Creative Living with Jamie: Joan Stanford

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Jamie Ridler Interviews Joan Stanford

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 This Week on Creative Living with Jamie: Joan Stanford, author & art therapist

About Joan..

Joan is a board-certified art therapist and full-time innkeeper who has been facilitating creativity groups for over twenty years encouraging people of all ages, especially non-artists, to expand their awareness through playing with art materials. She has been recognized with the Soroptimist “Making a Difference For Women” award for an art-based curriculum she co-created and taught in local schools. Her poems have been published and her art exhibited. She lives in Mendocino, California with her husband, and offers imagination playshops and creativity retreats at their inn and wellness center— The Stanford Inn by the Sea and the Mendocino Center for Living Well.

Discover More About Joan

A Giveaway! You can win The Art of Play: Ignite Your Imagination to Unlock Insight, Healing and Joy by Joan Stanford

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Connect with Creative Living with Jamie…

  • Subscribe: You can subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie here and also on iTunes (Note: this link will ask to access your iTunes and then take you to the podcast. You can also simply open iTunes and search for “Creative Living with Jamie)
  • Email: You can email your feedback, questions and suggestions to Jamie.
  • Share: Spread the Magic! If you loved this show, please share it with other creative hearts!

 

Doodles, Environments & Clearing the Way for Fall

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Every Monday, Wednesday & Friday morning I invite you Behind the Scenes at my studio.

Today:   Still working on clearing up and letting go before the seasons shifts this Thursday and also finding time to enjoy poetry and invite in beauty, creativity and more with my dreamboard.

Mentioned in Today’s Show

Cats in the Hood: PriscillaFollow me on Instagram where I share my #catsinthehood series and more.

Letting Go, Poetry & Dreamboards

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Every Monday, Wednesday & Friday morning I invite you Behind the Scenes at my studio.

Today:   Still working on clearing up and letting go before the seasons shifts this Thursday and also finding time to enjoy poetry and invite in beauty, creativity and more with my dreamboard.

Mentioned in Today’s Show

Plus  a Special Announcement! 3 Scholarships are available to Journal Club

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If you otherwise wouldn’t be able to say yes to Journal Club, apply for a scholarship by emailing me 1) Why you want to come to journal club and 2) how the scholarship would make a difference.

Passion, Creativity & Success

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Sacha Lalla, Jamie Ridler & Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Sacha Lalla, Jamie Ridler & Laura-Jean Bernhardson photo by Juli Lyons

I recently had the opportunity to speak on a panel with about passion, creativity and entrepreneurship sponsored by Happy Healthy Women and Fresh Collective and featuring the fabulous Laura-Jean Bernhardson, Sacha Lalla, and Natalie Colalillo and our moderator was the lovely Karla Smith. One of the questions Karla asked us each was, “What is your definition of success?”

Have you defined success for yourself?

Jamie Ridler & Karla Smith
Jamie Ridler & Karla Smith photo by Juli Lyons

There are three main components in my definition of success, all of them inter-related.

1. Sovereignty

I used to call this freedom but sovereignty captures the essence even more. Success to me means being able to direct my energy, my time, my life towards what is meaningful and worthy to me.

2. Legacy

Every time I am able to contribute to my body of work, I consider that success. When that work is able to then make a difference in the lives of others, doubly so.

3. Enjoyment

If I miss out on the joy of living my own life, of creating and sharing my body of work and making a difference, than I will have missed the point entirely. If I am blessed to be able to do what is meaningful to me, it is an act of gratitude to enjoy it.

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Me & Juli Lyons, photographer

What’s your definition of success?

We often work so very hard. Knowing our personal definition of success helps us ensure that all that effort is being put in the right place.

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photo by Juli Lyons

The Brave Uncertainty of Creating

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Stratford Avon River

I wrote this on a train, speeding along through the rain from Stratford Ontario, the home of our major Shakespearean theatre festival, back home to Toronto. Justin and I had a wonderful time strolling the duck-inhabited pathways along the banks of the Avon river, exploring little treasure box gardens and finding treats in artsy gift shops.

