Holding the Inner Flame: On Creativity

Posted on by suki
The Babblery
The Babblery
Holding the Inner Flame: On Creativity
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with Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione

What is creativity, how can we nurture it, and what can it do for us? In this conversation we speak about creativity from two directions: Dr. Joanne Foster researches and writes about creativity in education, and Patrice Vecchione teaches and practices creativity in her writing and visual art. Interviewed separately, Joanne and Patrice speak on the same topics through the lens each has developed in her own life and work. We start by talking about creativity and how to nurture it, but in this time of political and social turmoil, this conversation doesn’t stay in the theoretical. Joanne talks about being a Canadian with a suddenly combative neighbor to the south. Patrice talks about how she had to rekindle her creative spirit, and how our current climate affects her teen students. Listen in to learn what creativity is, now we can nurture it, and how we can use it to persevere and thrive. [Click for transcript]

“Everyone has the potential to experience that sense of ecstasy through creative expression.” – Patrice Vecchione

“I like to think of creativity as a superpower, as a way of taking hold of the possibility to see things.” – Joanne Foster

Related:

By Joanne Foster:

By Patrice Vecchione:

Mentioned in episode:

Joanne Foster, Ed.D. has worked in the field of Educational Psychology, and also Gifted Education, for over 35 years. She has a Master’s degree in Special Education and Adaptive Instruction, and a Doctoral degree in Human Development and Applied Psychology. She taught for many years in the teacher training program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, where she also served as the gifted liaison, and provided broad-based community support and targeted expertise relating to learning, teaching, and high-level development. She’s the award-winning author of eight books. Her writing reflects her extensive experience as a parent, teacher, consultant, university instructor, and community advocate.

Nonfiction author, poet, artist and teacher, Patrice Vecchione makes her home in Monterey with one husband, two cats and a garden often in bloom. Her latest books include the anthology Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience and My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry & Speaking Your Truth. She has new work in the anthology Women in a Golden state and the summer issue of Catamaran Literary Reader. In October 2025, Patrice will lead a six-day writing retreat in Healdsburg, CA.

Music:

  • “Colors” by Ayla Nereo
  • “Ragout” by Rrrrrose Azerty

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Holding the Inner Flame: Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione on Creativity

Holding the Inner Flame: Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione on Creativity
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[00:00:26] Joanne Foster: Humankind is based on the creative efforts of the people who came before us and will continue to be so, right? So we really do have to continue to nurture creativity, whether it’s in the arts or writing or science.

[00:00:39] Patrice Vecchione: I think we have to look at what does the experience of making art and writing give us. What do we get from that encounter? I do see it as an encounter. It’s an encounter with ourselves, but it’s also an encounter with what Jung called the collective unconscious.

[00:01:05] Voiceover: This is your host, Suki Wessling. In the last few months I’ve had the curious experience of living the subject of today’s episode. Like many of you out there, creativity is possibly one of the most important aspects of life for me. I could give up almost anything else as long as I have creative freedom and keep my creative spark alive. But also, like many of you out there, I felt, well, less than energized about the direction things are going in the US. It’s not only political, it seems like everything in our culture is coalescing away from an appreciation for the things I hold dear: scholarship and learning, free exploration, appreciation for differences, love of and care for this world and the nature that sustains us. It’s been, frankly, a big fat bummer out there for those of us on the creative spectrum. But at the same time, I’ve been creating like crazy, writing, podcasting, and playing music. When I dig in my garden, I go at it like I’m repairing the world. And maybe I am in my little way.

[00:02:10] Today, I’m featuring two guests who spoke to me separately, but whose interests face each other. Joanne Foster is an author who researches and writes about creativity, especially creativity in children’s education.

[00:02:23] Patrice Vecchione lives and inspires creativity as a writer, visual artist and teacher, I ask them pretty much the same set of questions, and their answers come at creativity so differently, I feel like their voices create perspective the way our two eyes give us depth perception. Let’s meet Joanne and Patrice.

[00:02:45] Joanne Foster: Hi, my name is Joanne Foster. And I am a writer and I am interested in all things having to do with learning and development and children’s wellbeing. I try to live in ways wherein I encourage people’s creativity and motivation, and understanding of the importance of living every day as if it’s the most important thing you can do to, to learn and engage with others and to find different ways of enjoying all that we have, around us.

