If you’re in a slump, writers block or just feeling flat, be creative.
This was the overriding theme at the “Creativity Conference” sponsored by the Honors Program and Honors Society, and organized by Dana Cooley. This three-day conference focused primarily on creative methods to “stoke or spark one’s creative fire, … and applying it to your world,” said Phil Cousineau author and keynote guest at the conference.
From March 28 to March 30, a multitude of speakers and activities took place ranging from “playing with polymers” to Reiki (a form of body cleansing).
“All heroes are stuck, that’s where the story begins,” Cousineau quoted from Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. Cousineau explained throughout the conference that achieving goals one must carry themselves through what Campbell called the “Hero’s Journey.”
According to Cousineau’s version, the journey to creativity and reaching goals is modeled by Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.
Starting the journey with “a call to adventure,” in which one is pushed to accept or decline an action, this Cousineau says can be writing a novel, term paper or symphony not just a soldier in battle. Then one must go through –the “road of trials” where one will be tested and will either fail or succeed, i.e. drafts, good or bad reviews. The journey continues for the hero to “achieve the goal.” Then, according to Campbell and Cousineau, that the hero “returns to the ordinary world.” Cousineau finishes with the hero using their achievements to further the advancement of the good in the world.
“Play if you’re burnt out,” Cousineau offered as a tool to “ignite creative fire when you’re stuck.” He explained that to play he meant to take a walk, “or go shoot some hoops.” Cousineau additionally advised to “go back to ‘the reason’ or the ‘call to adventure’ to get the ‘what if…’ questions to reignite the [creative] flame.” Cousineau said this is a way to “make a date with your muse, … and become your own patron [to your muse].”
Other topics at the conference included Mary Gardner an educator in Kansas who started out as a journalist and interviewed First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, President John F. Kennedy, and reported on one of the first Martin Luther King sit-ins.
Author Jim Kokoris talked about his two books, The Rich Part of Life and Sister North, which are in process to be brought to film.
Jean Fritz and Edward J. Nekarda both spoke on different ways they therapeutically cleanse abuse victims or veterans through art, drama and sand trays or anything that reaches the victim.
Chemist, Paul Dolan had people create and play with “goo” or polymers to apply the creativity that Cousineau was talking about.
Rose Guccione explained her “Operagrams,” a type of a singing telegraph but in an operatic tone to, according to Guccione, enhance any celebratory occasion.
Other keynote speakers included: Jeff Hall, owner of Digital Maelstrom LLC, photographer Laura Spingola, Joe Zefran, English professor Tom Hoberg, director of the Honors Program Kathy Kadaras, director of the Math Lab Mike Martindale, Anthropology professor Lance Lindquist and Samantha Kadaras.