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    Cultivating Creativity: Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration
    Cultivating Creativity: Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration
    Cultivating Creativity: Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    Cultivating Creativity: Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration

    By Maria Fabrizio

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    About this ebook

    "Creative longevity is about what you do to prepare yourself for the ripe moment, when the potential of an idea is able to grow into something useful.... This book is for anyone who has a tendency to think visually and needs to satisfy their creative soul." --from the Introduction

    Discover the road to productivity and success by keeping your creative juices flowing daily. Cultivating Creativity is a book based on the idea that creativity requires ample momentum--if you stop, you'll stall. In order to get the creative inspiration you need to do your design work well, it's important to establish daily creative routines.

    Author Maria Fabrizio has compiled here a beautiful and inspirational guide, a companion to unlocking your creativity every day. Create every day, and you'll be able to keep creating every day--it's as simple as that.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateMay 14, 2015
    ISBN9781440339837
    Cultivating Creativity: Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration
    Author

    Maria Fabrizio

    An Adams Media author.

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    Reviews for Cultivating Creativity

    4/5

    17 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Wonderfully refreshing take on creativity and life in general! Great stories and ideas.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book,I like it very much-loved very good content Wonderful book,I like it very much-loved very good content
    • 5/5
      Loved this as a fellow creative. Really gets to the heart of being observational and recording what you are drawn to in inspired & playful ways

    Book preview

    Cultivating Creativity - Maria Fabrizio

    introduction

    I AM NOT A REAL FARMER OR GARDENER. I can barely keep a succulent alive. The main thing I’ve absorbed from carefully watching my grandparents make a garden year after year is that the process of growth is abundant.

    When I was very young, my grandparents lived on a wide piece of land, great for growing vegetables and sustaining a cow or two. Even though they don’t maintain the same large soil they did thirty years ago, they still pile perfect tomatoes, cucumbers and sometimes corn in my arms when I visit them. I know that the success of their garden isn’t accidental. It takes year-round preparation, intuitive timing, irrigation and, most importantly, optimism.

    During the fall, leaves are collected and stored in bins near the back of the yard for future mulching and spreading in the garden. The roots are dug up from the plants that have just given all summer long and the catalogs of seeds are carefully marked for ordering in the winter before spring arrives.

    During the winter, I often find myself marveling at some new contraption or invention they’ve created to make the land easier to care for, or a new place to hang a special tool.

    By early spring, they are moving the mulch around in wheelbarrows, sorting the hoses and opening the seed packets that have come in the mail.

    During the humid summer, I know not to call their house in the evening. My grandmother is usually picking the vegetables while my grandfather waters the plants or stands at the kitchen sink slicing cucumbers that will soon become pickles.

    I know that there are times when they are both tired and might not feel like standing in the heat, picking bugs off of leaves or reaching for a vegetable that is too low or too high to grab with ease. But something about the process of creating things to share keeps them going, year after year.

    This book is about optimism and the process of creating, with a quiet parallel to gardening. I’ve learned through uncounted hours of failure that creative longevity is about what you do to prepare yourself for the ripe moment, when the potential of an idea is able to grow into something useful.

    I don’t offer a secret formula for a successful creative crop in these pages, just the value of experimentation and intentional reflection as you work to make your task of creating plentiful. Finding satisfaction in making is about enjoying the cycle.

    ***

    I started creating because of a simple, ordinary table. A Fisher-Price table and two small chairs were tucked under the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree when I was a year old, left by Santa Claus. There are countless photos of my younger self frantically drawing at the now-vintage table—gripping crayons like a caveman. The flat, smooth surface of this blue plastic object gave me the space to create. The repetitive experience of sitting, applying hand to surface and working to make something appear is nothing shy of an addiction for me. I’m a person who feels most alive in process, where time and action are colored with opportunity.

    Although I can no longer fold my legs under the tiny gift from many years ago, the memory of long hours lingering over piles of paper is a nostalgic presence when I arrive at my desk each morning. The reason I have the opportunity to share my process is because I selfishly create an illustration five days a week on my blog, Wordless News. The challenge of retelling a headline with only pictures forces me to evaluate my haphazard approach and to find ways to actively pursue a simple routine without becoming stale—the same way my grandparents have found new ways to enjoy their gardening routine.

    So I offer little rituals of time spent away from practical deadlines. The exercises don’t always end up in a final project; sometimes their value is their impermanence.

    This book is for anyone who has a tendency to think visually and needs to satisfy their creative soul. It is my hope that this book offers a humble path of intentional experimentation and a new way of seeing your own visual process.

    This is me, circa 1987, sporting a mullet and drawing at the timeless Fisher-Price table.

    PART I:

    ritual

    I’M NOT ALLOWED TO CALL MY GRANDPARENTS BEFORE 10:00 A.M. They very rarely ask for anything or have limitations on visiting, but they would prefer that a doorbell didn’t ring or a grandchild didn’t stop by before the breakfast table has been cleared.

    They follow their retirement clock and enjoy waking slowly with no rush. They are set in their quiet morning ritual. If I had to guess, I’d

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