VIM Blogging Assignment

I'm part of an Ebay group called Vitality Imagination Marketing. Otherwise known as VIM. One of the member has organized a blogging group and we get a weekly assignment of a word or phrase, etc. This week's was an interview.

1. What's your day job? Well, I actually have two part-time jobs. One is as the worship coordinator for my church. I plan the services and lead a portion of the service with the praise band. My other job is selling items online. I sell various sundries under the name northdixiesmiles on Ebay, and folk art creations under Northdixie Designs on Ebay on The Humble Arts website (links are on the top right of this page)

2. How do you define Creativity? How does it look in your life? Oh, my goodness. I could write a LOT about this one. It could be it's own blog entry. Hmmmm. Well, it looks very messy! Seriously, creativity is a response to what is happening in the world around me. It may be a unique solution to a problem, a statement, etc. It's taking disparate parts that really look like nothing and making something that stands on its own. It's adding a twist to the already known.

3. What allows you to be the most creative? Time and space and dialogue with other people. Usually I'm responding to something I've seen or experienced in the world. Example - I went to the Metropolitan Museum and The American Folk Museum in New York City in January. A lot of the things I am making right now are a response to that experience. Or last September I went to Lucy's Doll House in Camden, Maine, to see an Izannah Walker doll. Since then a lot of my dolls have been directly about that experience. I'm having a kind of question answer session while making dolls with Izannah that spans from 1850 to 2007. So I may start with a question about a particular Izannah doll, and then my creation is a response to that doll. And of course, they never actually look like hers - they're inspired by hers.

At the Met I was so overwhelmed that I just decided to focus on 2 rooms and really look at some Renaissance paintings. Particularly the angels. I have some ideas for creations based on that experience. So I guess the necessary ingredients are time, space, and other artists (dead or alive) ;-)

4. When did you start blogging? What prompted you to start?
I started blogging in November of 2006, I think. It was the experience of visiting the Izannah Walker doll at Lucy's Doll House in Camden, Maine. It was such a wonderful, life-changing thing for me.

5. Who/what are your major influences and inspirations in your blogging? Well, I mentioned Annie Beez. She's the first one that I stumbled on last fall. Then earlier this year Maryann on VIM started the blogging group. But the major influence on what I blog about is what I'm learning about at the time - through books, other artists, etc.

6. How does blogging reflect (and/or feed) your creativity? I process my own creativity in this on-line journal. And it's a kind of conversation with an unknown audience.