The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin
Creating a Sanctuary
Alone time sets the stage for creative reflection. A sanctuary offers a place to indulge our creative spirit to fuel our creative process. Following in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf, interior designer Chris Madden, a regular on Oprah! and The Today Show, wrote about the importance of personal spaces for women in a gorgeous book called A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces. Chris believes strongly that women need this place: “I tell women when I lecture around the country that not everybody's going to have the luxury of an entire room. Carve out a corner, if you have to, in your living room or bedroom, with a chair and a basket filled with things you love—books, pictures, tapes. If you don't create the space, you might not take the time.”
In her own personal space at home, Chris has surrounded herself with meaningful treasures. She describes her creative space: “My desk is a vintage farm table that has a lot of soul and that's important to me. I also have a chaise to relax in, and there's an old statue from our garden that got split in half by a tree. I have a rotary phone, as I like the slow dial. On a tray I display black and white pictures of the men in my life: my husband, my father, and my sons—I love black and white photographs! Then there's my first sewing machine—an old Singer—which is sitting on what I call my generational quilt. The quilt is made of pieces of my mother's summer dresses that my grandmother sewed for my mother and was pieced together by my great grandmother. I love that it's about three generations. I also have a small wooden altar of photographs and the work of people who have passed on in my life, along with favorite boxes and rocks I've collected. On the wall I've hung big black and white poster-sized, almost abstract pictures, of rides in an amusement park in my hometown that I took during a blizzard—they bring me such joy!” Chris also has a Walkman for listening to her favorite tapes and sometimes lights small candles to enhance the relaxed, meditative mood of her personal space.
Challenge: BUILD YOUR SANCTUARY
Set up a creative sanctuary, even if it's only a special box for starters. Collect objects that you are attracted to, like photos, materials, fabric swatches, quotations, and books that comfort you or encourage you. As your collection grows, expand your space. As your creativity begins to take up more space in your life, the metaphor of more physical space for your things will support you. Spend time in your creative space regularly. If you don't have a space of your own, be imaginative. Barter services for space, borrow someone else's office for part of a day, or create a sanctuary in your car.
Inventing Creative Rituals
Rituals can spark our creative process. For some of us, a ritual can be a simple routine that readies us for inspiration. “I can't sit down and write or start a new project unless my closets and my life are organized,” says Chris Madden. “Because I travel so much, there's always going to be a certain chaos in my life. So in order to let myself go and create, I need to have organization around me. When I come back from being away, as I did this morning, the first thing I had to do was clean out the refrigerator and bake something wonderful. I think it's about reclaiming my space.”
Ritual is the way we carry the presence of the sacred. Ritual is the spark that must not go out.
—CHRISTINA BALDWIN, WRITER
Janet Hagberg, writer and dedicated advocate for healing domestic violence, begins her writing day at her dining room table with a fountain pen and a yellow legal pad, as she loves the beauty of the ink. When she finally gets to her computer, she is surrounded by angels, literally. Says Janet, “I have lots of angels—all different kinds of angels from different places that I've secured myself or people have given me. Some of them are hanging from the ceiling so they are floating around me while some of them are sitting on the windowsill. I've got one that has a nest with birds in her hair. I also have one that's blowing a horn and another one who has a wand in her hand. Some of them are pretty outrageous angels, because I like angels with an attitude. So I have some attitude angels up there, and they remind me that writing is more than just a technique, it's really a call to go deeper into myself so I can write with courage. My angels prompt me to remember that courage is always more rewarding than cowardice.”
Writer and consultant C. Diane Ealy also has a room of her own filled with art and family heirlooms. My favorite story was about her rocking chair. Diane explains, “I have an antique rocking chair from my great aunt that's been passed among the women in my family since the early 1800s. Sometimes I just sit in the rocking chair and feel the power of the women back through the generations of my family.”
Artist, writer, teacher, and chronicler of women's stories, Cathleen Rountree has built a huge altar in her living room with three levels filled by her work and objects that are meaningful to her. Growing up Catholic, she learned to love ritual: “I learned the importance of prayer in the sense of meditation, in the sense of an inner dialogue with a higher power.” She also keeps flowers on her desk, reads a bit before she starts working, and goes for long walks on the beach with her companion Sienna, a Springer spaniel, to stimulate her creative ideas. She says, “It's such a fascinating thing, the creative process, because I find that it's seldom dormant. I mean, often in the shower, or virtually anywhere, I think of ideas. Just walking somewhere, I'll jot my thoughts down, as a piece of dialogue will come to me, or perhaps the opening of a chapter.” She especially likes to work in the early morning “before the world comes alive.” Cathleen and I have both read the book Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers by Susan Shaughnessy, to motivate us when we're procrastinating. Susan has a great quote in her book that says, “Cleaning ashes out of the fireplace becomes an entrancing job when you're doing it instead of writing.”
My writing space is decorated with purple and royal blue flowers, my two favorite colors, as well as with my own paintings and gifts of feathers and crystals from friends. My wall of books heartens me as well. I also follow the advice of Sue Grafton, my favorite mystery writer, and keep a special journal for each writing project to keep track of any new ideas, such as, “I need to add a chapter on abundance.” When I sit down to write or paint, if possible, I light a candle to signify that this is sacred time—priority time—and to create a boundary between these activities and my daily life. As “administrivia” is a daily seduction away from my creative endeavors, my candle supports my intentions. It helps me to resist phone calls and other “must do” distractions. I also have a sense that the fire helps to ward off any fear. Since I am an Aries, a fire sign, the flame also supports my image of myself as a warrior in the service of a better world. Like author Sarah Ban Breathnach, I also like to write in bed because it's warm and comfy.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes I even have trouble doing it.
—TALLULAH BANKHEAD, ACTRESS
Writer and artist Maureen Murdock describes her creative process as very kinesthetic: “My creative ritual is that I walk every morning and in the warmer weather I swim. And images will come to me when I'm moving. I also meditate first thing in the morning and there's not a day that goes by that I don't write in my journal, where I'm either working with my dreams or an idea.” Maureen also finds water to be a strong element for her: “A lot of ideas come to me while I'm washing dishes or in the shower. One of the reasons that I like doing black and white photography is that the image comes out of the chemicals, so it's almost like the image coming out of the water. When working with groups, I frequently use the image of creating a pool of water—a dark pool or well—and calling forth the metaphors you need at this point in your life to teach you.”
Another technique that stimulates original ideas is a ritual created by designer Diane Ericson after she lost everything she owned in a flood. She calls it the “clear the table” ritual. She explains, “Many creative people call their office a workroom but often it's really a storeroom. When you go into their workroom and their work surface is piled with stuff with only one little corner free for something new to happen—that's really difficult as a support. So in my workshops I urge people to start designing with a clear table, beginning with a single object or a single choice. It frees people up to let new ideas come in.” As Diane knows from a series of life-shattering