View Poll Results: What do you do creatively?
Paint and/or draw
18
19.35%
Photography
11
11.83%
Write
30
32.26%
Sculpt
0
0%
Other
27
29.03%
Nothing
7
7.53%
Voters: 93. You may not vote on this poll
Creatives on SR
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Ohio, USA
Posts: 316
I'm a short story writer. The myth of the "tortured artist" certainly played a role in fueling my drinking. Writing scares me a lot. For as long as I can remember, I've been told I was an excellent writer and that it would take me far. I guess I'm afraid of failure, among other things. Drinking always helped to get me started, but I did my best work sober.
Another recovering alcoholic introduced me to The Artist's Way while I was still drinking. I tried to go through it, but I couldn't. "Morning pages" are a great idea... unless you're an active alcoholic! I cringe when I read through my attempts at morning pages. I was a miserable, hungover mess every day. I'd like to give it another try now that I'm sober, but writing still scares me. Someday I will.
I absolutely love Julia Cameron's introduction to The Artist's Way. The way she describes drinking and writing is so beautiful and so true.
Another recovering alcoholic introduced me to The Artist's Way while I was still drinking. I tried to go through it, but I couldn't. "Morning pages" are a great idea... unless you're an active alcoholic! I cringe when I read through my attempts at morning pages. I was a miserable, hungover mess every day. I'd like to give it another try now that I'm sober, but writing still scares me. Someday I will.
I absolutely love Julia Cameron's introduction to The Artist's Way. The way she describes drinking and writing is so beautiful and so true.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 567
My "creativity" is constantly changing.
In this phase of my life, today is drums. I have had no lessons what so ever, yet and do not understand the "maths" in the beats, yet I seem to be getting to like my drum kit.
Artisticly, I had to get a artist to draw for me what I "see".
Similar to my "playing" this drum kit I bought spur of the moment. I am in debt because of it, but it brings "life" and wakes every one up.
So I Guess I am being creative in a sense because I am sound-proofing the room the kit is in. This takes a lot of "creation" because I use bits and pieces of old wardrobe panels, old curtains and foam from old lounges. Then I get a friend to do a "sound check" to see if it's ok.
So yeah, in a word, abstract.
In this phase of my life, today is drums. I have had no lessons what so ever, yet and do not understand the "maths" in the beats, yet I seem to be getting to like my drum kit.
Artisticly, I had to get a artist to draw for me what I "see".
Similar to my "playing" this drum kit I bought spur of the moment. I am in debt because of it, but it brings "life" and wakes every one up.
So I Guess I am being creative in a sense because I am sound-proofing the room the kit is in. This takes a lot of "creation" because I use bits and pieces of old wardrobe panels, old curtains and foam from old lounges. Then I get a friend to do a "sound check" to see if it's ok.
So yeah, in a word, abstract.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 207
Wow, cooooool thread! I relate to so many of the responses, I wish I could quote them all.
I love the 'creative at being creative'. YES!
I do a little bit of everything but my mainstays are graphic design and photography. I like to do creative stuff on the fly or it be spontaneous; I have difficulty with things that take a long time or that come with directions.
I love the 'creative at being creative'. YES!
I do a little bit of everything but my mainstays are graphic design and photography. I like to do creative stuff on the fly or it be spontaneous; I have difficulty with things that take a long time or that come with directions.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 6,947
First you upload them to a photo site, like photobucket... flikr... something like that... the one where you can just tell people to go to to see your pics.
Once you've done that, there are IMG codes under the picture that will link back to it from whatever forum/post you are in... I think there is a sticky or something that explains it.
Once you've done that, there are IMG codes under the picture that will link back to it from whatever forum/post you are in... I think there is a sticky or something that explains it.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Mgm, AL
Posts: 1,000
I did a lot of 'combination' poetry and photos when I was still 'out there.' Someone else said that they had to put down the pen for various reasons, and it's true for me as well. I have since found that I am more than my writings, and less than my thoughts, too. If that makes any sense. Thank you for the introspection, Lafemme.