But the real joy was the theatre. We watched the world transform from an English manor to a snow-covered world populated by talking fawns and loyal beavers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We marveled at the intensity of a dancer’s life in a dynamic production of A Chorus Line. We delved into the dark and brooding world of Macbeth in which man “struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”

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Throughout I was aware of the vagaries of the artistic life. Not only are the dancers’ stories in A Chorus Line rich with that edge – rejection, injuries, old at 27 – but also we heard a real-life, post-performance plea from a seasoned actor who asked us to contribute to The Actor’s Fund, a charity that helps performing arts professionals in times of need or crisis.

No wonder aspiring artists are often advised not to pursue this life. Common wisdom would say that if you can be satisfied doing anything else at all, choose that. Do not subject yourself to the pain, the uncertainty, the pressure, the poverty.

And yet…

Magic still calls to creative hearts.

As I watched A Chorus Line, tears filled my eyes, my heart bursting in my chest, thumping along in rhythm with the message of the stage,

“I. I am a dancer…. Give me somebody to dance for. Give me somebody to show. Let me wake up in the morning to find I’ve got somewhere exciting to go.”
We creative hearts are called to answer the siren song of art.
We long to create work that is meaningful and true.
We want to wake up with somewhere exciting to go.

Shakespeare

One of the profound gifts of our time is that our route to creative expression is no longer blocked by a velvet rope. We do not have to audition in order to perform. We don’t need editorial approval to publish out our book. With courage and creativity we can make and share whatever is in our hearts (though sometimes we forget and wait for someone to give us permission).

What if you simply began?

What if you invited a few friends over for a night of storytelling? What if you printed your own book of poetry and gave it as gifts to your friends? What if you booked a space for a night and put on a solo show of your photography?

You may not make money. You might even lose some! Maybe only your closest friends will be witness to your artistry. But you will have added to your body of work, you will have braved a great creative adventure and you will have a memory of a lifetime.

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“Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…

“Safe?” said Mr Beaver.”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

Much like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a creative life may not be safe but it’s good.

Let’s be brave as lions.

Entrepreneurship Creativity & Sacred Expression

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Every Monday, Wednesday & Friday morning I invite you Behind the Scenes at my studio.

Today:  I share with you some highlights from the panel discussion at Fresh Collective last night plus a viewer’s transformation and a cat public service announcement!

Mentioned in Today’s Show

Plus  a Special Announcement! 3 Scholarships are available to Journal Club

 

Creative Living with Jamie: Danny Gregory

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 This Week on Creative Living with Jamie: Danny Gregory, author, artist and more!

About Danny…

Danny Gregory has written nearly a dozen internationally best-selling books on art and creativity. He is the co-founder of Sketchbook Skool with tens of thousands of students worldwide. He lives in New York City.

Danny spent three decades as one of New York’s leading advertising creative directors and has created award-winning, global campaigns for clients like Chase, JPMorgan, American Express, IBM, Burger King, Ford, Chevron and many others.

Through his books (Shut Your Monkey, Art Before Breakfast, Everyday Matters, An Illustrated Life, An Illustrated Journey, A Kiss Before You Go, The Creative License, etc) and in the several large online communities he oversees, Danny has shown thousands of people how to ignite their inner artists, embrace their creativity and tell the stories of their lives. From Boston to Beijing, people who haven’t drawn since grade school have picked up the creative habit and have gone on to publish books of their own and show and sell their artwork.

Danny is a co-founder of Sketchbook Skool, a video-based art school designed to inspire creative storytelling through illustrated journaling. Taught by the world’s best illustrators, artists and educators, Sketchbook Skool encourages its global community of over 15,000 students to draw and keep a sketchbook regardless of skill level.

Discover More About Danny

A Film About Danny

 

Connect with Creative Living with Jamie…

  • Subscribe: You can subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie here and also on iTunes (Note: this link will ask to access your iTunes and then take you to the podcast. You can also simply open iTunes and search for “Creative Living with Jamie)
  • Email: You can email your feedback, questions and suggestions to Jamie.
  • Share: Spread the Magic! If you loved this show, please share it with other creative hearts!