Articles

Welcome to the New Year! By now you have set your resolutions for 2010...or you
haven’t.

This December is the ten year anniversary of a medical emergency in our family. I recall it now because of the lesson I learned at the time and because I often find myself needing to relearn it…

As the 70th anniversary of Archie comics came into sight, its creators decided to celebrate with a new story line. Archie takes a walk down Memory Lane and encounters a fork in the road. He chooses the left path, which allows him to see his future with the rich and worldly Veronica. In a subsequent issue, Archie returns to Riverdale High and envisions a future with Betty, the girl next door. Archie would now choose one and (gasp!) get married.

As we go about our daily routines of living, earning, and creating, we
often spend time analyzing what’s not working. We review our latest
writing or send our paintings to juried exhibits. We apply for grants
and small business loans, putting us on the line to be judged. We join
critique groups that give us feedback with the purpose of helping us to
improve. We study our sales numbers and web site hits.

I was hugely procrastinating about writing this month’s article,
reading old emails and e-zines. Fortunately, I came across an article
by Cheryl Richardson on worry. Her suggestions about breaking the habit
of worrying sparked my thinking about creativity. So, with a tip of the
hat to “Life Makeover for the Year 2009,” and to give credit to Cheryl
for breaking my procrastination, here’s my take on procrastination
busting

Women’s basketball has a lot in common with creativity, right? Well,
only if you look at the fascinating career of a coaching icon named
Kathy Delaney-Smith.

She has won more games than any other
women’s basketball coach in the Ivy League. She coached
sixteenth-seeded Harvard in the NCAA tournament against the top-ranked
Stanford team—and won. That was in 1998 when no Ivy League women’s team
had ever won a game in the prestigious tournament. This astonishing
victory was masterminded by Coach Delaney-Smith with a philosophy she
calls “as if”.

Besides imagination, a creative woman has several qualities that serve as guideposts to make sure she’s always walking towards creativity rather than away from it. Owning the power to control your creativity means consciously keeping these seven qualities active.
 
1. A creative woman invests in quality materials. Yes there are student-grade art supplies and bare-bones software programs. But buying the best provides you with the tools and supplies you need to create at your highest level. Don’t be stingy with yourself!

All it takes to make creativity a part of your life is the willingness to make it a habit.

We have to establish habits for our creative pursuits or the work will not get done and the creativity will have no place to manifest. This is the theme of the book by American dance master Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit, Learn It and Use It for Life.

Tharp was recently honored at the Kennedy Center for her lifetime contribution and achievement in dance. Her body of work is astonishing: She has created 135 dances so far, choreographed five movies, written two best-selling books, won a Tony Award and a couple of Emmys, received 19 honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, a MacArthur fellowship, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts and the 2008 Jerome Robbins Award. She founded her own company, Twyla Tharp Dance, fresh from college in 1965, and she has choreographed for her own dancers and for many other companies, including the American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, New York City Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance and the Martha Graham Dance Company.