Today’s guest post writer has been a thoughtful and generous friend for close to ten years. We have been in Bible studies and women’s groups together and, crucial to my professional life, she makes beautiful the words I write/edit for our church publications. I deeply admire her creative talents and the way she intertwines prayer with life, work, creativity and play. One quick example: she gave me an unexpected Christmas gift of glamorous nail polish with a note that said, “Let your nail polish dry and pray!”
Create Challenge #10: Nancy Ingersoll
Create is such a vague term. It can refer to something tangible, an environment or a mindset. However, all three of these tend to work in tandem to have the best results.
Creativity can be contagious. If you set yourself up in an environment that feeds creativity, it will increase exponentially. By entering a space that has everything you need to execute your creative act, your attitude will welcome creative juices to flow and productivity will increase.
This will look completely different for different people. For some, it will be a kitchen stocked with ingredients and equipment. Others will need a flat surface to spread out or a place to set up tools so you can indulge your creative outlet spontaneously, while others will need a tote bag of supplies ready to throw over their shoulder as they venture outside.
Many will require a space with great lighting, and personal preferences will vary from those who want quiet to those who need a constant rattle from music. The key is to understand what feeds your creativity and then discover ways to adapt so that when you are not in that ideal environment, your creativity can continue to live.
Once you have a creative act you really enjoy, intertwine it with other areas of your life. My latest creative pastime is hand lettering. I have made it a part of my spiritual discipline by hand lettering prayers, Bible verses and parts of Bible verses. This has made my lettering skills better since I have been practicing them more, and deepened my time with the Bible as I have spent more time thinking about what stood out to me from a passage before I set my pen to paper.
Since I am on a crowded, bumpy commuter train about three hours each week, I have adapted this less than optimal environment into a time of mental preparation. I use commute time to reflect and sometimes scribble a note or two down, so that when I return to the space I have created – with a flat surface, lights, inspiration hung on the walls, and all my supplies waiting for me – I have the right mindset. If you want a peek at what happens in this space, hop over to my instagram account, where I have been posting a few of my creations each week.
As we become a more environmentally conscious society, I want to challenge you to make an effort to think of at least one thing you can do in your creative practice to reuse something. For the writers out there, it might mean figuring out how the double-sided print function on your printer works. For the cooks and gardeners, try re-growing something from your food scraps, like the bottoms of green onions.
One thing I do in my effort to be environmentally mindful is to repurpose parts of some of the packaging I come across. My last purse came with a cute little cardstock pocket to hold the manufacturer’s details and it is now attached to the inside of my Bible to hold prayers I scribble down on index cards. As luck would have it, the index cards fit perfect without a need to cut a special paper size. I just painted a little blob to make a rose and added a leaf in acrylic paint to cover the logo before using standard white glue to attach it.
Romans 12:6 reminds us, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” It is up to us to develop these gifts and use these gifts, so be creative and expand the ways you use your talents. After all, Maya Angelou explained that “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Nancy is a California native with an affinity for typography. Professionally, she is both a teacher and a practicing artist. She teaches a high school Advanced Placement Photography class, hence the instagram name, and does freelance design work in addition to creating her own artwork, most of which recently have been hand lettered faith-based pieces. She and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay Area; they have launched two kids through the UC system, one recent graduate and one still in school.
Instagram: @thephotocottage
Shop: www.nancy-ingersoll.pixels.com
Luggage: www.ugobags.com/art-and-fashion/nancy-ingersoll
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