The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin
I appreciated my mother's creativity, almost for the first time, and began practicing and enjoying her art, which was flower arranging. Suddenly I was drawn to attending house and garden tours and reveled in the annual “Art in Bloom” event at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at which she used to exhibit. How was it that I had never gone in to see what she had done during all those years? I suddenly felt a new freedom to choose my own feminine path. Apis, a homeopathic remedy made from bees, miraculously cooled down my fevers. Astrology readings also reassured me that I would one day be stronger. I needed that faith. Claiming my artistic self as a woman became the path to healing and recreating my life. While I still needed lots of naps and had limited energy reserves, I emerged from my transition charged with creative confidence.
Even though I was disenchanted with male-dominated corporate America, I had no interest in embracing the starving artist lifestyle. Since the Medici family was long since dead, and other patrons of the arts were scarce, what were the options for creative souls in this culture? Fortunately I had my career and creativity coaching business to sustain me. For many women, though, fears, particularly concerning money, can be a major obstacle to taking creative risks. For so many of us, breaking free of our societal and psychological chains is a prerequisite to truly creating a life that expresses our genuineness and uniqueness.
Seeking Success Stories
In my early readings on creativity, I was struck by the absence of women in the literature. Except for the regulars like Martha Graham and Georgia O'Keeffe, anthologies on creative people told stories only of men. I vividly remember being a child in elementary school and assuming creative women didn't exist, except for a few rare examples like Elizabeth Blackwell and Madame Curie. This vacuum of education about women's lives had a profound unconscious impact on me; it implied impossibility and danger. If there were no examples of creative women to fantasize about, how could we be expected to dream in that direction? While we now have women's studies programs, I have talked with many women and adolescent girls who still express the same longing to know the details of the lives of creative women that I felt thirty years ago.
As I undertook to transform my life in midstream, I began to look for the mentors of advanced creativity. Who were the best role models of successful creative women? Why this gap of information and stories about women who use their creativity to create products and services and support themselves successfully with their talent? Who succeeds and how were my questions; I wanted a thoughtful road map. I had heard from so many women over the years that self-employment or careers in the arts were “impractical.” I knew that the average writer in this country makes a subsistence income and faces increasing competition. Yet, every year women publish books, design clothing, create pots, and begin businesses, and I wanted to know what separated the women who do from the women who just dream about it. Now, some women are also running multimillion-dollar businesses. Although many of these women are in partnership with their husbands or fathers or inherited the businesses, an increasing number have done it on their own. That kind of monetary achievement and level of responsibility is not everyone's definition of success, though.
In the sacred traditions, the first thing you do in the morning is ask for blessings from the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Because all of the work that you are going to do that day will change the universe.
—LAURA ESQUIVEL, WRITER
Other creative women earn just enough to support their needs, choosing lifestyle and balance over income. They, too, are successful—but by their own parameters.
With this in mind, several years ago I began a journey of interviewing creative women and reading about the struggles and triumphs of others, with the intent of writing a book. My quest was to identify the skills and strategies successful creative women use to transcend the confusion of being a woman in this culture and hold steady on their creative course. I began teaching workshops for creative women and collecting information about creative catalysts. My own creative process took me in many directions during the writing of this book, but my commitment held steadfast. Giving up was simply not an option. I felt as Sarah Ban Breathnach did about Simple Abundance, when she told me, “This is the book I was born to write.” So I carefully filed my rejection letters from agents and publishers and kept sending out my proposal. Fortunately, I was heartened by many kind and encouraging words about the project along the way. Finally, serendipity intervened and I was led to Mary Jane Ryan at Conari Press.
Learning the Secrets
My interviews fueled my mission to help women recognize and express their creative powers. For years, I have seen talented, accomplished women as clients and watched them deny or downplay their abilities and achievements. For some, childbirth remains the only safe realm of female creativity. Yet we women express our creative selves with every business idea brainstormed, every garden planted, every family member or friend comforted, every outspoken word voiced, and every feminine value expressed. Sadly, the creative impulses of too many women are asleep—dormant or unacknowledged.
That's why this book is exclusively about creative women. Even in today's world of post–women's liberation, our challenges are still formidable.
A playwright knows that what is most private in her heart of hearts is also the most astonishing.
—TINA HOWE, PLAYWRIGHT
We continue to be stifled by a host of factors that cause us to censor our inner voices and follow someone else's dream. That's why this book serves as a remedy. It will both affirm and jumpstart your creative power and guide you on your journey of risk and triumph. By reading the compelling vignettes of your imaginative sisters, noting their solid advice, and completing a series of practices called Challenges, you will be roused to spread your creative wings and ascend to new heights. As we go into the twenty-first century, the world needs the collective power of a feminine Renaissance. Perhaps that is why there are more girl babies being born this decade. Invoking the creative awareness of large numbers of women has the potential to mobilize solutions for the staggering challenges of our time, as well as helping us individually to revel in fulfilling lives.
The women who volunteered to contribute their stories here shared their secrets in the spirit of abundance—believing that we all benefit from the self-expression of others and that there is enough to go around. They offered to be mentors so you, too, can grow. Creativity is a language that crosses all cultural and economic barriers. When our female ancestors sat in sacred circles, creative tools and spiritual practices were willingly taught and passed down to young women by their elders. Just imagine how many more women would have accessed their inner talents in this culture had we grown up in one of those circles of support. Alexandra Merrill, an educator and an artist who lives in rural Maine and works with women in groups, believes collaboration is the pathway to dissolving obstacles to the expression of female authority. Invoking creative expression in ourselves and others releases tremendous power in the extended women's community.
Be yourself. The world worships the original.
—JEAN COCTEAU, WRITER
Alexandra's work also emphasizes the value of making the most of our differences, whether they be about race, class, religion, spirituality, or economic, physical, or sexual orientation.
The women I interviewed for this “portable mentor” represent a variety of creative endeavors and have all created work I admire. To find them, I began with my own bookshelf and identified women who had served as “symbolic” mentors to me over the years. While many of the women in this book have publicized their work by writing articles and books, this is not just a book about women writers. The women profiled in the following pages represent such diverse fields as art, design, acting, ceramics, medical research, comedy, music, singing, photography, cooking, dance, psychology, and writing. Each of these women has found and expressed her creative voice as a way of finding self-fulfillment and, in several cases, fame as well.
My initial contact to these women was usually a letter explaining my vision for this book with a request for an interview. I had one cardinal rule, and that was not to chase women unless they responded that they were interested in participating. Only if they expressed