Episodios

  • Interviews with Participants at the Everything Conference

    Interviews with Participants at the Everything Conference
    Aug 13 2024
    In this episode, I interview some of my fellow participants at this year’s Everything Conference in Minneapolis. We talk about creativity and multipotentiality. Links mentioned in this episode Everything Conference Puttyverse How To Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick World Domination Summit Camp Indie Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission. Transcript Welcome to the Creative Shoofly. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist. And in this episode, I speed-interview some of the people I met at this year's Everything Conference, which was held in Minneapolis. The Everything Conference is a semiannual gathering of multipotentialites, and it's styled as an unconference, where everyone is a participant, and the workshops and experiences are led by the participants themselves. I had an opportunity to lead a workshop based on some of the creative processes I've described on this podcast, mind mapping, role play, and Scrum for One, and I'm happy to say that I got some nice feedback. In addition to participating in other experiences, I met a lot of wonderful people and I made some new friends. It's really cool to be in a group that doesn't blink an eye when you say, I'm interested in this… and this… and this… and this! They totally get it because they have as many interests as I do. Before going to the Everything Conference, I knew that I wanted to interview my fellow multipods, and the idea I came up with was to write a bunch of questions and have them pick one at random. Half of the questions are about creativity, and half about multipotentiality. I ended up writing them on a set of blank Bicycle playing cards. I enjoyed seeing the look on their faces when they picked a card from the deck and realized that it was not a real playing card. I ended up interviewing about a dozen people. And we'll start with my friend, Heather. Heather: Can you tell me what it is? Oh, oh, okay. Thomas: Let's see. So, Heather. What's a piece of advice you would give to a young multipotentialite? Heather: Okay. That's a really good question because I think our society has typically been, quite, like you must choose something you have to specialize and I do think that's shifting. But in the meantime, it's really working on accepting that for yourself. Honoring that you do have all of these interests. And that basically, one, you're really awesome, you're not broken, and it's just sort of, it's, it's just like being a different flavor of human. Thomas: Yeah. Right, right. Heather: Yeah, um, and to explore, like get into your interests, try them out, it's okay to shift because that's what we do. But yeah, just to kind of honor that and try to be firm with others. Like, hey, this is really who I am, and I need your support, especially for a young person. It's just like, I need that support to nourish those interests and, and that identity, so. Thomas: Thank you very much. Thomas: So, Colleen, how do you know when a creative project is finished? Colleen: Oh, that is a hard question, because most creatives I know, they'll, they'll pick at it. And never let it go. I think there's a couple ways to see. One is by sharing your work. Because other people will see the whole better than you will. Another time is just to be comfortable with good enough, it meets your standards, and then let it out in the world. I think when we don't let our work out, it's really, fear that it won't be good enough. Thomas: Right. So that letting go part is, is key. Colleen: I think that is what it is. I mean, we don't, you know, especially people who do, one off work, and you know in my practice, I know that a lot of times I'm terrible at planning. I don't, I'm trying to learn how to sketch my work ahead of time, but really I just see what the materials want to be. And so it's sometimes hard to know when you're done because you didn't know what you were going to do when you start it. I think if you know, it's kind of like, well, in my corporate life project is done because you define done at the beginning. In my creative work, I'm not as good at doing that. Thomas: Great. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thomas: Let me pull up my cards. All right. Stacey, how do you stay updated and informed in multiple fields? Stacey: Okay, primary way I do is I'm an avid reader. And my tastes are eclectic. So I'll read across anything that interests me. I mainly do nonfiction though. I do read fiction as well. And even a lot of the fiction you can learn or you can learn a lot of things or even spark thoughts if, especially if it's an author like a Michael Crichton, I'm trying to think like Dan Brown. Or those that meticulously or carefully that they really research before they write. So you learn a lot of stuff even from there. Thomas: They really study their craft. Stacey: So whatever the novel or that they're writing, you get a lot of good detail. And that usually has sparked me to look ...
