Search Results for: creative spark

Maria came to the Mansion with me Friday, she is going to be teaching a monthly art class. I’m planning to start my one on one reading class, seeking to revive minds, memory and reading.

Come inside this class yesterday, and watch as we seek to keep the creative spark alive in beautiful people struggling to keep their memories and imagination vibrant and alive. Come and see from the inside for a bit.

The Kabbalah says that the fierce power of imagination is believed to be a gift from God. Joined with the grandeur of the mind, fueled by the creative spark, the potency of ethical depth, and the natural sense of the divine, imagination thus becomes an instrument of the holy spirit.

(The new Bedlam Farm photos-for-sale gallery is now up on the blog. The photos there (including this one) are for sale.)

Rachel Barlow, an illustrator, author and painter, has launched a desperately needed and wonderful project for the refugee children called draw.paint.create.  It is designed to help children who have recently come to America and are struggling to deal with enormous cultural and practical challenges.

She is seeking to raise $900 to get these creativity kids into the hands of refugee trauma victims.

These are the children in the greatest need.

They have lost almost everything in their lives, have few friends. In many cases – there are language, money, transportation, trauma,  and other barriers to a normal life – these children have lost their culture and means of natural expression.

Barlow, a well-known Vermont artist and writer,  has designed art kids for children who are sometimes housebound, sometimes in foster care, have yet to acclimate to their new world, or are recovering from trauma.

So many are.

Recently, I met a young girl from Syria who is eight years old. She has been in America for a few months, thanks mostly to the U.N. Refugee program. Her father was killed in a bombing raid, her mother was burned to death in a religious execution.

She and other children like her are in dire need, they are here legally, they pose no threat of any kind to Americans or their families.

This girl speaks little English, has no friends of yet, and her foster parents are afraid to let her go out of the house alone, they are frightened by the new politics of immigration, and the sense that they are not wanted here. They hear of attacks on immigrants all over the country, and fear they have stumbled into yet another nightmare. I would say to them that that what our country is about.

This girl’s foster parents are terrified they may not be able to stay here themselves, and they have no idea what her fate would be if they come to harm.

This young girl draws all the time, but has no real artistic tools, and the kits Rachel are assembling  will give her the tools she needs to draw, sketch and paint – brushes, paper, pencils and markers,  ideas. She and her foster parents are afraid to have her photographed.

Rachel wants to get 60 of these tools into the hands of children who have recently arrived in America. She has already made a dozen or so of these kits, she is seeking the $900 to make all 60.

It is hard for me to imagine a better cause, many of us have been contributing to the Refugee Gift Page set up by the U.S. Committee on Refugees And Immigration, this work is targeted very precisely on some of the new Americans with the greatest need. These children have suffered greatly, are in a strange and sometimes hostile environment, and spent much of their time alone or inside.

There is considerable evidence that creative expression is a powerful healing element in trauma care. Creative work is more than entertainnent, it is a way for these children to build their confidence, improve cognitive development, communicate with their peers, and occupy their time in a meaningful and productive way. These are not kids who have grown up glued to screens and Facebook.

I am aware that this community is not wealthy, nor am I, it is sometimes difficult to know what to give to or what to do.

My belief is that rather than arguing,  I wish to do good every day in one way or another. Sometimes it involves money, sometimes support and listening and compassion. A friend of mine keeps asking me what I will do down the road when things get to a turning point.

I told him I am not concerned with what I might do down the road, but with what I am doing right now.

These children are at the epicenter of human identity for me, if we cannot help innocent and suffering children, then our hearts have turned to stone and we have lost our sense of humanity. This for me is about the celebration of a noble spirit, our own individual ideas of social justice, our highest human potential.

It is not about what politicians say or do, or what the left or the right says or does. It is about what I say and do and feel. Moral choice is about individuality, not the group or the mob. I have to respect the face I see in the mirror every morning.

I wish to help these children right now. I want them to know they are loved and cared for.

