Tapping the Soul

Do the things you can’t. That is how they get done. -Picasso

Last week I had a great conversation with an artist I work with.

Her name is Kellie Day, and she is a collage artist from Colorado. She has this Picasso quote hanging on her refrigerator. And she is daily figuring out how to do what she can’t. She’s rewriting the rule book! By the end of the call we were both jazzed up. Both saying a lot of “yes!!” “yes!!!” (and there may have been some hopping up and down). The purpose of the call was for me to help Kellie with a project she’s doing for Wild Apple. But she helped me too. I came away energized and ready to do something. To make something. To go deep in and pull something out that hadn’t come out yet.

I believe the act of creativity makes us tap into our soul. Without soul I’m not sure we could be creative. And I’m pretty convinced that when you start saying “yes!!!” you are engaged with your soul.

When I am most deeply in a creative space I am charging forward. Fear has left me and I’m nearly giddy. The moment can be behind the camera, or at the sewing machine, with paint brush in hand or typing up a story.

It can be a moment or it can be hours.

But I’d say each deeply creative time is a time when my soul is ping, ping, pinging and its well is being filled up. Maybe it’s not just a well, but a recirculating pump — it feeding me and me feeding it, all at the same time.

And then—one would hope—that whatever work comes from the creative surge would spread out to those who see, read or experience it. And that their souls would be fed. And that their own creative process would ignite.

I’m feeling pretty jazzed up this very moment. Off to forge ahead with projects for the day!!

What gets your creative self going?

Thanks to the life coaching of the marvelous Jenn Hayslett and to Caroline Kelso Winegeart of Made Vibrant for helping me to articulate this process! 

All photos are from my trip to visit Kellie Day this summer in her Colorado studio. Enjoy.