I spent the whole day looking in the wrong direction. But can you blame me? It was an awesome view. 😉 And just when I thought I figured it out, I was wrong again!

Day 11 of taking myself to Creative Camp.

I’m a creative director on a quest to rebuild my personal creative practice, so I built a camp instead of a content strategy.

Today, Creative Camp is on business in Vancouver, Washington.

On Day 10, I moved Camp HQ permanently into the Here & Now and proved that YES, camp AND! and the creative practice it’s here to re-energize, can and should come with me wherever I am.

I wake up with the sun on Day 11 and just start moving.

Camp and the creative electricity of Day 10 give me rainbow colored glasses. Everything feels shinier in my gaze.

Today’s random prompt is:

Compose.
Found.
Share.

“Perfect!” I think.

Spoiler: I think wrong.

Because the prompt is maybe a little too perfect. Creative Camp is throwing me a big ol’ red herring.

If Day 10’s shoot centered around performance, Day 11 is all about rhythm.

Lisa is a longtime musician and recording artist, and today’s shoot has her literally conducting a big ol’ brass band.

So, a composition for and inspired by Lisa?

Thinking like a creative director, the idea feels perfect. Thinking like a camper? WHERE WILL I FIND THE TIME?!?

I proceed to spend the day following the prompt to FIND the perfect composition, to make magic happen in honor of Lisa.

But as daylight starts running out, I feel certain I’ve failed.

I haven’t composed anything at all.

Then, during the final moments of our shoot, we return to the same stretch of waterfront where I did my sunrise run this morning. Is this a callback?

Just then, I happen upon an artist selling what he calls:

“PRETTY GOOD ART.”

Hmmm. Creative Camp coded. $5.

Just what I have magically sitting in my Venmo account – “FOUND MONEY!” I reason with myself.

So I buy a piece.

And while I watch Lisa capture the final footage of the day, I compose a haiku in her honor. A little parting gift before I get on the red-eye back to Chicago.

And, fellow camper, in this moment I’m really thinking THIS is the conclusion that I’ve eeked out under the wire by the skin of my damn teeth.

Compose.
Found.
Share.

I found an artist. I found money in my Venmo. I composed a haiku. I shared it. Prompt complete!

But it’s only when I sit down later to make this video for you that I realize just how wrong I was.

Because that’s still me thinking like a creative director, not a camper.

Can you blame me?

While I’m on set, it’s my job to stay alert. To notice. To hunt. To observe. To collect moments and help shape them into a composition.

There is a place for that mode. (On the clock.)

But what I’ve been learning through camp is that a creative practice is not always about making things, as counterintuitive as that may seem.

Sometimes it’s about swapping out: “What can I make with this?” and instead asking: “What is already happening here?”

Rule #1: Use what you have.

And looking back through the footage, I see it.

My sunrise run. The old ticket booth at the Kiggins. Lisa in the makeup chair. The brass band inside the red theater. The hidden bar upstairs. Lunch downtown. The return to the waterfront. The artist selling Pretty Good Art.

All these little scenes. Vignettes. Tableaus Moments in time.

Maybe the first found object of the day was the Kiggins Theatre itself, which felt like stepping back in time.

An old-timey ticket booth. A classic snack bar. Red theater accents everywhere. Vintage architecture. A surprise speakeasy upstairs. Forrest Gump playing.

I walked into an entire world that had already been framed, dressed, lit, and filled with stories.

Then I moved from scene to scene, still thinking I needed to build the composition myself. But I was already inside it.

Rule #1: Use what you have.

Apparently, that includes the moment you’re already in.

Like a snow globe – no, a sun globe – shake it up and let the light bounce, illuminating all the little technicolor moments happening around you. (It helps when the people you’re with are made of light themselves.)

If today’s prompt sparked something in you, steal it. Shake some sunshine into your life. Throw on the rainbow colored glasses. There’s enough for everyone.

Welcome to camp.