 “Being stuck is an important part of the creative process – every great creative advance has been preceded by being stuck. And it’s staying with that, and then suddenly you see it differently. You discover that… there are different forces at play here than what I thought, and there are different barriers, and some of the barriers that I was fighting against, they don’t even exist! They’re just a construct.” Roger Nierenberg is a conductor who has enjoyed long tenures as Music Director of both The Jacksonville Symphony (Florida) and the Stamford Symphony (Connecticut). His conducting work has brought him to the podium of The London Philharmonic, The Residentie Orkest, The New Zealand Symphony, The National Symphony, and the symphony orchestras of cities across the US, and he has collaborated with musicians from more than one hundred orchestras around the world. Roger is also the creator of The Music Paradigm, an interactive learning experience that brings teams into the orchestra rehearsal process to discover critical lessons about leadership and teamwork. Participants are seated directly amongst the orchestra musicians where they gain fresh understandings about the opportunities and challenges faced by their own organization. Over the past twenty years, Nierenberg has presented to hundreds of different organizations, from civic groups to Fortune 500 companies, in two dozen different countries. The lessons and experience of The Music Paradigm are shared in a narrative account through the book, Maestro: A Surprising Story about Leading By Listening. To follow Roger, you can find him on Twitter @rogernierenberg or on Facebook at The Music Paradigm. 

Everyday Creative People

Roger Nierenberg on music, conducting, and what it can teach us about leadership

 This week I got to interview a dear friend and a true renaissance soul, Kristin Richardson Jordan, about her work as a social justice poet and in particular her most recent book of poetry, Water and Light: Choose Love Now. Kristin is a book printing poet, writer, teaching artist, whose work is driven by an activist spirit. She grew up in the historically black neighborhood of Harlem, New York, and draws a great source of inspiration from the deep roots of activism, community, and artistic excellence in this community. She is the daughter of two physicians who worked extremely hard and overcame great obstacles to become minority physicians and who strive to serve their communities and help those underserved and underrepresented in health and science. Kristin graduated from Brown University in 2009 with a BA in Black Studies (“Africana”) and Literary Arts. To learn more about Kristin and her work, you can check out her websites below: * kristinrichardsonjordan.com: Kristin’s personal website* Pensup.com: the home of Kristin’s publishing company for “literary activists”

Kristin Richardson Jordan on choosing love

 Photo credit: Stéphan Ballard Kofi Oduro is a creative coder, creative engineer, thinker, poet, and performer living in Montreal, Quebec (my new hometown!). In this week’s episode, we take a dive into computer science and finding creative fulfillment when you’re also a math geek. Kofi fills me in on the intersections of live coding, video, AI, spoken word poetry, music, and “algoraves,” an event where people dance to music created by algorithms. Turns out, math is at the foundation of pretty much everything we do. Kofi uses Videography, Poetry and Creative Coding, to highlight the realms of the human performance and the human mind in social, internal, or even biological scenarios which we face in our everyday lives. You can check out his work at kofioduro.myportfolio.com and follow him on Instagram at Illest Preacha. 

Kofi Oduro on finding creativity in unexpected places

 Ben Falcon paints custom bicycles, motorcycles, and more. Having felt constrained by the opportunities available to him as an architecture student, Ben sought out something that would enable him to do more hands-on work. He found it in custom painting. In this week’s episode, Ben and I discuss how he stumbled upon this niche career, what he would do if he weren’t doing custom painting, and what it’s like to run a custom paint business in New York City. Ben has worked with some of the finest bicycle frame builders in the world. After fine tuning his trade at the leading purveyors of custom at Seven Cycles outside of Boston, he moved out west to establish the state of the art wet paint department for Chris King in Portland, OR before ultimately landing in Brooklyn, NY, where he is currently devoting his talents to the paint enterprise at the Brooklyn-based Horse Cycles Paint. To learn more about Ben’s work and follow along with his projects, check out benfalcon.com and find him on Instagram @benfalconpaint. 

Ben Falcon on painting bikes, playing with legos, and working in New York City

 This week I caught up with Vessna Scheff, an emotive, abstract painter and musician living in Philadelphia. Vessna has the attitude of a perpetual student, and has jumped into her creative pursuits more than once with little to no formal training! In this episode, Vessna shares her incredible journey to becoming a working artist, and the attitudes, approaches, and beautiful moments of magic that got her there. Vessna combines sounds, movement and color to create encompassing performances. Her work is inspired by stories of social and personal revolution and resilience, and seeks to fully celebrate the small yet powerful moments of freedom we experience within struggles. Utilizing water as a main tool of creation and source of inspiration, Scheff energizes large brushstrokes and mixed media to add depth and dimension to her works on paper. On stage, she merges sounds with colors in an empowering and colorful musical and visual performance. To learn more about Vessna, see her paintings, and follow along with her work, you can visit her website vessnascheff.com, or follow her on Instagram @vessnascheff.

