When someone asks Julia Cameron, “how can you teach creativity?” she says, “I cannot. I teach people to let themselves be creative.”
That’s quite an optimistic view of life, i.e., to believe that everyone is creative and can create far more interesting things than they normally believe. But, that’s what Julia Cameron believes who is a writer, director, professor among many other things and conducts creativity workshops. In her book The Artist’s Way, she tries to help us become more creative
The Basic Tools:
According to Julia Cameron, there are two pivotal tools in creative recovery: the morning pages and the artist date.
What are these Morning Pages?
These are, simply speaking, a few pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness. Which means, you let all your thoughts and ideas come out in the morning. Let your creative energy flow out without any barriers, without hesitation. After all, there is no wrong way here. Whatever you write, it’s perfect.
And what about The Artist Date?
An Artist Date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist a.k.a. your creative child. It is understandable that at least for some people, it can be frightening to spend quality time with themselves, but it’s important nevertheless. Your artist is a child. And time with a parent really matters. A visit to a great junk store, a solo trip to the beach, an old movie watched alone, a visit to an art gallery – these cost time. And do give your inner artist this much time.
What comes next?
The book next offers a series of exercises which will take quite a few weeks. These exercises are aimed at some of the most basic aspects of one’s life that affects our creativity but are not given enough attention. Whether it’s about fighting the demons in your head or developing a sense of identity or finding strength in times of weakness or keeping a sense of faith – all these questions are rarely articulated and worked upon in our daily experiences. Julia Cameron does that and offers us an insightful journey towards creative freedom.
Kalampedia 