MAKING LIFE A CREATIVE PROJECT

JEREMY SECREST

CREATIVE YOUMAKING LIFE A CREATIVE PROJECT

BY

JEREMY SECREST

©2012 Jeremy SecrestJeremy Secrest Creative

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elec-tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1479315659

Table of Contents. Chapter 1. I’m Not Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7

Chapter 2. What Is Creativity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 17

Chapter 3. Why Creativity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 23

Chapter 4. Creative Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 39

Chapter 5. Creative You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 43

Chapter 6. Creative Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 51

Chapter 7. Creative Launch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 57

Chapter 8. Creative Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 67

Chapter 9. Creative Where? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 73

Chapter 10. Creative Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 79

Chapter 11. Creative Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 83

Chapter 12. Parting Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 93

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Thanks. Thanks to Mark Brendel, Karen Kizlin, Jesse Koepke, Emily Luttrull, Bret Nicholson and Mark Notess for all your help on this project.

Thanks to my parents for serving as inspiration.

Thanks to my lovely wife Joy for encouraging me to write.

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Preface. I’m a professional creative, but when it comes to regular life, I’m something of an idiot.

My childhood was full of creative things like making backyard bike tracks and drawing cartoons. College found me majoring in art and starting a band.

Now, marriage, kids and my early 30’s are here and I still love working on creative projects.

But, as I started to look around, I realized that in the middle of all these fun, creative projects, my daily life was surprisingly...uncreative.

Like a rocket stuck on the launch pad, my creative dreams kept sitting on the couch.

Which got me thinking...I’d like to make life a creative project.

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I’MNOTCREATIVE

Chapter 1

“To cease to think creatively is but little different from ceasing to live.”

- Benjamin Franklin

I’m not creative. I’m not. I admit it. I want to be. But, I’m not.

I’m a “professional” creative. A member of the so-called creative class.

I have a Mac, drink whole bean coffee and wear Chucks.

I do graphic design, majored in art and am technically a paid

songwriter*.

But still, I’m not creative...

about food.

*They were pop-punk songs for a tween band. I never said I was cool.

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It’s my parent’s fault. While creativity was always encouraged in our house, my parents never owned a Mac, neither of them has facial hair and they wouldn’t be considered professional creatives. Mom’s a nurse, Dad likes to garden, and they typically don’t have brain-storming sessions on a whiteboard.

They are post-70’s-Jesus-hippies, they homeschooled me and my sister, and they used to raise chickens. Non-conformist, yes. Professional creatives, no.

But, they’re creative.

My mom is an awesome cook. At least when she’s not making health food.She’s really good. And she really likes doing it. If you called her, introduced yourself and asked if she’d cook you dinner, she’d ask when you’re coming over.

And my Dad, while somehow managing to navigate 56 years of life without changing a single diaper, has a gourmet side that’s full of Chilean bean curd and other things I’ve never heard of and often prefer not to.

My whole family is like that.My wife’s family is too—they can’t get together without at least three kinds of meat, four desserts and cheese dip.

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Then there’s me. I grew up with great food and my parents cooking at least two meals a day for me.

I got nothing.I can make scrambled eggs, pancakes and egg sandwiches.My spaghetti is Prego. That’s pretty much it.I’m not really exaggerating.

It’s not that I can’t—what I’ve tried seems to work. It’s that I don’t. I don’t look at recipes. It doesn’t cross my mind before four p.m. that we even eat dinner in our home. I’m probably subconsciously waiting for my mom to come and start cooking.

But I want to.I want to be awesome. In my mind, I see myself cooking wonder-ful, delicious Italian meals with my own secret ingredients. I see our home being like an Olive Garden commercial with better dia-logue. In this fantasy, there’s a homemade spaghetti sauce recipe handed down for generations through an Italian family that for some reason has made its way into our Irish heritage.

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Except it’s not really about food. Food seems to be a symbol to me of what I consider a creative life.

It’s a picture of creativity in everyday life. My parents are great

cooks, but more so—their daily lives are full of creativity. From

Mom’s table set with fresh flowers from Dad’s garden to their

daily coffee rituals, their lives are creative.

That’s what this book is about.

It’s the idea that everyday life can happen to us or we can happen

to it. Food can be something we just do—hurry up and grab

takeout—or it can be an adventure and expression, much like the

many details of our lives.

You and I both have dreams about the kind of lives we’d like to

live. Everyday lives full of creativity and meaning. Lives we are

engaged in versus lives that just happen to us.

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What about you?

You probably cook better than I do.

But, what’s your deal?

I’m guessing you don’t wake up wishing your life was more

creative, but is there something in your life you wish could be

more artful, unique or inventive?

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My deal is _______

Marriage is like that.

When you’re dating, your relationship is usually full of unique and artful things. You go special places, create special moments and do special things for that special person. Once you’re married and have kids, you’re lucky to have seven minutes alone before you fall asleep.

When you were dating, creativity almost went without saying. Then, over time, what used to be full of romance, expression and energy becomes routine. Creativity gets placed on the back burner. It’s hard to care about creativity in your marriage when you’ve had four hours of sleep, have to change diapers, get a bottle ready, put on Toy Story, pour apple juice and toast waffles while running late for work.

And creativity, like eating vegetables or going to the gym, gets put on the back burner as something that’s good for us, but not important—at least not urgent. Not crucial. You’ll get by.

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In college I was king of getting by.

By the time the first test came in a class that I didn’t care about, I figured out the minimum hours of studying needed to get a B. And that’s what I did—I got by.

