Freeman-Zachery - Living the Creative Life: Ideas and Inspirations from Working Artists

Living the Creative Life

IDEAS AND INSPIRATION FROM WORKING ARTISTS

RIC FREEMANZACHERY

NORTH LIGHT BOOKS
Cincinnati, Ohio

Living the Creative Life. Copyright 2007 by Ric Freeman-Zachery. Manufactured in China. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote a brief passage in a review. Published by North Light Books, an imprint of F+W Publications, Inc., 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45236. (800) 289-0963. First edition.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freeman-Zachery, Ric.

Living the creative life: ideas and inspiration from working artists / Ric Freeman-Zachery.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-58180-994-7 (alk. paper)

1. ArtPsychological aspects. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)

I. Title.

N71.F657 2007
701'.15dc22

2006102898

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Editor:
Jessica Strawser

Designer:
Maya Drozdz

Production
Coordinator:
Greg Nock

Photographer:
Al Parrishunless otherwise credited

Dedication

TO THE EVER-GORGEOUS EARL

Acknowledgments

I have always been lucky in having wonderful editors, and this adventure was certainly no exception. Tonia Davenport championed the idea from the very start, and it wouldn't exist without her enthusiasm and diligence. When she turned the project over to Jessica Strawser, the bookand Iwere placed in the most capable of hands. Jessica has been both a joy and a huge help. Plus she has a good sense of humor-always a wonderful thing in an editor!

The artists you've met here are truly amazing: They're all working artists wearing multiple hats and juggling lots of balls at once (now there's an image for you!), yet they took the time to answer dozens of questions and help me sort out which title went with which piece of art. Their generosity in sharing their stories and their work is wonderful, and this book wouldn't exist without it. I am ever so grateful to them all.

I'm especially grateful to Susan Shie, who believed in the book way before it ever began and encouraged me throughout the process; and to Violette, who drew many of the illustrations just for these pages. Her enthusiasm and generosity are inspiring, indeed.

Thanks also to those who provided images of Melissa Zink's far-flung art: Parks Gallery in Taos, New Mexico, Frank Silverstone in New York, and Bette Brodsky of New Mexico Magazine, which published the wonderful book Zink, The Language of Enchantment, by Hollis Walker.

Please visit the artists' Web sites, listed by their photos, to see more of their artwork. If we'd had one thousand pages in this book, we would have shown it all.

And, of course, I owe everything to my husband, Earl. Being the partner of a writer/artist is not an easy life, but he handles it with grace and good humor, cooking meals and cleaning the house (including the toilets!) and making me laugh. A lot.

About the Author

Ric Freeman-Zachery has been writing since her daddy taught her how to print when she was five and she started her first diary. She taught college composition for eight years before ditching academia to become that oddest of creatures: a freelance writer. She has written for a variety of magazines and writes regularly for Art Doll Quarterly, Belle Armoire, Legacy, Somerset Studio and Rubberstampmadness. She has written two previous books: Stamp Artistry and New Techniques for Wearable Art.

Ric has been making fabric art as long as she can remember and writes extensively about her creations; you can find her journal clothing in many books and magazines. She lives in Midland, Texas, with her husband, The Ever-Gorgeous Earl, and an impressive herd of cats. She spends most days in her pajamas, asking artists nosey questions, making things out of fabric, and celebrating the joy of living The Creative Life.

You can reach Ric at voodoocafe@clearwire.net or www.voo-doo-cafe.com. Be sure to read her blog at voodoonotes.blogspot.com for information about workshops, appearances and book signingsas well as just the creative life in general. You can also join The Creative Life online group at groups.yahoo.com/group/thecreativelife.

CONTENTS

Introduction:The Creative life

What is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we all have it, or is it a gift to just a few of us? What can we do to be more creative?

These are questions you hear people talking about all the time. My recent Internet search for creativity yielded almost 200,000,000 hits. Granted, many of those were for workshops for business creativity or creativity coaching, but just the fact that there is discussion of either of these topicsthe fact that creativity coaches even existshows you what widespread interest there is in creativity. For me, the questions people ask about creativity have always been interesting, but even more interesting are the other, deeper questions: What does creativity feel like? Where do artists find inspiration, and what do they do with it once they find it? How does it feel when they first realize an idea is going to work?

As a writer for a number of art-related magazines, I have interviewed countless artists. I get to ask them about how they work and where they get ideas, but an article never seems long enough to really delve into their views on creativity and inspiration.

A spread from an altered book by artist Sas Colby. This 2004 work, titled Harmonika, features ninety-seven pages with mixed-media techniques.
Photo by Kate Cameron

As I've met so many talented artists and marveled over the lives they've crafted for themselveslives that give them space and freedom to do what they have to do in order to make their workI began to wonder how much a factor that freedom is in being able to create. Which is true: artists have to resist the rules of society in order to create most fully, or it's important to live a regular, sensible life and spend all your creative energy on making art? Some of the artists make their own clothes and have funky hairstyles and painted cars, but most would blend right in with a roomful of accountants. Does that reflect the way they view creativity?

So I started thinking about writing a book. I didn't want academic research, with charts and tables and graphs about creativity. That would be like trying to describe the taste of an artichoke using only numbers. No, what I wanted was musing about what it feels like to get an idea, and how you can live a life that welcomes and nurtures those ideas and the creative sparks that crackle up from somewhere in our soul. Well, what better way than to ask. And since I'm lucky enough to have met dozens of the most creative people in the universe, who better to do the asking?