Wednesday, November 25, 2009

cre8tiVIty N nuMbErS & tHe CaN DO spIRiT


So excited when I get the opportunity to get out and interact with other creative souls during our workshops. We had the most beautiful backdrop to our 'Natural Gifts' and 'Mosaic Toadstools' demonstrations this past Saturday in New York at the Mohonk Mountain House. The weather was incredible, the view out our conference room window was naturally refreshing and the participants were lively and fun! Can't ask for more than that. The best part is always watching how everyone goes about things and I inevitably walk away learning something new, myself. I was even inspired by the different structures and fencing that surrounded us that were brilliantly created simply by utilizing the fallen trees from their forests.



A big thanks to our friends at Dremel, Eclectic Products, and Liquitex for sharing some of their amazing products with our guests. It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who have never touched a tool before or who are unfamiliar with things like jewelry pliers, woodburners, or artist acrylics. They are always so eager to try and the looks on their faces when they successfully have a go at something new is priceless.







I get challenged all the time to only share projects and ideas that are simple, do not involve any tools and to cater to 'the majority can't or won't do it' mentality. Now while I respect the guidance, with my own ventures I generally choose to not go that direction and instead follow my own instincts and beliefs. How else are we to elevate people to that can-do, resourceful, confident place without exposing them to the options that are out there and the different ways they can be utilized. I have way more faith in people's natural abilities than that and I am also confident that the more we all know how to do or at least 'believe' we can do, the better. Doesn't everyone want that empowerment, that sense of self-reliance to some degree? It's not even so much about the actual use of the tool per say, as it is about each and every one of us embracing the 'can-do spirit'. It's a beautiful thing.
It always brings me back to some of the words by Emerson in one of his pieces titled 'Self-Reliance'.
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
"A man is relieved and merry when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."


Cheers to self-reliance and a can-do spirit! For those, I am thankful.
michele.

1 comment:

Meghan said...

Thank you for being you and providing us with great ideas and inspiration. THANK YOU!!!!