Discovering Creativity...

Creativity comes to each of us in different ways.  There are those that walk on a beach and are inspired to paint a beautiful landscape or others who decide to create sandcastles for others to admire… just because they could.  Doll makers are the same way.  Though sometimes it is best not to ask the dollmaker what inspired them to create a doll or decide on the costume.  

​Believe me, as the ‘hubby’, I live with one (and after 40 years – am just about domesticated but no where near understanding the thought process of my favorite doll maker).  She has inspired me so much that as she makes each new character, we develop the story together behind it.  It has even gotten to the point that when the doll talks to her about who and what they are to become, I can sometimes hear it too.

Maybe that makes us both a little ‘touched’, but we are having fun (smile).  Anyhow, back to the sparks of creativity.  We have just come back from a fact-finding mission (some would call it a vacation) where we visited London (United Kingdom), Dublin (Ireland), and Florence (Italy) for more inspiration and a little bit of site seeing (while getting pictures for future Realm of Wymsy adventures).  As each of these locations have a world of history of their own, we were also looking for some fresh ideas and a little bit of a different perspective to help broaden our thinking.

​What were some of my insights one might ask?  Let me tell you... That bike trails in Montana are larger than some of the roads we traveled during this trip – with cars traveling both ways (which I noticed that the larger the vehicle – the more likely who was backing up to let the other go by…) with bikes still on the road also.  The buildings surrounding the roads had been there several hundred years.  As such the roads were not expanded and made wider for when cars replaced walking or the horse carts.  I realized that this was a fine example of adjusting to the needs of modern society and still making something you already have work - even if it is a little cramped!  Just because it is old doesn’t mean that it can’t still be useful (well that’s what we tell our adult children anyhow *smile*).

​It was during this trip, while talking to a taxi driver about the changes in the places where he had lived for over 20 years, that I realized that he had gotten to the point that he no longer saw the beauty and uniqueness of where he lived.  I thought that here he was in London, where many of the buildings where he delivered his fares to were older than any building in the whole state of Montana plus the history that went with each.  Sadly he no longer seemed to see the wonder in where he lived.  A place where statues and bridges have been for hundreds of years longer than most countries in the world today and he just thought about how to go somewhere else.

That made me think (as my wife would say ‘be careful doing that' with a smile…) – what am I not seeing in my own backyard?  It is amazing when your perspective changes.  You start to realize that the things you surround yourself with may be the reason you are where you are in the first place. 

I am not a great outdoorsman – but I love the open spaces, mountains, and trees.  Maybe that is why I keep coming back to Montana?

It was also during this thinking that I realized that I enjoyed more than I had thought in helping create the characters in our Realm of Wymsy.  We have been writing about their world since 2016 in the Brambles section of the website (I could not believe it had already been eight years) and I had been enjoying every minute of it!  There it has been in front of me all of this time and it took a three-week trip, surrounded by pushing and noisy people, narrow traffic lanes, questionable meals, small seats, and long periods in planes and airports to make me realize that ‘there is no place like home’!

I discovered where part of my creativity came from.  My partner in adventure and crime (the wife *smile*) and by trying to 'see' what was around me with a renewed  perspective!  Thank you Mr. Taxi Driver.

*Writer’s note – I still enjoyed the vacation and we got some great pictures too!