No matter how busy you are, it’s important to create time to do what you love. Julia Cameron called it scheduling an Artist’s Date, setting aside time to explore and spark your creativity and imagination. I did that last month by participating in Spark for the first time.
Open to writers, musicians, and visual artists of all kinds, SPARK is a participatory creativity event that takes place four times each year.
During each 10-day project round, participants create a new piece of work using someone else’s art, writing, or music as inspiration. All resulting work is then displayed online, alongside the piece that inspired it.
I received this poem from Kathleen Finn Jordan and let the metaphysical imagery of soul mates swirling together sit with me for a few days. Then I used my cell phone to take this picture of tangled branches during a hike one day.
I spent hours playing with layers in photoshop to create a visual representation of the Soul Mates from the poem. I used about ten layers to twirl, blur, filter the colors and change the luminance of the original picture. There’s even a blur in the shape of musical notes that fit perfectly with the lines in the poem.
I work better with deadlines, even when I set them for myself. Having the deadline to finish and share my work with my creative Spark partner pushed me to set aside time that week to get it done.
You can see the poem Kathleen wrote in response to the photo I sent her: Carefree
I also participated as a writer and received this haunting charcoal drawing from Anne Marie Perconti. You can read the poem I wrote in response to her inspiration piece here: Hollow at the Core.
I highly recommend Spark to push you beyond your creative comfort zone. You can sign up now to be notified when the next round begins.
Explore all the great responses from this round of Spark HERE.