I spent a recent Saturday at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond remembering why I enjoy working with groups.
“Climbing the Right Mountains: Creating Your Best Creative Life” is a full-day workshop at VisArts that attempts to walk creative individuals through some of the bigger creative drivers in their lives – their personality styles, their core values and their beliefs (about themselves, about their creativity, about the world). The
idea is that by helping people hit the proverbial pause button, and to reflect more intentionally on their lives, they’ll find different approaches to their creative life.
There were six participants in the most recent offering of the workshop – an ideal number for plenty of relaxed, small group exploration. This group came primed
for it – almost everyone was wrestling with specific transitions; one person was moving to Virginia Beach the next week, several were in or nearing retirement.
While we didn’t get to the genuinely visual part of the session – capturing their ideal creative life on paper with pastels and pencils – it turned into a reinvigorating day for me thanks to the energy of the group. They all seemed to leave recharged, as well.
I walked into the room that Saturday morning wondering why I had signed up to teach yet another workshop. I left six hours later wondering why I wasn’t teaching more of them.
That’s the definition of a successful day.