Fellow wonder-seekers, earth-lovers and creative souls I know you want to be outside making art in response to the rain, wind, ferns, spiders and wonder around you. You want to come back into your home filled with ideas – a mind of wild landscapes ready to spill its love for the earth onto the page, into your creative work.
Yet there’s something always stopping you – the laundry, the next work email, the dinner – and so you never quite get round to it and another season goes with the sketchbook untouched, the pages unwritten, the creative spirit subdued.
In my 2024 We Are Stardust survey 75% of you said you’re seeking to deepen your relationship with nature right now through by creatively responding to your time in nature.
I believe we are all creative beings. All life is creativity. See the plant bending to reach the light, the river spilling around boulders so it can flow, the nests made by birds.
Designing your home so that supports your imagination, wonder and creative spirit will mean your space is filled with reminders that you are a creative being and that making in response to your time with nature is natural, normal and desperately needed.
In his book “My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation” Donald Rattner writes how viewing works of art and craft in your home is a catalyst for creativity:
- A meta-study found that viewing art simulates us to learn new things – new experiences being linked with creativity.
- Another study found that seeing art sends blood to parts of the brain associated with risk-taking – a trait needed to go out and try new creative methods and ideas.
- Art gives us pleasure and elevates happiness making us more receptive to new information and helping us become problem solvers as well as reducing stress and anger putting our nervous systems into a better state for creativity to flow
- Art makes us reflect and think, allowing our minds to wander which researchers have linked to divergent thinking and the desire to explore the unfamiliar.
- Looking at art our bodies are at rest as our eyes scan the surface. Recent research has shown correlations between rapid shifts of the eye and improved creative task performance.
When you fill your home with artwork that inspires and intrigues you, your creativity will begin to flow. You will gain new ideas and perspectives as you glance at the artwork on your wall even as you do the laundry or rush off to work.
And now you've surrounding yourself with inspirational art, why not take a look at these 9 tips for prioritising creative play with nature.