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    21 m
  • Busting Creative Blocks with Meditative Ideation

    Busting Creative Blocks with Meditative Ideation
    Mar 13 2024
    In this episode, I discuss meditative ideation, a mindfulness practice that I've honed over the years to combat creative block. It has transformed my creative process, and I think it can unlock new realms of inspiration for you too. Links mentioned in this episode Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas, a TED talk by Manoush Zomorodi The Wisdom of Not Knowing by Estelle Frankel The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission. Transcript Thomas: Welcome to the Creative Shoofly. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist, and in this episode, I'll be discussing a mindfulness practice that I've honed over the years to combat creative block. It has transformed my creative process, and I think it can unlock new realms of inspiration for you too. Today I'd like to tell you about a dream-like technique that I call meditative ideation. The essence of the technique is to calm the mind, get the voice in your head to stop talking, and to be quiet enough to invite inspiration in, and to invite ideas in. I've been using this technique for a number of years now, and as a result, I rarely experience the blank page syndrome or the creative block that I used to have. I think everyone struggles somewhat with creative block. For many people, and this might include you, creative block is not often a lack of creativity. It's usually due to too much focus. Now that might seem strange, but being overly focused on a problem will prevent the flow of new ideas. Focus form of creative block. Focus blocks to allow those ideas to emerge. I used to struggle with creative block quite a lot. I'd sit down and say, okay, I need an idea, and then I'd wait, and I'd wait, and I wouldn't think of anything, and then I would go off and start criticizing myself. My monkey mind would just keep on talking and putting myself down. It would say, “You're a creative person, what's going on with you? Why can't you come up with a single creative idea?” I'm sure many of you listening have experienced this type of self-criticism, and it sure isn't conducive to creative thinking or being inspired. Things started to change for me when I read a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She has a wonderful concept of how inspirations work. In her telling, inspirations are living things that go around the world looking for creative people to make them manifest, to put them into action. The idea of inspiration shopping around for creators really resonated with me. I just imagined a great idea looking at a sea of humanity and saying, “I pick you, Thomas, because I know you're a creative person.” It feels kind of flattering, actually. So I began wondering, how do I actually invite inspiration in? What would the process look like? At about the same time, I listened to a TED talk by Manoush Zomorodi. Her talk was about the default mode network of the mind. This is a part of the brain that jumps into action when you're not focusing, and not paying attention to something in particular. A lot of people say that they get their best ideas when they're taking a shower, or they're going on a walk. The way it works is when you're in a very relaxed state, and the mind isn't focused on anything, the default mode network starts making connections between all kinds of different places in the brain. The point that Manoush makes is that so many of us don't allow our minds to idle to the point where the default mode network can come in. And the connections that are made are where inspiration comes from. Or, as Elizabeth Gilbert might put it, this is when inspiration finds you because it knows that you can make it manifest. So after seeing the TED Talk, the question I asked myself, could I simply close my eyes and empty my mind enough to engage my default mode network? This was an intriguing idea. I had already been doing a daily meditation for a number of years, and I was very familiar with the meditative style where you breathe, and if any thought comes by, you let it drift by, and you just let your mind think about nothing else other than your breathing. I can't say that I'm really good at it, but at least I became aware of when my mind is busy with thought and when my mind is calm and relaxed. I thought that that might be a way to try to activate my default mode network. And I started doing it, and yes, I can report that it indeed does. So I formalized it into a practice where I intentionally quiet the mind and let wonderful ideas come along. I call it meditative ideation. The key difference between breathing meditation and this practice is that I'm allowing interesting ideas to stay and evolve rather than letting the thoughts go as I would in a breathing meditation. I still watch for non-creative ideas and dismiss them as soon as I can. And this happens a lot at the beginning of a session, and I still have ...