More Pics Here
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: New England
Posts: 5,285
Great post skg...read an interesting article on Slate just now that talks about almost the same thing.....Stephen King: Do artists do their best work before they get clean? - By Tom Shone - Slate Magazine
Grievous Angel
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: The Old Line State
Posts: 53
Creatives on SR -Writing
I write little stories. Here's one.
Death Stalked My Family That Year.
First my uncle Lloyd died. My mother killed him. With narcotics. It was Christmas. He was suffering from end stage lung cancer; the house shook with his efforts to breathe. It was agonizing to watch, even at the end of life, he retained a surprising amount of strength, and as grasped the metal sides of the hospital bed in his it rocked and pitched on the worn wooden floor.
Not surprisingly, given his general state of inebriation in my house, my youngest uncle had mis-read the instructions on the meds and had been under-medicating him. My mother, upon taking over, interpreted directions differently, and put 6 Oxycontin tablets in a blender with applesauce and spoon fed them to her brother. One the effects of opiates is slowed CNS function, and breathing, which is the reason codeine works so well for coughs (and boredom).
Soon his struggles lessened, and my mother smiled. But when a person's lungs are both riddled with cancer, and as a result has almost no function left, a dose that a healthy person could shake off proved fatal. He died in less than half an hour. My mother ran to call an ambulance, but Vic, my youngest brother, held up his hand. Though he was much younger than his other siblings, he was far more sensitive, and in some ways wiser. It was time to let Lloyd go.
Six months later my mother was killed in a head-on. Her new boyfriend, Troy, was driving. Drunk. He survived; even hammered, he managed to a seatbelt, which my mother did not. She died from massive trauma in the emergency room. I was 17, and so wrapped up in my own life that I did not mourn her properly until I had children, years later. To this day I still catch myself reaching for the phone to tell her about the latest thing that happened to me.
Vik was the last and largest of my uncles. They were all big, solid men, but he looked as if he had hewn from entirely different stock. He was well over six feet tall and close to 300 pounds. He was also a true badass. Though he showed me only love and kindness, and tolerated all my teenaged outbursts with humor, he had a horrific temper and flew into rages that had landed him in jail. He liked to drink, and he liked to brawl. In his 24 years he had never met anyone badder than himself, until two weeks after my mother's accident, at 12:53 AM, at The Taproot, "A Bar and Grille Where Particular People Congregate". He was beaten to death in a fight over was 75 cents - the change on a shot of Jim Beam.
Part II
Continental Drift
The constellation of my family had been shattered in less than a year. I left for college, had a lost Summer and just barely avoided going to prison with with my boyfriend, an experience I sobered up and ploughed through the semester. When I came home for Christmas, that year, I found I was rich, or at least what I though to be rich. My mother had been on her job just long enough to qualify for life insurance and vest for most of her modest pension. In addition, Lloyd, who had off and on belonged to a union, had named me as his beneficiary. I had the presence of mind to call my ex boyfriend, Drew, who gave me the number of his family's "money guy," who something with it, the upshot being that I wound up with a large check for soemthing, and a debit card that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.
I'd like to say I took the proceeds and went to college and bought a house, but I didn't. I set out to celebrate. Just one drink.
My next sober moment came almost two years later. I woke up, or came to, in a hospital in Amsterdam.
I drank my way across Europe. I had a passport from a previous trip to England. I'd loved it, and contacted my host family in London. Their warmth lasted exactly a week, after I'd stumbled in drunk again. They politely asked me to leave, but no matter, I'd hooked up with tall, skinny Aussie on his way around the world. Scott never seemed to feel the effects of drinking, no matter what what we drank. It dawned on me at some point that this was because he was easily twice as heavy as I was, and there was no point matching him drink for drink. I forgot this as soon as I realized it.
-GA
Death Stalked My Family That Year.
First my uncle Lloyd died. My mother killed him. With narcotics. It was Christmas. He was suffering from end stage lung cancer; the house shook with his efforts to breathe. It was agonizing to watch, even at the end of life, he retained a surprising amount of strength, and as grasped the metal sides of the hospital bed in his it rocked and pitched on the worn wooden floor.