[00:03:22] Patrice Vecchione: I’m Patrice Vecchione. I’m a Monterey based writer and artist and teacher. I’ve taught poetry to children and young adults for almost 50 years. I currently teach creative writing and memoir and poetry workshops to children and adults of all ages.

[00:03:42] Voiceover: So let’s start with the obvious. What is creativity?

Segment 1: What is creativity?
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[00:03:46] Joanne Foster: People have this sense of confusion, that creativity is just something that barrels out of you, uh, or is ignited in some mysterious way. I like to think of creativity as a superpower, as a way of taking hold of, the possibility to see things, to meet challenges, to resolve issues in ways that we might not have thought of before. So, creativity is actually enabling. It enables new pathways. It enables comfort. It sparks excitement and joy and wonder and anticipation.

[00:04:24] Patrice Vecchione: Joanne Foster ,she said, p people think of creativity as mysterious, but it’s not. I do find it mysterious and I like that I find it mysterious. I agree she also says that creativity is a superpower, a way of taking hold of the possibility to see things we might not have thought of before. Yes, absolutely. That I completely agree that is what creativity is. But to me there’s a quality about it that is beyond rational understanding It for me is, um, it’s a spiritual thing. It connects me to the earth, connects me to other, when I’m teaching to other people, it is the impulse to create unexpected change. I think that I’ve never thought that before, I’ve never, certainly never said it, but I think that is what it is. The impulse to make unexpected change, change that you couldn’t have foreseen from the outside. So for me, there’s an inside and an outside.

[00:05:46] Joanne Foster: And it leads to, um a greater sense of accomplishment, being able to think in fresh ways, building upon our intellect, enhancing our neural connections actually as well. Um, if you think of your brain as, as millions and millions of pathways of sort of tangled vines going every which way, then think of having bursts of sparks and, and, um, these are called synapsis actually absolutely everywhere uh, flashing every millisecond that, that, that, that sort of creativity in action. And, and, and we can harness that. We can use that.

[00:06:20] Voiceover: What Joanne is referring to here is that despite the popular conception of right brained and left brain thinking, creativity is not centered in one part of the brain.

[00:06:30] Scans of creative brains at work show that creativity is a combination of the problem solving strength of the prefrontal cortex, the emotional strength of the limbic system, and the spatial orientation and visualization abilities of the parietal and occipital lobes. In other words, just as Joanne said, a creative brain is firing in all directions.

[00:06:52] Patrice Vecchione: Creativity is the opposite of boring. It’s an energy, it’s a force that exists and we can dip into it or we can refrain from it. My experience of creativity grew exponentially after I, um, met my husband and we moved in together and I, because I felt such a sense of being cared for, being cared about, being supported, it gave me rein to be daring. And that’s another quality about creativity is it’s, it’s an experience of being daring because you often put together two unlike things, and you see what happens when they sit together in a poem, in a piece of art.

[00:07:41] Joanne Foster: Creativity is always available. If you want to use it, just think of it sort of tucked in there, in your pocket or inside your brain or wherever it is that you, you, you, you tuck your special moments and think about how you can actualize it. So for, for, um, a very young child, creativity would look very different than it would for an older person.

[00:08:01] Patrice Vecchione: And, and people express their creativity in different ways. It might be through gardening or through art, or through writing poetry, or through gymnastics or baking or making music or doing sculptures. My favorite thing about writing and in particular writing, making art too, is the element of surprise, which connects to the idea of coincidence that, when I sit down, no matter what I think I might be writing it, never remain- it’s never only that. Either it completely changes or something else comes in that I couldn’t have foreseen.

[00:08:42] Joanne Foster: Creativity involves stretching ourselves in new and imaginative ways. So we might want to do that convergently, that is by narrowing possibilities and then focusing into something really specific. We may want to do it by thinking divergently, which means that you have lots of different ideas all sort of floating around there, and you have to wean out the ones that are most appealing to you or that you think have the most value, with respect to extending your creativity.

[00:09:10] So you’ve got convergently, you’ve got divergently, and then you might want to think critically too. Um, when you’re trying to be creative because you want to at some point become more disciplined around your ideas and maybe analyze them and think further about them and, and figure out what to do with them, um, to take them to the next level.

[00:09:29] And creativity develops step by step. Sometimes we have to master challenges along the way. We run into a roadblock or a distraction or a, something that takes us off track. And, and creativity requires effort. It, it means you have to sort of work at it. You have to put forth that effort, in order for it to move forward. It’s not something that necessarily just ignites, although sometimes we do have spontaneous flash bulb type moments, but it also often occurs over time and with effort and requires us to really think it through and be patient.