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    17 m
  • Role Playing for Multipotentialites

    Role Playing for Multipotentialites
    Oct 22 2023
    In this episode, I explore how role-playing can help reduce the chaos and distraction that often plague us as artists. Links to books and websites mentioned in this podcast You And I Make A Thing podcast website Trick Yourself Into Breaking a Bad Habit at HBR.org The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo How to Declutter in the Simplest Way Possible at SaturdayGift.com Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them. Hello and welcome to the Creative Shoofly podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. Before I begin this episode, I want to tell you about a new podcast that I've started called You And I Make A Thing. It's where I invite fellow artists to stretch our creative boundaries by collaborating on a project that neither of us have done before. Longtime listeners will know that I started You And I Make A Thing right here on this podcast. I really enjoyed those episodes and got some really good feedback. In fact, the feedback was so positive. I decided to spin off You And I Make A Thing to its own podcast and website. You can find You And I Make A Thing wherever you podcast, and you can also find it at youandimakeathing.com. Now, even though I have a spinoff podcast, I will still be making episodes here on the Creative Shoofly. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist. And in this episode, I want to talk about how role-playing can help reduce the chaos and distraction that often plagues us as artists. This episode is specifically for multipotentialites, those of us who are curious about many different things and have a great many interests. We are sometimes called renaissance souls or polymaths, and we find ourselves pulled in many different directions. In fact, many of us have so many ideas that we want to pursue, that we get discouraged that there isn't enough time. We're starting new projects all the time, but we don't finish many of them. Because either we got bored, we learned what we wanted to learn, or something else captured our interest. We also get discouraged because in our excitement to get started on a new project, we don't allow ourselves enough time for planning and preparation. And that scattered chaotic energy that we have often means that we haven't organized our spaces. How many times have I excitedly started a project, but then I wasn't able to find the tool or part that I needed. And I know that I have it in some box somewhere, but I can't figure out where I had put it. Multipotentialites also have a habit of starting a project and then leaving it, only to come back to it six months later. And that often presents its own problems. Was everything stored properly? Do I remember where I left off and what I wanted to do next? Did I leave enough context for me to continue the project? Everybody has their own process for achieving their goals and finishing projects. But as multipotentialites, we often feel isolated and alone when pursuing them, mainly because there's no one that we can call on to help. But what if you could have a team to help you with all of your projects? What if you could just jump into each project with everything already prepared and ready to go? What of each project could get the attention it deserved? Well, you are that team. The key is to play the different roles of that team. Role-playing is the crucial factor to reducing the mental chaos that is part of multipotentiality and unlocking your creative potential. And role-playing is different than just following a process. The roles you play define what is possible at the moment. And what you leave aside. I've designed specific roles for my creative work, which involves making kinetic and three-dimensional art. But the roles can be tailored to your needs and creative goals. You might be thinking, “Isn't role-playing for kids? And besides I'm not good at role-playing because it's hard for me to pretend.” Or, “It's simply hard for me to form new habits like this.” But my bet is that you already have all of the imagination that you need to role-play. If you're like me and have pursued many interests and held a variety of jobs. You already know what it feels like to be in different roles. So what I'm going to describe to you should feel familiar. The three rules that I call upon are the studio assistant, the art director and the lead artist. I liken these roles to people in a professional kitchen. The kitchen master is responsible for the kitchen itself, making sure that everything is clean and organized, the tools are sharp and ready to use, and the food is fresh and stored safely. The sous chef is responsible for gathering the appropriate tools, utensils and cookware that'll be used for tonight's meal. They also do mise en place, chopping and prepping the food so that is ready to be cooked. Finally the master chef cooks the food, using their master skills to create a beautiful meal. I've taken these roles and map them to my art practice. The ...