Vessna Scheff, on following your heart

 This week I chatted with artist, educator, consultant and coach Stephanie Simpson about the interplay between stress and creativity, and how to nourish and draw on the power of our full human selves. Drawing on her background in movement, meditation, and psychology, Stephanie guides people to achieve their greatest potential by nurturing the connection between the mind, body, and spirit. With a focus on helping people find their true balance and align with their authentic selves, Stephanie empowers them to live their lives unapologetically and to the fullest. An RYT-200 Hour Certified Yoga Instructor, Stephanie holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Emerson College and an MFA in Dance Performance/Choreography from Smith College. She is currently an MA degree candidate at Columbia University Teachers College in the Clinical Psychology program with an emphasis in Spirituality, Mind, Body and a focus in Organizational Change. Stephanie presents and consults for businesses nationwide, bringing her expertise and passion for helping people thrive to audiences and organizations seeking to realize their fullest potential. Most recently, she launched her 21 Day Stress Management Program to help people redefine how they respond to stress. It comes with a cool guide to help you learn all kinds of stress management techniques that harness your creativity, awaken your body, and more! You can learn more about her work at stephanie-simpson.com, and follow her on Facebook (Stephanie Simpson Coaching) or Instagram (Stephanie.e.Simpson).

Stephanie Simpson on Creative Stress Management

 “Leaning into a beginners mindset is really helpful for me. I have some [internal] stories that I need to be great at everything, and a lot of times that keeps me from leaning into creativity where I can just be curious about what I’m capable of. Not only in seeing what that first version is and almost how bad it is – because I do have a sense of taste, and can tell like, wow what I just made really isn’t great – but also being able to say, ‘If I practice this, if I really lean into doing this… I can see where that can head, where that can lead.'” Todd Emaus is an executive coach and organizational consultant, working with founders and leaders as they seek to scale their organizations without losing their soul. He’s founded startups, raised venture capital, and burnt out in the process. All of these have been powerful teachers for supporting leaders in his work today. In this episode, Todd and I talked about the role of play, connection, and belonging in business and in life. You can learn more about Todd and his work at toddemaus.com, and follow him on Twitter @ToddEmaus. 

Todd Emaus on the role of play, connection, and belonging in business

 Heather Kirtland and Marissa Huber are two artists and mothers, who happen to be the dynamic duo behind the Instagram community Carve Out Time for Art and blog by the same name (COTFA for short). The goal of COTFA is to cultivate a positive and nurturing community for creatives who want to find time to satisfy this part of their identity – a perfect match for Everyday Creative People! Some of the things we talked about included: * The power of self talk and the importance of choosing to claim your own creative identity * How motherhood impacted both Heather and Marissa as artists* How to make art amidst a busy life, even (especially) if you don’t have a dedicated space to do it in Marissa founded Carve Out Time for Art in 2015 after the frustration of being told she’d never have time to create once she had children. She didn’t want to give up on her own dreams and felt being a mother made her a better artist. She set off to interview women who were making it work, and unintentionally created a community of artists. She teamed up with Heather Kirtland that same year to start writing a book on artist mothers, and they became partners in writing and in creative shenanigans for their COTFA community. Marissa Huber is an artist, writer, designer, connector, and mother who lives in South Florida with her husband and two children. By day, she uses her interior design background as an Occupancy Planner, where she plays Tetris with space and is a friendly hostage negotiator for offices. You can visit her at marissahuber.com or follow her on Instagram and Pinterest, both @marissahuber. Heather Kirtland currently teaches encaustic workshops and is focused on her own studio practice. She was awarded The Maryland State Arts Council Grant and was a resident artist at The Holt Center. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, abroad in Italy and Wales, and in Modern Home and Country Living UK magazines.  Heather recently moved from Baltimore to a more rural part of Maryland where she lives with her husband and two children and Luna their rescue dog.  When she is not painting she loves to read, run and encourage other mothers to find a creative outlet through Carve Out Time for Art. You can check her out at heatherkirtland.com or on Instagram @heatherkirtland. 