Not surprisingly, given his general state of inebriation in my house, my youngest uncle had mis-read the instructions on the meds and had been under-medicating him. My mother, upon taking over, interpreted directions differently, and put 6 Oxycontin tablets in a blender with applesauce and spoon fed them to her brother. One the effects of opiates is slowed CNS function, and breathing, which is the reason codeine works so well for coughs (and boredom).
Soon his struggles lessened, and my mother smiled. But when a person's lungs are both riddled with cancer, and as a result has almost no function left, a dose that a healthy person could shake off proved fatal. He died in less than half an hour. My mother ran to call an ambulance, but Vic, my youngest brother, held up his hand. Though he was much younger than his other siblings, he was far more sensitive, and in some ways wiser. It was time to let Lloyd go.
Six months later my mother was killed in a head-on. Her new boyfriend, Troy, was driving. Drunk. He survived; even hammered, he managed to a seatbelt, which my mother did not. She died from massive trauma in the emergency room. I was 17, and so wrapped up in my own life that I did not mourn her properly until I had children, years later. To this day I still catch myself reaching for the phone to tell her about the latest thing that happened to me.
Vik was the last and largest of my uncles. They were all big, solid men, but he looked as if he had hewn from entirely different stock. He was well over six feet tall and close to 300 pounds. He was also a true badass. Though he showed me only love and kindness, and tolerated all my teenaged outbursts with humor, he had a horrific temper and flew into rages that had landed him in jail. He liked to drink, and he liked to brawl. In his 24 years he had never met anyone badder than himself, until two weeks after my mother's accident, at 12:53 AM, at The Taproot, "A Bar and Grille Where Particular People Congregate". He was beaten to death in a fight over was 75 cents - the change on a shot of Jim Beam.
Part II
Continental Drift
The constellation of my family had been shattered in less than a year. I left for college, had a lost Summer and just barely avoided going to prison with with my boyfriend, an experience I sobered up and ploughed through the semester. When I came home for Christmas, that year, I found I was rich, or at least what I though to be rich. My mother had been on her job just long enough to qualify for life insurance and vest for most of her modest pension. In addition, Lloyd, who had off and on belonged to a union, had named me as his beneficiary. I had the presence of mind to call my ex boyfriend, Drew, who gave me the number of his family's "money guy," who something with it, the upshot being that I wound up with a large check for soemthing, and a debit card that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.
I'd like to say I took the proceeds and went to college and bought a house, but I didn't. I set out to celebrate. Just one drink.
My next sober moment came almost two years later. I woke up, or came to, in a hospital in Amsterdam.
I drank my way across Europe. I had a passport from a previous trip to England. I'd loved it, and contacted my host family in London. Their warmth lasted exactly a week, after I'd stumbled in drunk again. They politely asked me to leave, but no matter, I'd hooked up with tall, skinny Aussie on his way around the world. Scott never seemed to feel the effects of drinking, no matter what what we drank. It dawned on me at some point that this was because he was easily twice as heavy as I was, and there was no point matching him drink for drink. I forgot this as soon as I realized it.
-GA
Hwdcarver
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Posts: 54
Trying to show my drawings!?
I have been drawing in pencil, (B & W drawings) I have a soft spot for that kind of art because that is what I started out doing first many yrs. ago. So I just went back to it when I could'nt do woodcarving anymore due to R.A. Can't hold the tools for any length of time any more so back to drawing I go.....
thank you & I will 
Member
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,581
What a cool thread! I'm envious of you artistic types! Your artwork and photos are fantastic!! I'm not sure if I could call my singing "creative" exactly, as I don't write my own stuff or anything. But here's a cover of Dust in the Wind that I did with my bff since high school. He's on guitar and back up vocals. Now HE'S creative! Anyway..not sure it counts, but I'll post it for fun anyway...I think you have to click on the green 'play' button if you go to the link 
http://sutros.com/songs/8211
http://sutros.com/songs/8211
Life the gift of recovery!
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Home is where the heart is
Posts: 7,061
If anyone is interested in seeing a little more of my artwork here is my website: ArtsWe - secondchance's Profile Thanks for looking
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