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    17 m
  • Scrum for One

    Scrum for One
    May 27 2023
    In this episode I explore a productivity method for creativity called Scrum for One. Links Scrum for One by Dustin Wax Photo credits Rugby player image: Hassan Omar Wamwayi Hello and welcome to the Creative Shoofly podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about the creative process. In it, I explore ways to avoid creative blocks and procrastination. If you're a fellow multipotentialite, someone who has many different creative pursuits, you might relate to the struggle of juggling different projects at the same time. This episode in particular might interest you if you have a multitude of creative projects going on at once. I'll be talking about a planning technique I use called Scrum for One. It's the beginning of the day and I've just finished my first cup of coffee. I'm on my iPad, scrolling through the news, scanning through my Instagram feed, and then watching some new videos on YouTube. The news is depressing and boring. Instagram is full of amazing artwork that causes me to focus on my lack of productivity. And YouTube? Well, it's just full of people ranting. I look at my phone and realize that I have only two minutes before my first client meeting of the day. But you know what? My client work goes smoothly. I'm a member of my client's technology services team. And we use the Agile methodology to guide our software development. It seems to work pretty well. As a team we're working on many different projects at once and Agile helps us stay focused and productive. The day is busy, so by the end of the day I'm mentally exhausted. I end up doom-scrolling on my iPad again. I'm not making any progress on my many personal creative projects. The contrast between work and my free time is palpable. At work I'm focused and productive and I feel supported, in large part due to the team successful use of Agile. And so I start to wonder. Even though Agile is intended for teams, could there be a personal version of Agile? It's a strange question to ask whether you could apply Agile to your own artistic process. The myth of creative work is that it has to be magical and spontaneous. We make up that you can't force creativity, that you need to wait for the muses to show up before you can do any meaningful creative work. Multipotentialites in particular thrive on spontaneity and novelty, so being tied to a process or methodology might lead to a lack of excitement. The idea of using a methodology like Agile for personal creativity can be quite intimidating for some people. Perfectionists might also shy away from such a process. Agile emphasizes using the tools, materials, and time at hand, instead of waiting for the perfect moment. For perfectionists, this might seem like a constraint that limits their ability to achieve perfection in their art. But my curiosity is peaked. So I Google Agile for personal use. And the first article that shows up is Scrum for One by Dustin Wax. I'm intrigued, so I read on. Agile puts a great emphasis on constant feedback. Dustin explains that the term scrum comes from rugby and represents the team huddle after each play. In agile, the daily standup meetings give team members the ability to report on progress and identify any needs going forward. The meetings are typically no more than 15 minutes long. In the Scrum for One model you check in with yourself every day. This could be in a journal or a diary or on a simple notepad. You make notes on how your projects are going and you identify any needs going forward, perhaps noting something that you might want to research or noting a tool or material to add to a shopping list. The daily check-in is also an opportunity for self-reflection. “How did I do today? What worked well? What can I do better?” This enhanced self-awareness is one of the primary benefits of the model. It helps you identify things to improve. You make frequent adjustments to your work habits instead of waiting until the end of a long project to figure out what you can do better. Another Scrum for One principle is to work with what you have so that projects don't stall. Most project plans will have many steps, so if you can't make progress on one step, you could probably make some progress on another step. And if you're like me and have multiple projects, you can probably make progress on another project while you wait to restart the one you're stuck on. With daily check-ins, it's important to work towards clearly define short-term goals. Vague goals that stretch over months are often discouraging. It's much better to have reasonable but meaningful goals that you can name and measure every day. If you're writing a book which can take months, create a daily goal of 500 to a thousand words a day. Then in your daily scrum check-in you have a measure that you can reflect upon. Setting short-term goals and tracking progress daily allows you to stay focused and motivated. Breaking down larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks helps you prioritize ...