[00:10:04] Patrice Vecchione: Foster says, creative ideas are often born when you’re taking a risk, doing something outside of the norm, and I think that’s extremely accurate and extremely important that in the creative act there is an element of stepping into unknown territory. And to me, that’s part of why it feels mysterious, because I don’t know, it’s the risk. I don’t know where I’m going. And that is a kind of fuel, you know, it’s like you think of the adventurers, the people who climb mountains you know, that’s about as close to climbing a mountain as I’m ever gonna get is writing a poem, you know?

[00:10:56] Joanne Foster: I love that idea about practicing your creativity. It, it, it means that you’re stretching yourself. You’re taking a risk, you’re doing something outside the norm. and a lot of creative ideas are born that way simply because you, you break free of that rut, that same old, same old way of doing, and you feel really good about it afterwards because you feel, Hey, I’ve done something cool here, I’ve, I’ve achieved something that maybe I hadn’t anticipated doing.

[00:11:18] Patrice Vecchione: I was just in some high school classes yesterdayand the students there, gave me great attention when I was reading poems and talking to them. And they wrote a up a storm, but they refused to share. As much as creativity needs risk, creativity also needs safety. And, when the students don’t feel safe because they’re concerned about social media implications and bullying, they they will not share out loud, but when they, let me see what they’ve written the writing is strong.

What hobbles people’s creativity
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[00:12:01] Voiceover: This is the Babblery. We’ve been speaking to researcher and writer, Joanne Foster, and writer and artist, Patrice Vecchione, talking about what creativity is. But Patrice just brought up an important topic. What hobbles people’s creativity? Patrice has seen a huge change in her years of teaching in schools. Here she talks about a book of poems written by high school students. In one poem, the writer, a teen girl, says, ‘more often it is a tape measure, hugging my waist rather than hands.’

[00:12:32] Patrice Vecchione: And so the, the pressure that teens are under right now, especially girls, in relation to their bodies is, and this girl, when she came to the reading, you know, I was curious what she was going to look like, and she was extremely slender, you know, and tall and beautiful and you know, I, I said to somebody after the reading, they said, well, why did she feel that way? And I said, all girls feel that way. All women feel that way until we get to the point where we don’t give a damn.

[00:13:06] Joanne Foster: There are many possible things that can hobble someone’s creativity. It might be something that’s, um, external like distractions. It might be something, um, internal, like a lack of confidence or fatigue, or it could have something to do with, um, skills, not feeling that you’re, you know, up to snuff, for example, you know, technology based or, um, you don’t have the, information that, that you need. One thing that, that often, especially for kids or, or for adults too, is scrutiny. Nobody likes it when someone’s sort of staring over their shoulders.

[00:13:40] Patrice Vecchione: That’s what the internal critic is all about, it’s all about, we should all think the same. We should all fit into this box. And if you step out of that, you’re not safe, things are unpredictable. And that is where the best writing and the best art comes from. So with my students, you know, with, with kids, they’ll write five poems over four or five weeks, and then I’ll ask them to choose the one they like the best. And, and that’s the one we’ll we’ll work on, we’ll take to another draft. Nine times out of 10, those students will choose the weakest piece of writing. It’s the piece where they, they’ve taken the least amount of chance, they feel like they’re coloring within the lines. And that is not what makes good literature or, or good art.

[00:14:37] Joanne Foster: Another issue that often comes up with creative effort is impatience. People think, you know, I’m gonna get started and it’s gonna come out and it’s gonna be beautiful and I’ll be done in 15 minutes. Well, maybe 20 or maybe a half an hour. And then it takes longer and longer and longer. And sometimes they give it up because they’re so impatient and they’ve come to a point where they think, i, I can’t take this amount of time. I can’t take this amount of effort.

[00:14:59]

How to get through barriers
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[00:15:00] Voiceover: Whatever the barrier to creativity is, it’s almost always possible to get through it. And creative people have found a lot of, let’s say, creative solutions for when they’re blocked.

[00:15:10] Joanne Foster: A lot of things take time. It took Edison, how long to create a light bulb? I mean, really, um, it, we, we need to just be patient with ourselves and consider the experiences along the way rather than that a final endpoint and also finding, um, sometimes if, if you just need to move or need music or you need something to sort of fuel you along, along the way, as, as you do, work more creatively and, and pep talks can be helpful as well. Pep talks from others or pep talks that you give to yourself.