With the mounting of responsibilities that adulthood seems to en-joy piling on each year, you kind of figure out the bare minimum you need to do to get by in your marriage. If I help with the kids, work 8 hours and help cook dinner now and then, she won’t get mad at me. If you take care of the kids, keep the house up, work a couple days a week and let him play golf on Saturdays, he isn’t as grouchy with you. While those things can be OK, it’s easy to let that be where it ends.

The problem with just getting by in marriage, or in life, though, is that you know there’s more. And it feels like you’re cheating your-self and others if you’re not really trying.

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One of my favorite movies is Lost Horizon. It was made in 1937 in glorious black and white. It’s about Shan-gri-La, a remote utopian village in the mountains of Tibet where everything is ideal. People get along, are healthy and live for hundreds of years in this beautiful place. A disillusioned diplomat from England stumbles upon it and realizes Shangri-La is what he’s been searching for all his life.

We all have something in us that wants more—not just in a selfish, materialistic kind of way, but in a real way. Songwriter Jon Fore-man asks “we were meant to live for so much more, have we lost our-selves?” It’s like something deep inside us we long for and long to return to, even if we’ve never been there before.

While I don’t think my learning to cook is going to cure any deep longings of the soul, I do think it’s part of moving in the right direction. Creativity, I would propose, points us in a direction we were supposed to be heading all along. It points us to becoming the person we were created to be.

So, I’m going to explore this idea. I’m not an expert. I’m not even very good at it. But I’ve seen it in others, and think it’s possible.Even if you’re not artistic, rich or a resident of Shangri-La.

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WHATIS

CREATIVITY?

Chapter 2

“Creativity is the residue of wasted time.” - Albert Einstein

You’re hiking deep in the heart of the mountains. You’re in an adventure/coming-of-age film a la “Seven Years in Tibet.”You’re searching for an idea...seeking just the right one. Higher and higher you climb, the sky turns dark, clouds roll in and rain begins to pour. Suddenly, the CRACK of thunder. Lightning streaks through the sky straight to your brain.

EUREKA! This is it, a creative idea! Your mystical journey has yielded what you came for.

You can now come back down the mountain and live among us mortals, sharing your inspired idea with the world. You walk slowly through the crowd as people clamor towards you because of your amazing awesomeness.

Creativity is kind of viewed that way sometimes—like a mystical strike of lightning that certain people can receive and others can’t. Maybe you’re born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.

While sure, there are definitely people who drip creativity, classify-ing some as creative and others as not is like classifying some as “normal” and others as not—it depends on your definition.

While there are plenty of definitions for creativity, we’re going to say it like this:

Creativity is unique expression or solution.

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Creativity is expression. Creativity is applying a unique voice, personality, vibe, taste or

aesthetic to whatever in the world it is that you’re currently doing.

It’s a granola mom making cupcakes from seaweed.

It’s a printmaker developing his unique style.

It’s a carpenter putting extra detail into the built-in bookshelves.

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Creativity is solution. Creativity is providing a unique solution to any given situation.

It’s a grandmother substituting an ingredient for milk.

It’s a camper figuring out how to start a fire without a lighter.

It’s a two-year-old learning how to stack blocks.

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Creativity is unique. Unique is a unique word, isn’t it? It carries baggage with it. We sometimes think that to be unique, we have to do something like combine ice cream and chili peppers to see what happens. We think it’s creating something the world has never seen, something weird or bizarre—like a mustached pig.

While a mustached pig is certainly unique, unique can also mean no one does it quite like you. Maybe your chimichanga recipe is similar to others, but your family eats them out of sombreros. Maybe you just wear a sombrero while eating them—or while eating out.

Unique is less about bringing the weird and more about bringing the you.

Creativity is expression and solution—and uniquely applying yourself to either or both of them.

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Why does this matter? It matters because it means that creativity is universal. It applies to

everyone. You have the ability to express and to solve problems.

Left brain, right brain, Moleskin or Mickey Mouse. No matter your

associations with it, even if you think it’s weird or sissy, creativity is

within your grasp as long as you’d consider yourself at least loosely

lined up with the human race.

Congrats, you’re creative.

So is everyone else.

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Images.

Flourishes and fifties style illustrations courtesy of Wegraphics.net

Author photo courtesy of Joy Secrest

Other images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (UnitedStatesPublicDomain)*

* Many of the Wikimedia Commons images used in this book are from a special col-lectionofillustrationsfromtheBibliothèquenationaledeFrancebyVillemardfrom1910imaginingwhatlifewouldbelikeintheyear2000.

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About me.

I’m a graphic designer, songwriter and author.I write about creativity and making life a creative project.

I want to help people create, and this book is a step in that direction.

Blog:jeremysecrest.com

Book web page: creativeyoubook.com

Twitter:@jeremysecrest

Facebook:Facebook.com/jeremysecrestcreative

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www.jeremysecrest.com

MAKING LIFEA CREATIVE PROJECT

Why Creativity?

Creativity can seem...flowery,or something reserved for the lovers,

the dreamers and people with less to do than you.

But what if daily life could be creative?What if creativity could make a tangible difference

in your work, relationships and spaghetti?

I’m a professional creative, but when it comes to regular life

I’m something of an idiot.In the middle of various fun, creative projects,

I realized my daily life was surprisingly...uncreative.Which got me thinking...

I’d like to make life a creative project.

Creative You is for those of us looking to be more creative,

but who feel stuck on the launch pad. Applying principles of creativity I’ve learned

as a graphic designer and songwriter, it offers a framework to both understand and launch creativity in your daily life.

www.creativeyoubook.com