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    11 m
  • You And I Make A Thing with Michael Tarnoff

    You And I Make A Thing with Michael Tarnoff
    May 6 2023
    In this episode I collaborate with artist Michael Tarnoff to make self-portraits inspired by Chuck Close. Links O'Hanlon Center for the ArtsMichael Tarnoff's InstagramChuck Close WebsiteWikipedia Entry for Chuck CloseProcreate for the iPadInterlude music: https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2017/13/1497796312321798 Michael's Self Portrait Thomas' Self Portrait Original Photos Thomas: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Creative Shoofly podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist. And in this episode, I'm continuing my improvisational experiment that I call You And I Make A Thing. I invited my friend Michael to come up with a theme or project that we could do together. I hope you will enjoy hearing about our project, as much as we did doing it. My guest today is Michael Tarnoff. Michael is a painter, a mixed media artist, as well as a photographer and all-around creative person. Welcome Michael. Michael: Thank you for having me Thomas. Thomas: Yeah, I'm glad to have you, Michael. I'm curious, before we get started, I'm want to know if there's some creative project that you've been working on or you're planning to work on right now? Michael: Well, you know with COVID, things changed for me artistically [00:01:00] as far as access to my painting space and such, and I've been doing more photography and small works. And right now, we're in the mountains in the Utah area and I've been fascinated with ice and snow and cold and what happens with nature with that. So I've been thinking about, in the back of my mind, a series of photographs and just thinking about them as a series of what nature does in the cold. Because I never really lived in the cold and witnessed it. Thomas: Right. Michael: There's just fascinating things like when the fog comes in and then the cold comes in. If there's just the right amount of humidity, ice crystals form everywhere and it looks, it's just, it's magic. So I'm just kind of keeping my eyes open for that and just being witness to the magic that nature creates. Thomas: Well that's great, that sounds like a real process of discovery. Michael: It is, it is. I love that you say that because where I got most of my art learning [00:02:00] from, not so much teaching but learning I'll call it, was at O'Hanlan Center for the Arts in Mill Valley. And the founder Ann O'Hanlan, one of my favorite sayings of hers was, “Exploration comes first, discovery perhaps later.” Thomas: Ah. Michael: And it’s just, it's so true when it comes to art and life. So it's really, this really is a process of exploration and discovery, with, I mean the medium is nature and the cold and what, how it's so much different from the temperate Bay Area. Thomas: Right, right. Michael: Yeah. Thomas: And I've been following you on Instagram, and your photographs have been just brilliant. Michael: Thank you. Thomas: For my listeners, I'll put a link to Michael's Instagram in the show notes. Well, exploration I think is a good segue into what we're going to be doing today, which is You And I Make A Thing. And as you know, what my goal here is to come up with [00:03:00] something that we can do together, either something that we do in parallel or something that we actually collaborate on. And Michael, prior to our conversation today, I've asked you to come up with three things that you might be interested in doing, and I've done the same. And what I was thinking of is that we'd just bounce back and forth with our ideas and then we'll see if we can coalesce on something that sounds like fun. How about that? Michael: That sounds great. Thomas: Why don't you start with something that's on your list. Michael: Okay. Let me preface it with saying that when you asked me to think of these things, it actually was harder than I thought it was going to be. And I couldn't because I'm just I'm so spontaneous with my art. I actually never think about what I want to do ahead of time and just sort of let the process flow with that in that moment. Thomas: Okay. Michael: I mean, I might know ahead of time I'm going to draw just because of, you know, whatever's happening. Thomas: Right. Michael: [00:04:00] So this was, this was very different for me. So the first thing I thought of, and these were all things, at least a couple of 'em were things that I've always thought about, but I have never done. Thomas: Uh huh. Michael: The first one was doing encaustic painting. Which is painting with paint that is mixed with wax and it sort of creates, on like a panel, it creates this dreamy kind of thing. And I've never done it before. I don't know how to do it. and I don't even know if it's practical, but it was the very first thing I thought of because I've always wanted to try it. Thomas: So I do follow a number of artists and I've seen a number of encaustic paintings, and they are sort of dreamy. They're sort of lots of different colors flowing and mixing. And that's what you're ...
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    43 m
  • Should I A.I.?

    Should I A.I.?