[00:15:43]

[00:15:43] Patrice Vecchione: In all three of my nonfiction books, I address what I refer to as the internal critic. And for most people, for I, I, I think really for everybody, the critic isn’t internal initially. Initially the critic is external, and then it’s internalized. And I encounter that with, with every age group. Well, except really young children, kindergartners and first graders for the most part, don’t exhibit a sense of the internal critic.

[00:16:22] So when, when I got the contract, um, in 1999 to write my book writing in this spiritual life, I, um, got a check and I spent the money. And, um, then I had to write the book and I spent quite a bit of time in bed, unable to do anything terrified because of the internal critic. So for me, that was given to me predominantly by my father and to some degree, um, by my mother. So what I did when I finally got out of bed is I, asked myself, well, well who are you? Who is this critic? And, I, created a character. So then you can externalize what has been internalized so that then you gain power over that which is limiting your creativity.

[00:17:21] Joanne Foster: Two other issues are, are complexity and simplicity. Sometimes things are just so complex that, that, that can be daunting. So finding the, the, the way to manage it, to find it, two things in, in chunks or manageable bits. And if something is too simplistic that, you know, this is not interesting to me because it’s, it’s just not stimulating enough. It’s too easy, I’m just gonna tune myself out. Distractions can, hobble creativity. we get started on doing something and then a million other things get in the way. So you veer off course or you lose your focus. And distractions come in all sizes. Like they could be potato chips, they could be a doorbell. It could be, um, whatever interrupts or derails creativity. So, so learning what distracts you, and trying to, manage those or eliminate them in some way and, and, working on, on paying attention to those distractions.

[00:18:12] Patrice Vecchione: if we think about back in, in the days of, of, of, of kingdoms, though it seems like we may be in a day of kingdoms now, but if we look back historically, there was the jester and there was the fool, the fool of the jester, and that person could say things to the king or queen that they would not accept coming from one of their advisors. They could do that because they were the fool. They weren’t taken seriously, but they had a quality of, they were outsiders. And I think that the creative person is in a lot of ways, an outsider.

[00:18:54] Joanne Foster: Little or no, progress is another thing that can derail or hobble creativity. Sometimes it just takes one little thing that makes you feel wonderful as you proceed that can provide the momentum to keep you going. And perceived risk. If something is, is scary, and you don’t think that you want to undertake it, then that could mean that you’re not going to be creative around it either.

[00:19:17] So, you know, learning to assess how important is it to me to, to, hurdle that obstacle or get past that fear. Uh, what kind of guidance or assistance or strategies might come in handy if, if I want to be creative in this way? And, and, you know, I mean, you don’t want, you want, don’t want to do anything dangerous, but you do want to show that you can push yourself and, extend.

[00:19:37]

[00:19:41] Voiceover: You’ve been listening to Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione speaking about creativity. Coming up, we’ll explore ways to nurture creativity in education and in life.

Segment 2: Nurturing creativity in education and in life
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[00:20:15] Voiceover: I’m your host, Suki Wessling. We are speaking with author and creativity researcher, Joanne Foster and author, artist and teacher, Patrice Vecchione. It’s not lost on anyone who is paying attention to trends in American education. That creativity has been devalued in our system. At every level, from giving standardized tests to kindergartners, to giving scripts to teachers, instead of allowing them the freedom to teach creatively, we are taking away a fundamental part of how humans learn.

[00:20:43] If you ask any Nobel Prize winner, what inspired them, they are very unlikely to say something like ‘high scores on the SAT.’ What they are likely to describe is the fun that they experience in their work, the sense of wonder at what they don’t know, and hope to find out, and most importantly, the value of unplanned learning that spurs creativity.

[00:21:05] We’ll start by listening to Patrice, describe an experience she had that led to a burst of new creative activity.

A burst of inspiration
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[00:21:13] Patrice Vecchione: After the inauguration in January. I, I, I, I, I’ve spent many months in, in, in, in great anxiety and despair that I am working my way, have worked my way out of, but in January, um the end of January into the middle of February, I wrote a chapbook of poetry. I hadn’t written poetry since my father died 10 years before. I’ve been writing publishing prose. There in the midst of this desperation, my creativity came forward to save me, to restore me, to remind me that you know, what was lost was not actually lost. So, you know, am I writing great literature? I don’t know. I’m writing what I need to write. To me, the first drafts are not about, I don’t ask myself, is this good? I used to, but it is, it is a killer of creativity.

