"Lean in to experiences over outcomes"
Campfire Chats Series - Creativity with Dr Jane R. Shore
This post is part of my monthly Campfire Chats series, available free to all of my subscribers. This series is an opportunity to ask, interview, or feature my community and their experiences of one of the main topics that I write about here on Substack - motherhood, neurodivergence, mental health, running a creative small business, and slow living. If those topics are of interest to you, we’d love to have you in our community. Come join us?
Welcome to the Campfire Chats Series!
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I put a call out for members of my community to take part in an interview or guest post for me to share on my Substack. The responses flooded in, and I can’t wait to share them with you.
This interview series will be an ongoing series, so if you’d like to take part, you can find more details at the end of this post.
Now, let me introduce
…
A brief introduction of who you are and what you do
I am a learning researcher and gathering strategist with a background in education research, data visualization and program design. I help individuals involved in teaching and learning across settings connect with innovations and each other, co-creating human-centered, people based learning experiences through convenings, writing, and advisory work.
I believe the next thought revolution lies in People Based Learning. It is the learning we do with and through each other.
Explain a little bit about your creative practice
Illustration is my meditation. I love to read and do research in novel ways and present findings through visuals. I’ve been exploring lots of different ways of creating over the years, from creating gatherings that connect community, co-founding a progressive high school where every element of the program is connected to place, people and partnerships, and creating a blog. In all of these, art and illustration have lit the path, helping me process and communicate both the tangible and intangible.
At what point did you pursue your creative practice?
My mother is an artist, and my father was an engineer and a sculptor. I grew up with a painting studio in our attic and a pottery studio in our basement. Art was always surrounded me, both literally and figuratively. But in 6th grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Fiel, reluctantly suggested I stop creating tiny illustrations in the margins of my English essays. It just “wasn’t what you do,” once you were in middle school, she explained to me. I know she did mean for this to happen, but I stopped doing art for many years after that. Recently, I have found it again, coming back to me in communications, visual essays, book illustrations and data representation. These outlets keep my mind both alert and calm; settled and energized; tapping into the ancient and the new. I’ve always understood that we all have creativity in us always, and there are just moments where we find the time and space to bring it to the surface.
How has your creative practice impacted your life?
Drawing and illustration and painting are an additional form of communication for me. The practice and play I engage in when creating the School of Thought blog offers grounding when everything can feel unanchored.
A creative day would look like...
Starting the day with a hilly forest hike with my husband, while listening to a podcast together. Processing and talking it through and creating drawings about ideas. Illustrating for hours to continue to build and process ideas. A creative day is all about process, not product. I happen to do a visual essay on a creative day on vacation recently.
What advice would you give to someone who would like to try your creative practice?
My advice to someone who wants to try my creative practice is that it is best to discover your own. For inspiration, check out this recent School of Thought post on Imagination Mapping, where I offer some ideas.
A top tip is...
Lean in to experiences over outcomes. My friend Natalie Nixon, author of The Creativity Leap, has built a model for creativity that explains it is a mix of inquiry, intuition and improvisation. She advises to lean in to both wonder and rigor.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
I believe collective creativity is where new ideas happen. More here.
Where can people find you online?
JanieBirdArtShop. I LOVE creating portraits! DM me for details.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Campfire Chats Series. Please feel free to share this post by clicking the button below…
Until next time,
Take part in the series!
I’d really love to bring in other people to chat about their own personal experiences with parenting, neurodiversity, mental health, being a creative business owner, and slow living, or a mix of these (parenting neurodivergent children or creativity to help with your mental health, etc.). If you have a story to share about any of those, I’d love to speak to you about collaborating.
Below you’ll find some links to some very quick forms to fill out if you’d like to collaborate in an interview style, or, alternatively, if you have an idea for a guest post, then please DM me or reach out via email (findingsimpleandcalm@substack.com) to chat further.
 | A guest post by
|
Thank you so much for sharing your simple & calm with me. I appreciate the many ways we can connect with each other and art and just being. Grateful for this post.