    Apr 1 2023
    In this episode I explore Artificial Intelligence and some of the issues around artists using AI in their creative process. I hope you will enjoy hearing and thinking about these issues. Links For Further Reading and Viewing Tech guru Jaron Lanier: ‘The danger isn’t that AI destroys us. It’s that it drives us insane’Bill Gates: The Age of AI Has BegunIBM Technology: What are Generative AI models?The ultimate list of AI tools for creatorsHow to use ChatGPT to improve your creative processGenerative AI for Makers: AI Has Truly Arrived — and It’s Here to Help You Make and CraftArtificial Intelligence Art School Meltdown | The Looming CrisisEric Schmidt talks about concerns around AI Links to books and websites mentioned in this podcast Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts, by Jaron Lanier You Are Not A Gadget, by Jaron Lanier Creative programming workshop with Sonic Pi ChatGPT DeepL Translator Descript Pixelmator ProCreate Hashtags #processing and #p5js Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them. Transcript [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Creative Shoofly Podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. In this episode, I ask myself, what do I do with all these AI tools that are becoming available? How should I use these tools in my creative process? And how do I maintain integrity as I do? These questions might be on your mind too, and I hope that I shed at least a little bit of light on the topic. I am recording this in March of 2023, and there's been an explosion of AI announcements. All of a sudden, AI is everywhere. Everyone seems to be talking about it, and it feels almost like it's being jammed on our throats. Yeah, we've been using Siri and Alexa and Hey Google for years now, and we know that recommendation algorithms have been limiting what we get to see on social platforms and in places like Netflix.[00:01:00] But while those services are a form of artificial intelligence, we were quickly jaded about how mediocre and dull they were. But the latest AIs come in the form of image generators like Stable Diffusion and chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT. And they seem lightyears ahead of those earlier tools. And scarier too. The AI image generators in particular caused quite a stir in the art community when they were introduced in 2021. Not only were these AI tools creating an image in minutes that would take an artist hours and days to create, but the tools were trained on images found on the internet, including images that artists had posted themselves. That felt a lot like theft. But these are clearly creative tools. And they have me thinking about creativity and the ethics involved. Can AI help me in any of my creative processes? And if they can, how should I be [00:02:00] using AI? The recent hubbub really started when the latest version of ChatGPT was launched in November of 2022. That was ChatGPT 3.5, and people took notice of its impressive capabilities. ChatGPT gained a hundred million users in just a few months. To put that into perspective, Gmail took five years to get to a hundred million users. In just the last few weeks, there have been a number of follow-on announcements. ChatGPT was upgraded to version four. Google announced their chatbot called Bard, and they're also integrating AI in their workspace tools. Microsoft released Bing Chat as an alternative way to find information with Bing. They also announced that they would be including an AI tool called Copilot in their office suite, meaning that you'll be able to have AI assist you when you're creating content in Word documents [00:03:00] and PowerPoint slides, and also when you're sending emails using Outlook. Many other companies announced that they're integrating AI generative tools into their existing products. Canva announced that they're adding AI so that you can use text to describe a design, and it'll create a Facebook cover page, a YouTube profile picture, YouTube intro and outros, Instagram post and story and so forth, all from one text description. GitHub announced their co-pilot X that helps coders code faster. Ubisoft announced a dialogue generator for game development and Metahuman showed facial motion capture using just an iPhone, and this allows them to animate characters with very realistic facial expressions. With all these announcements, it does feel like AI is taking over at this point. Artists are asking themselves a lot of questions. How can I use these tools ethically and [00:04:00] morally? How will it affect the marketplace for art and creative products? Will it make me a dull person? These are all important questions. So, let's first talk about what AI really is, and then we can see how we can adapt any of it into our creative process. So, let's first get something out of the way. Artificial intelligence is not conscious intelligence. Some people describe it as an enhanced version of auto complete. I like that metaphor. All of these systems are trained ...
