Unleash your creative superpowers!
Join me in ushering in 2025 with intention. Not a list of pointless resolutions we won’t keep for a week, but a commitment to approach everything in a fresh new way. Allow your artist within to find its way out. A minor shift in thought — that can lead to radical results. You may surprise yourself. Just imagine.
“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.” — Bruce Garrabrandt, artist
Wishing you a spectacular year ahead!
Warhol and Basquiat. Lennon and McCartney. Isabelle and Mackenzie? YES!
Press play.
Meet the most adorable collaborators in modern times. I may be slightly obsessed with this recording of Isabelle and Mackenzie, native New Yorkers, now age 3. With all the research I’ve done on creative collaboration for my executive workshops, I’ve never seen a cohesive partnership emerge from humans who’ve only been on planet Earth for two years.
(Pic #1) Isabelle and Mackenzie in Manhattan, New York
There’s no fighting, no pushing, no conflict. Each girl fearlessly expresses her Twombly-esque improvisational strokes. In their own language, they share chalk sticks, add perfectly-placed scribbles, and hum. And toward the end, you even hear an “excuse me, excuse me” as one tries to politely maneuver into just the right space.
So okay, I may be somewhat biased about this story, since the girls’ father is my cousin, Donal Lardner Ward. But even he told me this may be the first time one twin didn’t try to control the situation. He seemed as excited as I was to watch the pair create together — in this seamless, synergistic way. His hope is to see them “support each other’s ambitions” in the years to come.
Educational experts say collaborative learning has been shown to develop higher-level thinking skills, boost confidence, and foster leadership. But what those studies leave out just might be what matters most: the absolute joy parents feel watching this kind of tenderness between two sisters — just trying to make their marks.
(Pic #1) Responding to the urge – with a 10-minute sketch (Neocolor crayons on hotel stationery)
One of my most true passions is to surround myself with great art. Lately, I’ve been doing just that. In fact, because I’ve spent the last several months providing art for corporate clients with prestigious Manhattan addresses, I’ve been totally immersed.
I’ve been prowling through galleries, searching online, ferreting out emerging talent, and getting to know gifted artists I had only recently come to admire. Even riding on the Long Island Railroad, I’ve seen creativity flourish in the graffitied walls alongside equipment yards and railroad tracks. (Pic #2)
(Pic #2) Forget MOMA or MOCA — it’s the LIRR for edgy art.
But still — until last Monday — I was feeling unfulfilled. Like the line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, Water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” I realized I needed to paint. Something. Anything. NOW. So here we go: a sketch I made in the bathroom of my New York hotel (Pic #1) and a photo I quickly took (angry about the dirty cymbalta window) on a hustling commuter train last week. (Pic#3)
(Pic #3) A smudged window provides a veil of pastel blur for my spontaneous exterior shot on the Long Island Railroad – passing through Jamaica Queens, NY
My inner critic could spend a month telling you what’s wrong with these hasty little pieces, while my inner-child could spend a lifetime telling you what’s right about it. John Lennon had it right: “If art were to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life, and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.”
