Day 2 of Creative Camp

Day 2 of taking myself to Creative Camp.

I’m a creative director rebuilding my own creativity practice with 30 days of creative adventures. And you’re invited to join me.

Today’s randomly generated prompt is:

Stamp.
Books.
Slow.

And I'm VERY excited about this one.

But the Experiment Dice tells me to SLOW DOWN.

Because I have to work before I can play! I have brand design work to do for a client today.

And I have two problems I'm working through in camp:

1. For me, creativity is addictive. I want more, more, more. And then I find myself not wanting to put the art down and get back into life / work / responsibility.
2. I can often procrastinate on creative projects for clients (and myself!) by getting into overplanning.

But today, the New Relationship Energy camp is bringing me has me enthusiastically following camp rules all day.

Rule #2: The easier, the better.

No overplanning. I just start creating.

And in one hour, I find the kind of creative flow that usually takes me all day. Thanks, Creative Camp! 😉

By the time I finally get back to camp — creating for play, instead of for pay — it feels like suuuuch a treat I'm giving myself.

For the Stamp + Books prompt, I can't decide:

Do I stamp on a book? Or make stamps inspired by books?

Rule #4: Look for the YES AND!

Obviously it’s both.

I let my library be my guide. I pull books. I wander. I look at things I’ve looked at a hundred times before with new eyes.

It feels like discovering a tiny bookshop inside my own house.

I find a tattered antique songbook, which answers the “Can I stamp on a book?” question for me.

This book is literally falling apart in my hands, so I have to make art with it.

Just as I start thinking of overthinking again, worrying I won't find the perfect page, I remember the rules, turn the page, and there it is!

Then to a little Pinterest research. (And I’m telling you this because quick PSA: you can turn off AI-generated results in Pinterest now. Go do that. Seriously. Your feed will thank you.)

Then it's go time: the very serious business of making stamps out of potatoes.

When designing Creative Camp, I imagined myself doing heavy duty Wilfred Brimley-inspired whittling (was he a whittler?) outfitted in overalls, complete with a toothpick half-dangling out of my mouth.

Unfortunately, the potatoes I have are tiny.

So I have to use tiny cookie cutters.

Picture Wilfred Brimley valiantly wrangling tiny spud nubs with corn cob skewers, desperately committed to the bit and the goal of getting every possible stamp out of one single itty bitty spud.

This is where art happens, people.

And it's right about now when I start thinking:

What the hell am I doing here?!

But that’s why we I love Rule #3: Process over product.

(Though yes, I did make a thing. It’s so cute. I’ll tell you about it later.)

But to me the real magic is in taking stuff I have lying around my house — stuff I was going to throw away, recycle, chuck in the general direction of a Goodwill from a moving vehicle — and transforming it from clutter into a camp souvenir.

I’m not just a creative director, I’m a magician!

And it reminds me that creativity doesn’t require MORE: more stuff, more time, more space. Creativity simply asks us to see what's already here differently.

That’s how the literal + figurative magic happens.

Welcome to camp.