I have been doing a lot of other things, it's true. Late last year, I started a new project, the School of Creative Resilience, through which I'm offering a handful of services. The first is a month-long self-paced course, The Daily Creative: A Step-by-Step Path to Cultivating Your Creative Habit in 30 Days. We need creativity SO MUCH right now, so this is a way I can teach people how to begin to tap in to their creative energies. I'm also offering online workshops, one-on-one creative resilience coaching, and one day I'll start doing in-person speaking engagements soon. I can't wait for that!
JB: Tell us more about the School Creative Resilience. I'm intrigued. Who couldn't use a megadose of it right now?
JG: Sure! In my work through ChronicBabe over the years, what I taught focused on resilience: Showing people how to bounce back from adversity, in fresh and creative ways. I yearned to teach that to ALL people, not just sick folks like me, so I expanded it into the School of Creative Resilience.
For example, the course I mentioned is self-paced, designed so folks can spend a few minutes a day on it and learn a great deal. The exercises each day build on each other, and train students how to approach the most mundane tasks in their life with a creative perspective. When we learn how to tap into creative energies throughout the day, we're more able to access that feeling of creative flow, and that spreads into all areas of our lives. So I start small, with things like email signatures and sock drawers... which seems silly at first! But that's also powerful; when we can tap into our child-like silly energy, and cultivate a sense of playfulness, that helps boost creativity, too.
Ultimately, I hope people take my courses (I'm launching another one in July 2020) and attend workshops and begin to feel like their most creative selves.
JB: What a world this would be if more of us were maxing our creative resilience! I understand that you are also a big quilter.
This project contains 2,752 1-inch 'hexies' all hand-sewn over five years, finished in 2019
(Image by Jenni Grover) Details DMCA
JG: I am obsessed with quilting. I've been doing lots of handwork, and also learning how to quilt my own projects. I spend time almost every day working on quilts.
My quilting pursuits have also led me to volunteer as a member of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild, and I'm the current president of that organization for 2020-2021. It's a wonderful honor and responsibility to lead more than 100 makers during this challenging time.
Being part of a guild means I have a great sense of community, which is helpful when I want to figure out a technical challenge, or when I have a personal issue and need the support of friends. The guild has taught me so much! It's led to work opportunities and creative challenges, and I've made a lot of friends.
Our world is facing a critical point of challenge and change, and there's not a lot I can do to help smooth the way. I feel so helpless right now, in many ways. But I can help this group of fabulous people and that feels good.
And so many of my fellow quilters are making fabric masks for our communities! I've been making and selling masks in my Etsy shop and it feels really good to offer a product that so many people really need. I've been taking special requests, and that's been super fun.
JB: Yes, we're drawn to ways we can feel less helpless when it seems like everything we thought that we could count on is so uncertain. Like now. So, taking something more concrete, let's talk about what you came up with for your new, improved outside sign and how you found something that would avoid the pitfalls of your earlier and wonderful "Take Courage" sign.
JG: Ah, thank you! Yes, taking some action really helps me feel connected with others, and with the Movement for Black Lives Matter.
My "take courage" sign was a kind of bunting, with long ties the whole way across and squares attached with the letters, with some space in between. And what happened was the wind caught them and twisted them up dramatically. My husband and I frequently had to pull the bunting down from the roofline! So I went back to the drawing board.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