Carving out time for art with Heather Kirtland and Marissa Huber

 “I never thought of myself as being creative. But at a certain point I needed to tell stories out loud on stage. And part of that was because some of the social justice work I was doing, I felt people needed to change something more than their logic about things. You know, racism is illogical, but I felt like we had to get beyond that, that you couldn’t rationalize it. And also that emotionally, some people just feel different things along those lines. And so my storytelling was a way for me to put something out there that was rational in thought, but also had emotion and could move the spirit and that’s where I hit on it: that being artistic means you touch people’s spirit. And so I started to come to terms at like, oh, maybe I am creative, maybe I am artistic, because I want to move and touch people’s spirit.” Rosita Choy has spent her career of more than two and a half decades dedicated to social justice nonprofit work, with an emphasis on immigrant rights, racial equity, and anti-poverty. She’s been on staff for organizations such as the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, and Amnesty International. Rosita is now an independent consultant and coach helping to promote healthy and sustainable organizations and work cultures. She specializes in burn-out prevention and recovery. She is also a public storyteller who performs on stage as “Una China Latina,” spinning tales about growing up immigrant and Chinese in Chicano L.A. To learn more about Rosita and follow her work, you can check out her website RositaChoy.com, or follow her on Facebook. If you’re in the DC area you can also attend her upcoming workshop on April 9th titled “Enduring Idealism: A Workshop on Surviving Nonprofits.” 

Claiming your creativity (and recovering from burnout) with Rosita Choy

 “I’ve worked with kids all my life, but when I became a mother myself, I realized how babies, that’s the first thing they do before they even talk, you know, they just play and tinker. And that’s how they understand the world and how they learn. And then as, we grow older, play is our favorite way of coming up with new ideas, and… play often becomes social. So you start playing with others. And it’s a key way, actually, for us to develop empathy, and connect with the people who we play with. Because the thing that happens with play is that, when you’re playing, you’re in what we call this ‘magic circle.’ So it’s this invisible boundary set by the rules of the play and you’re present, you’re connected, you’re equalized, you’re kind of ready to listen and learn from each other.” Chloe Varelidi is the founder of humans who play, a new design firm with offices in Washington and (soon Nairobi) that uses play as a force for good. Prior to starting her own practice she was part of the early teams at the Institute of Play, Quest to Learn, the Mozilla Foundation and littleBits where as a play designer she launched everything from top rated apps, to franchise products for Marvel & Disney, to a public school featured on the cover of the NYT Magazine.  Chloe has won multiple awards for her work along the way, including some from ISTE, TOTY (toy of the year) and Common Sense Media. She is recognized as one of the GOOD100 for shaping the world in meaningful and creative ways and frequently lectures about harnessing play as a force for innovation and doing good. Chloe is an Adjunct Professor at The Corcoran School of Art & Design where she teaches Interaction Design. To learn more about Chloe and her work, check out her website humans who play and follow her on Instagram at @humanswhoplay. You can also view some of her previous work at varelidi.com. 

The Power of Play with Chloe Varelidi

 Steve Lucin is a creative entrepreneur who helps passionate visionaries bring in more cash to their businesses through creativity. Lucin pulls his technical design, motion graphics, and entrepreneurial skills from running his own entertainment and nightlife creative business, Halucinated Design, Inc. He was the VRFX supervisor at Michael Bay’s 451 Media, where he oversaw the creation of VR/360 (Virtual Reality) content from creative to post-production. He also animated many of the original 451 motion comics.Since then he has decided to pursue his personal mission in life, which is to uplift his community through creativity and to show people that life should be spent enjoying themselves, exploring, and learning. He does so by developing passionate individuals in his community through the nonprofit that he is building, Support Creativity. His third brand, Legacy Greek, focuses on strategy, branding, and marketing for community-driven fraternities and sororities. At night he likes to animate and mix video live to electronic dance music as a VJ. He has performed visuals at NYC nightclubs such as House of Yes, Verboten (now Schimanski), Space Ibiza NY, Cielo, Jump Into The Light VR Play Lab, and Electric Zoo Festival.

Lifting up community through creativity, with Steve Lucin

 Katie Visco, who has been called a “bubbly and offbeat running, biking, soup-making, people-loving, community-building exclamation mark,” loves peoples’ stories, healthy and delicious food, traveling, and human-powered adventures. In 2009, promoting the importance of a bold and passion-driven life, Katie ran solo across America, from Boston to San Diego, and became the 2nd youngest and 13th woman overall to make the crossing. During, and the year after her transAmerican crossing, she raised funds for the charity, Girls on the Run, and also stopped to visit more than two hundred audiences en route to spread her message to young and old alike. Running has been a versatile cornerstone of her wellbeing for years, and she especially loves the trails! Katie also has 10+ years of experience as a community-builder and entrepreneur. She has started eight businesses and campaigns, and is currently the proud owner and soup maestra behind Hot Love Soup, a soup and bone broth delivery company in both Austin, Texas and Missoula, Montana. She hails from Glen Ellyn, IL, a suburb of Chicago, and is a 2007 Economics graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Visco lives and works to see courage, community, and true connection happen in this world. Besides trail running, biking, creating delicious food, and traveling, Katie loves her husband and family very much and enjoys getting to hear the stories of others. She’s been writing since she was six and hopes to publish a book one day. She’s stoked to share her journeys with you in hopes that you will glean something special from them for your own growth and joy!

