The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin
its way into the world. I feel like I learned everything I ever needed to know living in that canyon.”
Nature has been for me, for as long as I can remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.
—LORRAINE ANDERSON, AUTHOR
Nature has always been an inspiration for me too. I was lucky to grow up near an “enchanted forest” with a web of streams under the pine trees, as well as a nearby polliwog pond set among miles of rocks with caves to climb into—perfect settings for the imaginative escapades of a young girl and her neighborhood playmates. While we occasionally puffed a cigarette in one of those caves, mostly we acted out dramas. Alone, I relished the wonders of the seasons and felt connected to the Earth. I spent many joyful hours being calmed by the utter stillness and beauty of my pine forest and celebrating spring with the birth of the baby frogs. These places were essential anchors for me back then, just as painting on a deserted Nauset Beach on Cape Cod has become one more recently.
Many of the women I interviewed for this book remarked on the importance of daily walks and gardening. Fashion designer Sigrid Olsen says, “I can't separate the grounding of creativity from that of the person. And what I do to stay centered is pretty much connected to the outdoors. I've gotten away from it because I've been traveling a lot, but I do a power walk outside every morning. Nature is the most grounding influence in my life. In good weather, I try to be outside as much as possible. I live in a beautiful area and I travel to lovely places. I spend a lot of time in California by the ocean and in the hills. If I lived in New York City all the time, I don't think I'd be able to be as balanced as I am.”
Tranformational guide and coach Marilyn Veltrop says that being in the garden, walking in the woods, or walking on the beach profoundly influences her creative process. In her dissertation on the transformational journeys of business leaders, Marilyn says, “I had numerous instances where I would go out on a meditative walk in nature and sit with a question that I was not clear about. And I would get wonderful responses in short order.”
A big stone on a deserted beach is a motionless thing, but it sets loose great movements in my mind.
—JOAN MIRÓ, PAINTER
For example, when I was pondering how many people I wanted to interview for my study, I found myself drawn intuitively to pick up this little branch on the path with eight side branches on it. Eight has always been a significant number for me, and this was further evidence that I had the right number. I also find myself out in the garden weeding and realizing that it is a metaphor for what needs to happen in my work.”
This ability to sense and be receptive to our environments stokes the creative process. “You have to be sponge-like,” says Carmella Yager, artist and teacher at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, “so you cultivate a rich inner life—because you are going to transmit things through yourself with your own vision, or at least try to. Having the interior freedom to be clear about what is going through your filter takes a lot of sorting, examination, reflection, and time, time, time. It seems to me that there has to be room for puttering—time for just feeling and inhaling what comes in. And that's different than ‘wasting time,’ and it's important for us to recognize the difference and not be in such a hurry with our grand scheme.”
Taking Time to Capture Your Ideas
If you are out of touch with your inspired self, making a date to connect opens the window. In the wise words of acclaimed writing teacher Brenda Ueland, in her 1938 book, If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence, and Spirit: “Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly. Say that you want to write. Well, not much will come to you the first day. Perhaps nothing at all. You will sit before your typewriter or paper and look out of the window and begin to brush your hair absent-mindedly for an hour or two. Never mind. That is all right. That is as it should be, though you must sit before your typewriter just the same and know, in this dreamy time, that you are going to write, to tell something on paper, sooner or later.
Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
—GAIL SHEEHY, WRITER
“And you must also know that you are going to sit here tomorrow for a while, and the next day and so on, forever and ever.”
Research is one sure way to explore your attractions in depth over time. Miriam Nelson was happiest as a child playing outside and doing a variety of sports. She got a pony when she was six years old, skied, swam, and played soccer. Her whole family was very active, but somehow she knew she wanted to be a scientist. As an adult, she merged her two loves of fitness and science by becoming a women's fitness expert. At Tufts University, her research on the benefits of strength training for women and how it slows the aging process as well as promotes health and nutrition is extraordinary. Miriam explains, “I loved science. I was fascinated with discovery and looking through microscopes. Every study that you do, you find out something different than you expected. We always go into a study with clear hypotheses, but we usually find some additional factors that are fascinating as well. I also love working with students—they're so enthusiastic and excited and their energy fires me up. Another benefit is getting to know personally the older people that participate in our studies. A lot of them have become really dear friends.” This affection for her subjects reflects her strong commitment to her investigations and to the promise of longer and healthier lives for women.
Besides noticing your inspirations, you must find a way to capture them. Many creative women keep journals of their insights and ideas. Chronicling your awareness, meandering thoughts and feelings honors their value and signals to you that your creative process deserves attention. Sigrid Olsen keeps a sketchbook of her ideas, including swatches of fabric and color she collects.
Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
—ELLA FITZGERALD, SINGER
“I might see something in a retail store, in a museum or a magazine, or on a person that sparks an idea and I think, that's an interesting color combination that I haven't put together before. We go to Europe four times a year to see the print and fabric shows and that's a very inspirational trip. And I might say, ‘I love the idea of a black and white group followed by watery cool colors.’ Then we'll do something hot and floral and then switch to something mysterious in spice tones. I'm always looking at the flow of color for all four seasons.”
Renowned chef Lydia Shire, whose career was nurtured by Julia Child and who now owns two famous restaurants in Boston—Biba's and Pignoli's—still creates her own menus with partner Susan Regis. Lydia also deliberately collects her brainstorms: “What I do is read a lot of books and magazines. I do my homework, and something will jog my interest. I keep a kind of a balance in my head all the time. For instance, I'll think, we haven't had a skirt steak on Biba's menu for a long time and I'll say to myself—perhaps for the spring or summer—I don't want to do any more sirloin. Then maybe I'll feel like I want to be in Mexico, so we'll make white corn tamales to accompany the skirt steak or some kind of tomato dish. Or Susan will say, ‘Let's do a capon.’ And I'll say, ‘And let's do it with this kind of marinade,’ and she'll say she was thinking about the same thing. But we have fun—we go to her house or my house—and she brings her homework and I bring mine and we recreate the menu for each season, which is 120 new dishes every year just for Biba's. So I always say that I think what I get paid for is writing these menus.”
Alice Aspen March is an authority on the effects of television viewing on the family as well as the coproducer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Latchkey Kids. As Alice has learned for herself, in order to develop our creativity, we have to give it our full attention: “Time is absolutely vital to the creative process. We have to figure out how to take it and give it to ourselves. Only when we realize the kind of attention we need to be creative, do we realize the value of our time. I don't think any of us learned about this when we were growing up. I know I didn't. No one ever said to me, ‘Alice, this is your time. What would you like to do with it?’ I never saw this role-modeled either. So I have had to learn the process of asking for the time I need