[00:22:17] Voiceover: As a mature artist, Patrice experienced creativity at mastery level. She knew not to question the value of the words that were springing from her. Just as a scientist following a hunch doesn’t stop to question whether that hunch will lead to a valuable patent. Joanne Foster has deep experience in the Canadian public school system, and she drew much of her initial thought about creativity and learning from her experiences.

A creative way past a block
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[00:22:42] Joanne Foster: I think part of understanding creativity as a process, is it, it’s not only about excitement and astonishment or wonder or, imagination, it’s about putting things together in ways that you might not originally have thought of. I remember when I was taking my doctoral degree and I had to do, um, statistics. And I, I am, I admit, I am not a big math person. I’m a writer. I’m Math was never my forte, but I had to do doctoral level statistics and I was terrified. What I did was I connected the information to what I was working on, which was at the time I was working in the area of gifted education and high level development. And somehow or other, I managed to merge those two things together, the stats as they applied to gifted education material, and I was able to make sense of it.

[00:23:36] And I went from someone who thought I was never going to pass this course to getting an A. And I was so proud of myself afterwards. And that’s another point. If you are scared, it could be any subject that that presents a challenge. If you make a little bit of progress and then a little bit more and a little bit more after that, the feeling that you have afterwards is wonderful. It, it, it fuels you.

[00:24:01]

Creativity born from restrictions
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[00:24:02] Voiceover: Joanne’s experience was one of creativity born from restrictions. She needed to pass a dreaded course and she used creativity to get herself through it. Patrice explains that contrary to what might seem logical, restrictions or borders, often lead to bursts of creativity.

[00:24:19] Patrice Vecchione: Anytime we put, borders on what we’re doing creatively, what will happen is we will, we will write or we will paint in a way we never would have without those restrictions. You know, my students say to me, oh, next week, Patrice, can we have free choice? And so I come into the classroom and I pretend I don’t have anything lined up.

[00:24:45] And I say, okay folks, it’s Free Choice Day, just like you wanted. And they look at me, well, what do, what do I write? So so even if they go against what I have the, because I always say, if you don’t like my ideas, don’t use them. Um, even just the act of going against that, is very, very helpful. Um, I, I just hung, uh, opened an art show at, at a, cafe in Sand City, and it’s, called Imagination Pollination. And I made 58 bees and, and they’re all painted differently.

[00:25:30] Well, I wouldn’t have ever painted or collaged in the way I did those bees, if I was just drawing something freeform. And I have stitched pieces that are in quilting hoops. So my, my limit there is the, the, the 14 inch or the 18 inch of the hoop. You can only do what’s, I mean, I can explore the edges, but you gotta do what’s within here. And it, it’s a great aspect of creativity.

[00:25:58] Joanne Foster: Creativity is not about an end point necessarily. It’s not about having an end product, like a completed poem or, um, a beautifully decorated cake or, a song, whatever it might be. If we look at creativity as kind of a journey, as a, as a getting there situation, um, as an opportunity to find your interests and your areas of strength and, and bolster your areas of weakness, we look at it as, as, as, as a journey, then that might help people to stretch themselves if they’re reluctant to do so. A lot of people don’t want to be judged or may feel embarrassed because they’re not sure that the end product is going to be something that’s, um, that’s wonderful. I mean, you know, there, there are so many wonderful artists out there. Like if I pick up a uh, paintbrush, I mean, there’s no way, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t pick up a paintbrush. I don’t compare me to Picasso. But yeah, I can, I can, I can draw too. So we just have to get, get through that and look at it as the journey of, of the pleasure, of the, the wonder of creating something maybe surprising or just different, or in any case, ours, our own, uniquely ours.

A focus on testing restricts creativity
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[00:27:09] Voiceover: Patrice Vecchione has been teaching poetry in California public schools for decades. Since the hyper focus on achievement and testing that started in the early two thousands, and now especially the heavy use of digital devices by young children, she’s seen changes in their ability to access their native curiosity.

[00:27:27]

[00:27:27] Patrice Vecchione: Young children are incredibly receptive and curious and willing to write down things that are beyond linear knowledge and understanding, which is another way in which I find creativity mysterious. That there’s that willingness to say, the car parked at the corner and began laughing. You know, to to think, children think by nature, metaphorically. It’s, it’s human qualities. Very young children think, think metaphorically.