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    18 m
  • Mind Maps are Liberating

    Mind Maps are Liberating
    Mar 21 2023
    In this episode I talk about how I use mind maps and why I find them liberating. Mind maps are an important part of my creative toolbox, but my mind mapping process is a bit different from the traditional form. I hope you will enjoy hearing about it. Links mentioned in this podcast A Writer's Time, by Kenneth Atchity The above is an affiliate link and I may earn a small commission from it. Mind Map Examples My original mind map for this episode. I wrote the first draft directly from this mind map. This second mind map is for a podcasting workshop that I will be giving at Hunt and Gather in May 2023. I developed this into a traditional outline and from there I created slides for the presentation. Transcript Hello and welcome to the Creative Shoofly podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist, and in this episode, I want to talk about mind maps and how I use them in my creative process. What I like about mind maps is they're quick, they help me discover connections, and they help me overcome my inner self-editor. I don't know about you, but I get stuck a lot. I get blank page syndrome when starting a new project. I have a vague idea of what I need to do, but I don't know what I should write down first. The tool that first comes to mind is outlining. I think most of us learned outlining in school and outlines can be good, but I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about the order. What comes first and what's next, and does this belong in a sub-bullet or in its own thing? And does this thing even belong here? Outlining is one hard decision after another, and I find that trying to make an outline from scratch is a big struggle. So I find myself avoiding starting the whole process. I distract myself with something else like surfing, YouTube, or seeing what's been posted on eBay today. But a while ago I discovered mind mapping. It's not a new technique. It was created by Tony Buzan and became popular in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. I think I first picked it up in the ‘90s when I was reading a book about creative writing. I don't recall the name of the author or the book, but it emphasized that mind mapping promised a better way to organize ideas. It promised speed and ease. it also promised liberation from that voice in your head that was always saying no, which I thought was quite a claim to make. How could a breakthrough tool for making organizing easier also free your mind? And if it really does that, why isn't everybody using it? I think there's a natural reluctance to try something that few people are talking about. No one I know or met was using mind maps, and if they were, they weren't telling me. I don't know if mind mapping is taught in school today. It certainly wasn't in my day. I imagine that a mind map would be a hard thing to grade as a teacher because each mind map is so unique to the person making it. Some folks probably also wonder how it is relevant to the creative process. They might ask whether anything is really wrong with the standard approach of outlining and making simple lists as an organizing principle. When I mention mind mapping, others also say that it's far too complicated. When you go online and look at examples of mind maps, a lot of them look like works of art, like a beautiful tree with a thick trunk and gorgeous multicolor leaves. People have also told me that mind-mapping software is too complicated and too expensive. My answer to all of these concerns is to just keep it simple. For my mind maps, I use paper and pen, and they're definitely not works of art. I rarely use color and unless someone asks, I don't show them to anyone. In fact, once I'm done with them, they usually go in the trash. You're probably listening to me now thinking if they go in the trash, how can they be useful? Well, let me explain. For me, mind mapping is about getting as many ideas down on paper and out of my head as fast as I can. I start in the center of the paper and I write down the idea that I want to explore. I'll draw a circle around it, and then I draw a line to another part of the paper. I write down whatever pops into my head, and then I draw lines from that and write down more related ideas. There are really no rules. I just draw lines from idea to idea wherever there's space on the paper. Eventually, my paper is filled with a mess of circles, lines, and ideas, and it looks like a crazy spider with big padded feet. In fact, another name for this is Spider Diagram. The goal is to brainstorm, make connections, and most importantly, avoid my inner editor. It's that inner editor that is always getting in the way. You know the voice that says, “Don't you dare write that down! That's silly! You'll look like a fool! That's not important! That's irrelevant!” When I'm outlining, my mind naturally tries to organize, and organizing means editing. But when I mind map, I'm not organizing. All I'm doing is connecting. And I do this as...