In my own life, I have seen the power of the creative spark to liberate and transform people. In the Kabbalah, God says the only thing human beings ought fear is to fail to light the creative spark within them. Here, we can help children to light it for themselves. You can donate any amount you wish to the draw.paint.create program designed by an artist who knows whereof she speaks, creative work has lifted her out of trauma, abuse and depression. You can use Paypal or major credit cards.  $5 is as good as $100.

This week, I am going to do all I can to try to get Rachel the money she needs to complete this very great work.

She is in touch with refugee volunteer workers in New York State, they will make sure these kits get into the right hands. I thank her for doing this, I thank you for listening.

I call people like Abrah Griggs “Creative Facilitators,” they help people like me, and perhaps you, connect the creative forces within us to the world outside of us, she is one of those rare and very gifted people who are themselves intensely creative but who have also mastered the varied new technologies that help us take the great leap of faith and put our ideas out in the world.

In a sense, Steve Jobs was the inventor of this kind of creative angel, he made the tools that make it possible for me to be an author and photograph, and share, store and distribute my work. I know little of how these tools work, but I know they are the path for me, and for my future.

Abrah is an artist and illustrator who is also a book compositor, e-book designer and blogger, she connects people to the online sites – like Create Space –  that can show and share their work and find an audience. Her new blog In My Nature, is a poignant and beautiful testament to her creativity and her promise.

I believe Abrah and people like her are the future of the new creativity, combining writing, artistry, design and other traditional arts with people – like me – who need them and want them – but struggle to keep up these wonderful new ways of community.

This is the future for people who once needed big publishing houses and galleries to sell their work, but who can now make a living embracing change and new ways of thinking about creativity and technology. We don’t need middlemen to approve our stories and voices, we can put them out in the world now by ourselves and make our own destiny. That is the story of my blog.

We can rot and get moldy and lament the lost good old days, which were never that good, or move forward.

Abrah Griggs is a warrior for this kind of change. Her art is wonderful as well, and when she is not creating e-books and designing books and cards and  catalogues, she is out in nature, observing and writing about it. The future is right here, and creative people do not have to wait months and years to be rejected by editors, academics, publishers and galleries – they can put their good work right out in the world and reach countless numbers of people.

I met Abrah in the most interesting way, I went on a local website to defend a friend and myself from the kinds of cowardly and snarky attacks that are a sad but inevitable part of the Internet now, and I replied to one of the anonymous posters. A day or so later, I got a message from Abrah, she was one of those posters, that kind of thing, she said, was not really her and she didn’t want to be on that site any longer.

She joined the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm and is moving ahead with her brilliant skills. I met Abrah in October when she came to our Open House. She was impressive, shy, gifted, profoundly connected to the natural world, and the new world of personal publishing. I had the sense she was a bit uncomfortable meeting me, that happens a lot, but we will get passed it. Perhaps we already did.

I thought it was one of the classiest messages I have ever received. It reaffirmed my belief that human connections often prevail over the raging hostility that passes for dialogue in the minds of many people, and once we see one another as humans, and not as labels or stereotypes, we can permit ourselves to be human.

When I saw Abrah’s original and surprising work – she loves to draw idiosyncratic spiders and bugs –  I knew she was absolutely correct about herself, her creative spark was revealed.It is a great joy to spread the word about someone like Abrah, she is the real deal, she will go as far as she wishes to go.

She is on the right path, cranking out wonderful work almost daily and helping to connect creatives with the new tools of the wider world. And if you have creative work inside of you, as I believe everyone does, think about setting it free, with Abrah or anyone else who can help you do it.

I highly recommend checking out her ideas, her art and her new blog, In My Nature. There, you’ll find a wonderful sketch on her Musings page, it is of a dragonfly with the caption that reads “If You Rest In The Sunshine, Long Enough, You’ll Fly Again…” and above it, the heading, “I’ve Rested Long Enough…”

I love that sentiment and commend it highly.  Me, too, I thought before I changed my life.  I hope she will sell this piece to me. Abrah has rested long enough, she is flying now. You can see her blog and work here.