Workshops are fab.

As I embark on teaching another round of creative computing night classes (the last round for some time due to the government cutting funding because they don't see them as a necessary part of education, but that's a blog for another time) I am struck by the sense of enjoyment that I get out of teaching adults and that's over and above the fact I get paid to do it. For the most part it is turns into a collaborative session between people who have just met but perhaps much more in common than you realise. Over the last ten years I have taught jewellery making, flax weaving, spreadsheets, beginners computing and creative computing. I feel really happy when the participants get that sense of achievement and confidence in their own creativity and I feel priviledged to be the one who gives them that. It goes to show how individuals can grow and the sense of self-fulfillment when involved in group activities, the sense of community can be really nurturing and positive.

Nature's influence

"You are not copying nature, but responding to nature in full awareness, to the way nature expresses itself in that object." Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing/Drawing. I found this quote in a book that I use for getting my students inspired to create things, so many young people seem to have lost the art of imagination and creativity. I think this is largely due to technology wasting away their creative juices, as in many cases they now seem content to 'watch' rather than to 'do'. At the risk of sounding like an old dinosaur (I am only 41!), when I was a child we didn't have much money but lots more time. Some of my best childhood memories are of my mother teaching me to sew or my grandmother teaching me knit. And these skills are some of things I use now to calm myself and they often bring me much joy. And what is my greatest muse, it's nature in all its awesome glory.