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    11 m
  • You And I Make a Thing with Tara Bahna-James

    You And I Make a Thing with Tara Bahna-James
    Feb 18 2023
    In this episode, I'm continuing my improvisational experiment that I call You And I Make A Thing. I invited my friend Tara to come up with a theme or project that we could do together. I hope you will enjoy hearing about our project as much as we did doing it. Links mentioned in this podcast Tara’s SoundCloud album: My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Issa Rae Teaches Creating Outside the Lines on Masterclass Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them. Photos The fallen cypress tree in Golden Gate Park The fallen tree in Westchester NY near the reservoir Transcript Thomas: My guest today is Tara Bahna-James. Hello, Tara. Tara: Hi, Thomas. Thomas: How's it going? Tara: Great. Great. Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here. Thomas: Yeah, I'm happy that you're here. Tara is a playwright, singer, and performer, educator and essayist. She's co-authored six musicals and her shows and songs have been performed at theaters and festivals across the United States. And [00:01:00] about a year ago, Tara released an album on SoundCloud called My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music. And I've listened to it and it's wonderful. It's so beautiful. You have a, you have a beautiful voice, Tara. Tara: Thank you. Thomas: Before we get started with You And I Make a Thing, I want to ask you, Tell us about a creative thing that you are making at the moment or something that you're planning to make soon. Tara: So right now, I've been spending a lot of time outdoors recently, in all seasons just because, just before the pandemic began, I moved to sort of a more rural area than I was living before. And so there have been actually surprisingly, lots of opportunities to just sort of get out and hike and, so I've been thinking about trees a lot. So at present, a previous collaborator of mine, Jonathan Portera, who I've, worked with several times on musical season, brilliant composer. He and I have been talking for a long time about beginning a new [00:02:00] work together and we don't know a lot about it, but we know that we're both fascinated with the life cycles of trees and the connections of trees to fungi. Thomas: Mm-hmm. Tara: And so I exactly where that's gonna take us. But I think that's kind the direction that we're going in right now. Thomas: That's great. That's wonderful. I mean, there's, there's a lot there to study and research and talk about and create from. Trees are like us and they're also very different from us in some ways. And, you know, in the sense that their lifespans can be much, much longer than ours. And they have these, beautiful connections. You mentioned fungi and many trees have that symbiotic relationship with fungi. The fungi give them nourishment and the trees give the fungi nourishment in a different way in return. It's very [00:03:00] interesting. Tara: What I'm also, what I'm in particularly fascinated by is that, just like from what I said, from spending time outdoors more often, just the way that wilderness affords you simultaneously a real stillness and also company at the same time. And I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass right now for the first time and there's this beautiful quote that I just came across. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm not gonna get it right, I'm sure. But it was something about how the land recognizes you or knows you even when you don't necessarily recognize yourself. And immediately that resonated for me as something that I feel like I experience, even if I'm in a very new place. There's when I'm out hiking, if it's by myself or with dogs, I always, there's just this, this sort of sense of being recognized and not alone in the world. You know, even when in one's solitude. And that's [00:04:00] just, that's something that feels, um, it's funny, I wanna say it feels very songful to me. It feels very musical, but that's not quite what I'm getting at because it's actually the stillness and the quiet of those moments that I so love. But there's, there's something in there I guess, that speaks, that I want to give voice to that experience. So I think that's where that's coming from, that desire to write to that place. Thomas: A little bit of like validation of the self when you're with the trees, Tara: I dunno if it's the self, it's the family, I guess. Right? It's like the, yeah. The connection to all things. The mystic nature that poets love so much. So, yeah. Thomas: Well, wonderful. I'll be looking forward to seeing how that evolves, and I'm sure you'll let me know when you've manifested it. Tara: Yes. Thomas: Well, [00:05:00] Tara, I'm so excited to be doing this episode with you. And specifically the idea of You And I Make A Thing. And I have to admit, I have some butterflies at the moment, which of course is the whole ...
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