Episode 39: The Hero's Journey

Inspiration can feel mystical and hard to understand, and we can feel like we are merely copying or imitating others. But if we look at the things that we consume — the artists and designers, the music, the movies and tv shows, and the books — we can get a firm grip on the things that really influence us. This is a great well of meaning that we can draw from for our creative work.In this episode, I discuss the is ideas of inspiration, and how answering for questions and reflecting on the patterns and connections our answers reveal can give us some great inspiration.If you’re interested in diving deeply into your creative work, I have a new workshop that I will be teaching in May 2021 that is all about looking at these influences and inspirations to push your work forward.Find out more about my Emergence workshop here: https://ericscottart.com/emergence-workshop

It’s easy to feel stuck or stagnant in our creating. It’s easy to feel like we don’t know how to move ourselves forward. In today’s episode, I share three strategies for moving yourself forward creatively. These three ideas are great for creators at any stage, and though they may seem simple, they are powerful in getting us moving and creating.Listen to my take on how working small, working fast, and working outside of your comfort zone can help spark new ideas, new works, and new directions.

The magic of creating may be just tapping into our intuition, and by tapping into our intuition, we give ourselves permission to play — to try new ideas and to explore new territory. We get into a flow that can take us in new directions.I take a look at the role of intuition in making and creating, and discuss several strategies that can help us tap into that instinctive voice.

I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I’ve already gone into the earth, fire, and air elements, and today I dive into the water element and how we need to stay flexible. If we are rigid and stiff and if we know exactly what we want to make and create, we don’t leave room for possibilities, and it’s the pursuit of possibilities that can lead us in unexpected directions.

How do you come up with ideas?In today’s episode, I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I’ve already tackled the earth and fire, and today I discuss the air element. The air element is all about our ideas and our imagination, and I share a few ways of coming up with ideas.

In today’s episode, I dive further into how we can understand our creativity through the lens of the four classical elements — earth, fire, air, and water, and focus on how we can focus on the fire element and think about our passions. It’s the things that we are passionate about that drive our creative endeavors and motivate us to sustain our efforts.

In the second part of talking about this notion of being grounded in our creativity, I talk about some of the practical things that we can do to get ourselves into a sustainable creative practice. I touch on setting up routines and talk a bit about routines, and I discuss grounding ourselves in the fundamentals of our creative practice.

Keeping ourselves balanced as we create can be a difficult task, but thinking of a readily accessible framework can make it easier. In Episode 38, I talked about the four classical elements of art, fire, water, and air in relation to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and suggested that these four ideas can give us a we'll rounded idea of creativity and give us a way of keeping ourselves balanced.In today’s episode, I dive into this topic a bit further, and discuss how the earth element and the notion of grounding can give us an entry way into better understanding and greater balance in our creativity. I dive into mindset and discuss not only fixed vs. growth mindset, but also scarcity vs. abundance mindset.These are just some burgeoning thoughts that I have around this concept, and I’m working through them, and I hope they make sense. I’ll be diving more into these notions in future episodes.I hope that you enjoy!

We’re all heroes of our own story.Recently, the Hero’s Journey has been popping up in my life. I’ve heard it mentioned on a couple favorite podcasts, and I’ve been contemplating it a lot in my art, my writings, and my musings. How can understanding the Hero’s Journey help us on our creative journey? I examine the convergence of ideas that brought Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to the forefront of my creative endeavors and how I can understand my own creative journey through the story structure that is the Hero’s Journey.

I still have balance on my mind, but I take a look at it from a couple different points of view. As a fan of Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender, I look at a framework for creativity and finding balance through the lens of The Force and the bending of elements. Like a spinning top, we can keep our creativity balanced, but not just by keeping it spinning, but by keeping our creative weight equally distributed.On today’s episode, I share some ideas about Star Wars, The Last Airbender, and how we can approach our creativity in a wholistic way. I hope that you enjoy!