[00:28:04] A number of years ago, I was working with a second grade class and, I said, okay, come on. Let’s lie down on the asphalt and look up at the clouds. And this is something I have done with students for, I had done it by then for 30 years. We lie down, we look up and I ask the children, what do you see? And they look at each other like, I am nutty. They roll their eyes and finally one kid is daring and he says, Miss Patrice, we see the clouds. And I said, well, don’t you see the man with the bouquet of balloons running ahead of the dragon? So the more that we rely on devices and less on, ourselves and, and reading and art, the, it, it does diminish creativity and so I, I have seen that over the years in young children.

[00:29:02] There is nonetheless in young children an irrepressible enthusiasm, which is another quality that’s very important for creative expression, is an enthusiasm and curiosity. Creativity is dependent on enthusiasm and and curiosity.

Nuturing children’s creativity
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[00:29:23] Voiceover: You are listening to the Babblery, and we’re speaking about creativity. Joanne Foster has been working with children and adults for years, researching how they learn and what can help them learn better. Despite the dire warnings about the decline of creativity in the age of digital devices, she says that creativity can always be nurtured.

[00:29:42] Joanne Foster: I think there are a lot of ways in which parents and teachers can encourage children’s creativity and those translate into ways in which adults can encourage their own creativity. And that has to do with having a desire, that choice that I mentioned before, having support of others around you. Someone who will give you that encouragement and tell you, yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll do those pushes for you, I’ll, I’ll look at your dissertation work that has to do with, um, stats in an, in an unusual way. Um, someone, someone who will help you find, the knowledge base that you need, because often if you’re going to be creative about something, you have to have some wherewithal or, or understanding around it. So if I wanted to create a flying machine, for example, I need to know a little bit about flight and aerodynamics and machines and, and how to do it. I can’t, I can’t just do it. I need, I need some knowledge base. So that’s another that, you know, we can encourage not only for ourselves, but for our kids to make sure that we, um, provide a, uh, an enriched environment that allows people to learn and to acquire the knowledge they need as a basis for being creative.

Nurturing adults’ creativity
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[00:30:57] Patrice Vecchione: Creativity is dependent on enthusiasm and and curiosity, the what if. And so that is very much still in children’s nature. Working with adults, um, adults overall ha are more rigid and they have a greater sense of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. So a lot of my work with adults who are new to working with me is spent, encouraging and asking them to be daring and to take risks. And, you know, I say to high school students, and adults, if you don’t like what you write, I have a pack of matches in my purse. I will take your writing with me and when I get to an open space, I will burn it all on, on the sidewalk. Older adults, I work a lot with people who are, I’m 67, who are my age and older. I teach for through C-S-U-M-B for the Osher Lifelong Learning Program. And, I see a lot, like those people are beyond inhibition. You know, they, they’ve been through so much and, they may not have confidence in their work, but there’s a great amount of willingness to be expressive and to explore.

[00:32:22]

Making mistakes
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[00:32:22] Voiceover: Joanne Foster reads from her book Ignite Your Ideas, Creativity for Kids, about how mistakes are a great impetus for creativity.

[00:32:30] Joanne Foster: It’s okay to make mistakes. Flaws don’t mean you can’t be awesome. For example, Post-It notes were accidentally created when Dr. Spencer Silver was looking into strong adhesives and discovered a glue that only stuck lightly, so it didn’t bond heavily or damage things. The Peelable stickies, which are great for brainstorming sessions, by the way, were launched in 1980. And do you know how chocolate chip cookies came about? In 1930, innkeeper Ruth Graves Wakefield was making chocolate cookies, but she ran out of baker’s chocolate, so she chopped up chunks of chocolate instead. She thought they’d melt evenly throughout the batter. However, she ended up with chocolate chips and a new delicacy was created. And in 1950 when Chef George Crumb’s customers complained that his potatoes were too mushy and thick, he decided to thinly slice and fry them, and potato chips were born. Three flawsome outcomes. So don’t berate yourself. If you create something flawed, it may be the impetus for something awesome.

[00:33:33] Voiceover: Patrice Vecchione was inspired to think about the creativity of self-expression and how others sometimes attempt to squash it.