Curiosity, Courage, and Taking Big Leaps with Katie Visco

 “I believe that as we’re being creative, sometimes we really have to practice creativity, as opposed to wait for creativity. And I found that that’s such a powerful practice for me when I’m working with young people, because part of my job is to hear terrible things all the time. And to make those things playable. And it’s really, really hard. It’s really hard and scary to play with things that you don’t think you can play with. And in drama therapy, and in developmental transformations, we are talking about, how do I play with grief? How do I play with death? How do I play with sexual assault? How do I play with domestic violence? And I want to be clear, when I say the word play, that I’m not saying, this isn’t mocking, and I’m not making fun of people with these things. I really mean, how can I help loosen some of this trauma that gets locked in our bodies? And how can I do that, using the dramatic medium?” Rebecca is a mental health therapist specializing in working with adolescents and adults with trauma of all kinds. A former singer and actor, Rebecca found her way to drama therapy through her first degree in Drama Education. When she’s not pretending to be an anaconda or a ninja, Rebecca enjoys weightlifting, yoga, and hanging out with her puppies and birds. Yes, people who keep birds as pets are odd.  She knows. Someday Rebecca will get a PhD to study trauma and play. Also someday, she’ll go back to writing short plays. Until then, she’ll keep building spaceships while being forced to finish her math homework (for pretend). To learn more about Rebecca and follow her work, you can check out her website (and soon-to-be blog and podcast) at therapyaltered.com, follow her on Instagram at TheMentalAthlete and TherapyAltered, or shoot her an email at rebecca.davis@me.com. 

When Creativity is Hard with Rebecca Davis

 “Creativity goes hand in hand with emotional intelligence. The more self aware we are, the more we practice self awareness and empathy and all these things, the more we’re able to be resilient, the more we’re able to unleash that creativity inside of us. A lot of times in our workshops, we get people that say, oh, we’re not creative, or, you know, I’m just not a creative person, and they have a lot of what we call limiting beliefs about themselves. And oftentimes, after going through our workshops, they’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize I had that in me! I didn’t realize I could be creative, I didn’t realize I already am creative. I just didn’t know that!’ And so, you know, it’s just amazing to see the amount of creativity that is unleashed as people work on their emotional intelligence skills.” Saleema Vellani is the Co-Founder and COO of Innovazing, an education and leadership development firm that strives to help organizations cultivate more impactful leaders. Innovazing uses emotional intelligence tools and techniques, based on neuroscience, in its highly customized programs for social enterprises, nonprofits, higher education, Fortune 500 companies, and government agencies. Aside from launching 5 fast-growing ventures across 4 countries, she has also provided consulting for over 12 years to a wide spectrum of organizations.  Saleema is passionate about empowering the developing world through technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Earlier in her career, Saleema co-founded a nonprofit language school in Brazil, which is currently the nation’s top-rated and largest Portuguese school. Recently, Saleema co-led an award-winning, groundbreaking study at the World Bank on how existing climate-smart food production technologies, such as hydroponics and aquaponics, can be adapted and simplified to tackle food insecurity while increasing livelihoods for refugees and engaging the private sector in water-scarce countries. Saleema teaches Entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is a faculty member of Mavasive Leadership Institute. She also co-leads the World Bank Group’s largest and most inclusive mentoring program for the Youth-2-Youth Community and is the Career Advisory Networks Co-Chair of SWAN, the SAIS Women’s Alumni Network.  Saleema has spent her life between Canada, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Italy, and the USA and is fluent in five languages.

Leadership and Innovation with Saleema Vellani

 At long last, Everyday Creative People has returned for a second season! Here’s my brief introduction to set the stage for what’s to come. Stay tuned for the first interview, coming next Monday! 

Welcome back for Season 2!

Everyday Creative People is a series of conversations and interviews exploring what it means to live a life driven by curiosity, creativity, and love, over fear. Through sharing our own journeys, we hope to inspire listeners to (re)discover their inner leader, tap into their creative potential, and welcome the challenging moments of learning and transition in the pursuit of a well-lived life. If you're seeking to live and lead more powerfully, we invite you to listen in as we reflect on our own experiences, explore new resources, and chat with artists, leaders, and entrepreneurs who are findi

hubhopper

Everyday Creative People

hubhopper