Creating space
The Creative Magic Workshop was a collaborative workshop initially for designers to reflect our skills, our strengths, our creative emotions, and our design ethos. I later opened it up to other people - musicians, scientists, non designers.
“Our lives are short, rare, interesting, miraculous wonderful, while we’re here we want to make interesting things.” - E. Gilbert
It was easily common for budding professionals to put immense pressure on ourselves, to feel burnt out or to doubt our own creative process. We forget that “our creative process is both magical and magic.” This workshop allows us to reclaim our creative confidence through making.
The objective of the workshop was to create that excitement that encompasses the environment. It would allow people to get excited to create, think, reflect, and share inspired by their surroundings. I broke down the workshop into 3 sections; food, space, and activity.
Food + Drinks: Nourishment and hydration as luxury
I came across this quote from Austin Kleon, and it stuck with me ever since. “ A place should feed you socially, spiritually, psychologically, creatively, and literally.” A productive mind needs brain food and this workshop needed to feed its participants.
Breathing Space
“Great indoors should mimic the great outdoors to improve people’s lives–an insight that is backed up with increasing amounts of research.” (Fast Co). I surrounded the space with houseplants and I arranged them so that they would encompass us while we worked, like a garden. Creating a beautiful and intentional breathing space was necessary for inspiring minds.
Activity
Each person received a Creative Magic toolkit that guided them through this workshop and beyond if they wanted to research on their own time. Most of our time was spent on Letters to Your Creative Emotions, Recognize Your Strengths, and Develop Your Ethos.
Letters to Your Creative Emotions
They wrote letters and addressed their creative emotions Stress, Fear, Love, Ambition, and Hope. They addressed these emotions as if they were real, living people. This might seem strange but it was easier to form thoughts into words if we wrote to a person instead of an intangible thing. This method allows us to clearly understand our perspective -near and far.
Recognize Your Strengths
How many of us can name our weaknesses but when it comes to recognizing our strengths, we hesitate? When we are honest with our strengths, we are mindful about the activities we choose. My participants reflected on their strengths and wrote each on Post It’s.
