Editor’s Note: This summer we’re running a Creativity Workshop series. Sandra Heska King signed up for the whole deal, parts one and two. We figure that’s a good thing, because she’s going to need time for her new love interest…
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We had a nodding acquaintance over the years, he and I. I admired some of his work, even spent a little time with his horse who stands proud in a garden only an hour away.
But I didn’t know him. And to deepen our relationship was not in my mind map.
Not at all.
I’d been feeling old in body and brain, a little locked up and blocked down, overwhelmed with all I want to see and savor and pass on before I pass on.
So a friend here at Tweetspeak prescribed play therapy. “If you feel the need to still shake things loose, ” she said, “to strengthen your voice and tap unexpected courage, you might consider taking this course with Kathryn.”
Sneaky matchmaker.
I sure didn’t expect to fall in love with a dead man.
It was bound to happen, I suppose. How could I not sense a kinship to this man of many interests, this poster child for procrastination as Kathryn calls him—who failed with a flare, but always failed forward? Here’s a guy who died with writings he meant to organize and projects he never finished.
I get that.
Yet he was a master of much and a dynamo of creativity.
And he, with Kathryn’s help in her workshop, is teaching me ways I can nourish the neurons to keep my brain young and spill my own personal genius right up to my last breath.
I’m learning to think like the man I love.
Leonardo da Vinci.
Photo by Nina Matthews. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Sandra Heska King.
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Need to fall in love this summer? With your own creativity, or with great creative geniuses of the past and present? Want to be the master of much and a dynamo of creativity?
Sign up now for our How to Think Like a Creative Genius Workshop II.
How to Think Like a Creative Genius Workshop II • Starts July 22 • 4 weeks, $250 • BUY NOW
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Diana Trautwein says
Lovely, Sandra. Glad you loved this workshop.
Sandra Heska King says
Part one is still in progress, Diana. I really wondered if I’d lost a screw or two when I signed up while still in the midst of the memoir workshop and while I had so much else to do in the heat of summer. But I feel like something is unfurling. 🙂
Sheila Seiler Lagrand says
Unfurling?!?! YAY!!!!
And may I compliment you on your taste in dead men?
Lane Arnold says
In learning to draw, just try to capture a small detail, Kathryn advised as I wondered aloud how to leap from words to sketching. As it turns out, that’s good advise for all of life. Keep your senses alert and intermingle them. Wake up. Pay attention.
With Leonardo da Vinci as inspiration under Kathryn’s tutelage, my journaling now includes paper cutouts, watercolors, crayon and pencil drawings, collages, designs, shapes and colors. Such play has brought forth unexpected connections, realignments, and a balance that is both boisterous and full of new beauty.
Mind mapping is a delight…who knew that Leonardo had so much to offer?
For me, this class has been a visual expression of learning to live from the heart by art. Taking a leap at creativity’s edge, I see how vast freedom is.
Sandra Heska King says
Yes, this! All of this.
I’ve been struck by Leo’s emphasis on the senses, especially sight, how he encouraged seeing life from different perspectives.
A whole new world opened up to me when I picked up my camera to capture various images. I’ve been amazed at what I see that I never saw. But using different media like drawing or painting requires a longer period of stillness and a different kind of focus, a way to see in fresh light.
We tend to think that kind of stillness and play is a waste of time, but it really triggers the brain in new ways–and Leonardo believed that “the greatest geniuses sometime accomplish more when they work less.”
L. L. Barkat says
I’m struck by how, in a few short weeks, your creativity has already been stirred in ways that have got you writing a bit differently. Love to see it. There’s a delightful side of you that is pretty deep and is beginning to bubble up in words! 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Honest? Really? That just makes me all giddy happy. 😀
I had no clue what the year would bring when I chose “create” as my “one word.” I wonder if I dare tell my husband I’ve fallen for another man…
Laura says
you really know how to find the adventures! But then, our friends at tweespeak never disappoint 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
I don’t know if having this affair or zip lining was more adventurous. But this thrill lasts longer. 🙂
Never disappointed. Nope, never.
Ann Kroeker says
I love that Leonardo da Vinci book! I loved everything from his brief drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain primer to the recipe for minestrone soup. I bought that book years ago and went through it twice on my own. How much more fun it would have been to share the experience!
Sandra Heska King says
I haven’t tried the soup yet, but it’s on my list to do.
I must be a little more left-brained than I thought because I’d never considered anything but straight lines in my writing journal. The most adventurous I’d ever gotten was when I used only a fountain pen. I love using unlined paper now, and knowing I can write crooked or upside down or draw or scribble or splash color or glue something in it feels like a blessing.
And using mind-mapping (what I know as story-mapping) for anything other than planning a piece of writing never dawned on me.
davis says
no lines….i like that
Sandra Heska King says
Then you don’t have to worry about crossing them. And it’s easier to stay outside the box. 🙂
Kathryn Neel says
I am so glad you guys are enjoying the workshop so much. It is amazing what happens to our art (whatever form it takes) when we learn to play again and really learn to come back to our senses. I am very grateful to my workshop participants as I always learn new things from them.
Sandra Heska King says
Your enthusiasm is contagious, Kathryn. I’m so glad I didn’t let this pass me by.