LCN 044: A Conversation with Amy & Maya of The Creativity Caravan

I have a special treat for you this week! Podcast listeners know that most of my episodes are monologues: me, and only me, talking about all kinds of things related to living a full-color creative life.

Occasionally, though, I bring on a guest. I ask lots of questions, of course, but I see these guest calls as conversations, as opposed to interviews — it’s about the ideas flowing back and forth between us.

Today I’m excited to share with you a three-way conversation that wasn’t originally supposed to be on the podcast.

One of the things I do in my Creative Sandbox membership community is bring special guests in to talk with the group in a live, video conference room. Creative Sandbox members can listen in live, ask questions and join the conversation. And of course I record these conversations and put them in a special archive in our membership site, so members who aren’t able to join us live can watch and listen to the entire thing after the fact.

Last week I brought in two guests, partners in work and life, Amy Tingle and Maya Stein, who run The Creativity Caravan. Our conversation was so rich that I asked Amy and Maya for their permission to share it on the podcast.

So not only do you get a three-way conversation this week, you also get a peek into one piece of the Creative Sandbox! 🙂

It’s a long one this week—an hour and 22 minutes—but the conversation kept Creative Sandbox members engaged for the entire time. Here are some of the things we talked about:

• People’s different palettes of expression.
• The epidemic of “I’m not creative.”
• The craziness of conflating creativity with drawing.
• Feedback allows you to take off your “hyper-critical gremlin glasses,” and see your work through someone else’s glasses.
• The importance of “reducing the real estate” (the size of your sketchbook, the word-count you shoot for, or the amount of time you commit each day).
• Amy and Maya’s big projects, including the Tiny Book Show, Type-Rider and Type-Rider II.
• Letting go of knowing what comes next, and allowing it to be revealed as you go.
• The challenge of never being able to express yourself perfectly, but trying to get as close as you can.
• How Amy and Maya curate an idea board, to create a map of their next adventure.
• The importance of finding the right form, or “container,” for your project, but form doesn’t determine whether something is art or not.
• How Maya’s childhood language-learning experience informed her relationship with words.

Three Books from the Tiny Book Show

Quotes from this Episode

On the common misconception that being artistic equates with drawing realistically: “It’s not about drawing, it’s about drawing out.” -Amy

“Just because we’ve had a lot of practice doesn’t mean that we aren’t frightened.” -Maya

“Probably 9 and 8/9ths out of 10, you’re going to get a positive response.” -Maya

“You can’t express yourself creatively without being vulnerable.” -Maya (Click to tweet!)

“I’m not trying to be anything, I’m just trying.” -Amy

“What’s happening now that feels like a ‘yes’? Because the yes is taking us places that we don’t know yet.” -Maya

“You just don’t know until you do, so you just keep doing what you know, until something is revealed to you.” -Maya

“It’s not going to be exact. I’m gonna try to get it as close as I can.” -Maya

“Spread the haha’s like the flu.” Quote from a book in #TheCreativityCaravan’s #TinyBookShow.

“Why do we do what we do? Why do we move towards the things that we love? I really believe it’s because we need help with them ourselves. We teach or we do what we need to learn.” -Maya (Click to tweet!)

Resources from this Episode

The Creativity Caravan

Maya’s 10-Line Tuesday poems

My post on the only difference between artists and everybody else

Find classes with Maya and Amy here.

The Tiny Book Show

Type-Rider and Type-Rider II

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

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Now go get creating!

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