I got my first guitar for Christmas when I was eleven years old. I immediately fell in love with the strings and tuners, and inevitably snapped the top E string on the first day. So, I learned to play a five string guitar! A couple of years later I upgraded to a – not much […]
Each year, I travel somewhere in the world, alone, for my own creativity retreat. I treat it as an Artist Residency – time away to focus on my songwriting and visual art. Sometimes I throw a dart at the map, and other times a place is suggested, but wherever I land, I make the most […]
From the moment I set foot on Quiet Valley Ranch, I knew I was in for a truly rare and exceptional weekend. At the Kerrville Folk Festival registration building, I was given a special button that said, “Performer”, and among festival goers, the prestige of being a “NEW FOLK ARTIST” was the equivalent of rock […]
I feel so fortunate to be a creativity coach and I have the most amazing clients. Recently I had an opportunity to produce an EP for one such client, Jan. Our collaboration has been going on for a few years now, and Jan’s songs are so great we knew the next step was to book […]
Staying Creative I’d like to do morning pages every day, but I’ve never been that disciplined. Object writing is a fabulous practice, and I do this often, but not daily. I love stream-writing, but I have to be in a particular mood. In the Artist’s Estate, (chapter three of our book), Laura and I talk about […]
A few years ago I invited a small group of women to my home to play with some of my art supplies. I love to teach, and I wanted to share some of the techniques I learned in college way back when. We created handmade paper and we bound books. We tried block printing and […]
October 24, 2018 This past weekend, a dozen women gathered up in Freeport, Maine in an atmosphere of camaraderie and excitement to experience the first-ever Spark Creativity Retreat weekend. I’ve been hosting creative workshops and activities for many, many years, but this is the first time I’ve taken it to this level: renting a creative […]