Creativity Connections

Book excerpt: Bringing art into one's life brings a sense of joy and contemplation. Art can bring even more: it can bring a sense of tranquility, empowerment, and emotional release, and it help you orient yourself within the world around you. The CREATIVITY CONNECTIONS book is designed to help you connect through artistic expression in order to promote wellness by bringing more beauty, and more appreciation for beauty, into everyday living. The creativity connections method explains how, regardless of your perceived skill or prior work in art, you can tap into your own creativity, and how you can encourage others, to explore emotions and experience. Engaging in a creative enterprise allows us to connect with our thoughts and our feelings as we contemplate not just the pictures we produce, but also our inner selves. And it enables us to connect with others as we each work on a project in a group or as we collaborate with others on a collective work. Ultimately, there is value in both the process and the product. The creativity connections approach offers a series of ideas and themes to inspire creativity. Art making can be deliberative or subliminal, with industry or without effort, with concentration or without focus. You'll learn how to interpret the work that you create, without judgment or presumption. And throughout, you'll gain insight into how the process and the product afford opportunities for self-growth. Art nurtures and sustains. It provides inspiration and solace. And it is a catalyst for connection with oneself and with others.