are there, but the lack of credentials haunts me. 
7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea? I was following my mother's example, and living up to the expectations of my Heavenly Father, and in my heart I have always truly believed in this decision. I deeply know the value of the family unit and to spend my life building that family was the greatest thing I could think of. 
8. What is your creative ambition? To value myself enough to create a healthy second life as the mother of grown children and as a grandmother. I want to create in myself the motivation to spend time working just for me. I want to create good habits that will circumvent my tendency toward inertia and depression. I want to stay active and healthy, in mind, body and spirit. 
9. What are the obstacles to this ambition? The ingrained habits in my own mind. 
10. What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition? Staying out of my bed. Exercising even when I have no one to exercise with. Embracing ritual and routine. Doing healthy creative things each day instead of inane, wasteful things that simply pass the time. 
11. How do you begin your day? First I get up with my son and make his lunch and take him to Seminary. Then I come home and stall out. If my friend Kathy can't go for a run, I get back into bed and doze fitfully, without getting any real rest, sometimes until noon. 
12. What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat? I get up and make my son's lunch each day. That is about it. Everything else seems up for grabs and I know that is at the heart of my struggle. 
13. Describe your first successful creative act. Going on with the show my senior year an singing the Baroness Schrader in the Sound of Music even though I had completely lost my voice. I felt powerful and resourceful. 
14. Describe your second successful creative act. Putting on a huge lesson for the Relief Society  (the women's group in my church congregation) when I was only about 21 years old. They wanted it to be memorable and special and my husband helped me make about a hundred little originally designed wooden hearts with a scripture decoupaged on the front. I felt valued and trusted to be asked to teach in this way. 
15. Compare them. Both times I had to pull a rabbit out of a hat, which is one of my best things. I can make something from nothing every time. I am always dependable in the clutch. 
16. What are your attitudes toward: 
1. Money-hate it and wish I didn't need it, thus I'm a failure at handling it. 
2. Power-I do not aspire to it. My darling friend Milana captured my life when she said "I am more curious than ambitious."
3. Praise-I crave it to the point of unhealthiness. I feel a failure if I am not stroked for my efforts. I go on anyway, but I have to talk myself into self-satisfaction. 
4. Rivals-I'm getting better at valuing them and their input. 
5. Work-I only gear up and find my work ethic in those aforementioned clutches. I'm not good at motivating myself to hard work unless it's the only option left. I wait for a lot of magic and it takes my brain a long time to see that the magic is not coming. I'm the magic. 
6. Play-When I teach it feels like play. It feels natural and so fun that I lose myself in it. 
17. Which artists do you admire most? Elizabeth Zimmermann, Jane Austen, Minerva Teichert
18. Why are they your role models? They bucked the system and did it their way, Sinatra style...
19. What do you and your role models have in common? We are ordinary women with something to say. 
20. Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you? My kids do, with their bravery and confidence. 
21. Who is your muse? Students, friends, and photography clients. 
22. Define muse. I love Twyla's definition: Those for whom I long to labor. 
23. When confronted with superiour intelligence or talent, how do you respond? I used to retreat and feel like a failure. I am getting much better at embracing what they have and learning from them. 
24. When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness or indifference in others, how do you respond? My insecurities usually make me respond badly. I see their behavior as a threat rather than something I can rise above. 
25. When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond? Success terrifies me and I often sabotage it with inaction or dishonesty. Impending failure is a much more comfortable position for me because it presents problems I can solve. Success means I have to live up to what seem to me impossible expectations. I always fear people will figure out that I'm just faking it. 
26. When you work, do you love the process or the result? Both, up until the moment of mastery, then I get bored and feel I need to move on. 
27. At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp? Every time I propose a new class or take on a photography commission. 
28. What is your ideal creative activity? Teaching
29. What is your greatest fear? Getting to a level when others will expect something I simply cannot produce. 
30. What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening? I teach all the time and love it. I think the second not too likely because I will not reach for such a place. 
31. Which of your answers would you most like to change? 24. I wish I was nicer when the going gets tough. 
32. What is your idea of mastery? Feeling "flow" and ease when doing something. Being able to lose oneself in it and not worry about what others think, but simply to fully experience the action. 
33. What is your greatest dream? To travel the world and be able to photograph it. 

There you go. Quick and knee-jerk. Now I should read over it and extract some meaning, but later. I have to go out into the day now. 

read more

My Creative Habit

I'm at a crossroads in my life. I'm 46 years old and happily married. My husband willingly and happily makes a great living for our family. My kids are growing up. I have more time to focus on creativity and what I want to be and do now. This space is for me to explore these things, to put my ducks in a row and find out what I'm really capable of doing. I do not want to become a self-absorbed menopausal maniac and pull an EatPrayLove on my family and friends. No way. I want to participate in my life and squeeze all the juicy joy out of the opportunities I've been given, not run away from it.

The title comes from a book I'm enjoying called The Creative Habit. It's by Twyla Tharp and well, she should know, right?

I'm good at creativity, but not at habits. Well, I have lots of them, but not always great ones. The habit of getting up early to greet the day is a good one, but the habit I've gotten into of then taking a nap from 8-10 am, maybe not so good. And so on.

So I begin. I want to make this part of a ritual that will help me to focus each day on what is needful, what brings joy and edification, and what will reflect the process of my becoming my best self. For now I will leave it public, so if someone happens upon it, join me in my journey, that would make me happy.

read more