Creativity in self-expression
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[00:33:41] Patrice Vecchione: This year the MET Gala, was focused on the Black Dandy and I’m a fashionista at heart and I, I watched, I a lot of it. Um, I could comment on those women very much replicating one another. Not in their costume, not in their dress. But when you look at their body types, it’s terrifying. So women are still starving themselves. But I did like the idea of that, that, that the, it was a very creative thing.

[00:34:19] Coleman Domingo, he had a great quote from him. He said, I love to dress to put myself together this way and tell the world who I am. And, and now there’s an event that seems to say we celebrate you for that spirit of revolution.

[00:34:35] And though women have had an opportunity to be creative in their dress, it’s, it’s been fairly narrow. Really the, yeah, yeah. You can wear this color blouse or that color blouse. Um, but if, if you get too outside of that, there’s a, there’s a reaction to it. I, I was told a number, this was a number of years ago when I was probably 50, I went into a classroom and the teacher, a high school classroom, and the teacher said, oh, I can’t believe you, you’re dressed like this, that you would wear two different patterns at the same time. And with that shade of lipstick and you know, I excused myself and I went to the bathroom to look at what, what the hell had I put on that day? And fine, it was who was saying, you know, a lot of, if we’re all the same, then there are fewer risks.

Valuing the creative process
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[00:35:42] Joanne Foster: I think that we are very focused on learning the foundational material that we have to learn, whether it’s history, geography, math, science, and sometimes teachers are so busy trying to consolidate their curriculum and get everything in that has to be taught because it’s mandatory that we don’t necessarily value the creative aspects of the learning process enough.

[00:36:18] You know, I just, I just posted a blog actually on, um, science fairs. And I asked, you know, yes, no, maybe, and, and it was an excerpt from an interview that I did for, um, for a journal. And I talked a little bit about the importance of science fairs and then I, I, I wondered whether or not they were worth it. They take a lot of time and a lot of effort on the part of kids, and often the parents are in there making the volcanoes or whatever it is they’re doing, right. But the beauty of science fairs is that it takes the science, but it also encourages the creativity of kids. It, it, it, it allows them to cultivate interests that may not necessarily be part of the normal curriculum. It allows kids to, um, see one another’s creative efforts, and build upon it. It it allows adults to take a look at, at kids’ efforts and say, oh, I, I’ve, I would never have thought about that. Look at this amazing thing that you’ve, you’ve done and, and, have the child explain what it is.

[00:37:25] Patrice Vecchione: I had a student, um, she still writes with me. Her name is Kathy, and I, she wanted to write about the day that her brother died, and she said, I said, okay, write about the day your brother died.

[00:37:37] She said, I can’t remember. And I said, okay, write everything you can’t remember. And she looked at me like I was nutty, and I said, write: I can’t remember what time of day it was. I can’t remember where I was when I got the call. I can’t remember what I had on. I can’t remember who called me, et cetera, et cetera. She emailed me that night and she said her, the subject was of her email was, I remember everything. So that is the possibility that we get to in creativity. Nothing in your experience, nothing in your thoughts, your memory, your feelings is ever lost to you. Even no matter what you think you can and cannot remember. Through the act of creativity, you can access the wealth of your entire life, not all at once, but in bits and pieces.

[00:38:39] Voiceover: Coming up, Patrice Vecchione and Joanne Foster talk about creativity as a way through challenges and creativity in times of political turmoil.

[00:38:48]

Segment 3: Creativity in crisis
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[00:39:16] Voiceover: I am your host, Suki Wessling. In the first part of this conversation with Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione, we talked about what creativity is and what hobbles it. In the second part, we talked about education and creativity throughout the lifespan. Now we address a topic near and dear to my heart, creativity as a way to withstand and learn from challenges.

[00:39:37] Some of the greatest art literature and music, not to mention many of the most important inventions, were born from struggle. Those of us who live more comfortable lives might marvel that someone can write, for example, a novel on scrap paper in prison. But in our own ways, we all use creativity this way. We start with Patrice remembering a creative solution she used to get through the trauma of her childhood and be able to write freely, and Joanne talking about a new venture she’s taken on when many people might feel constrained by expectations.

Creativity as a way to find your way through challenges
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[00:40:11] Patrice Vecchione: Even within the very creative person, there is often the internal critic that stops them. So if a person can externalize that internal critic, so what I imagined was, I imagined my mother when she was young and I imagined her shrunken very tiny. So she was about five. About, about about a foot long, and I would take her for a walk in my arms, this invisible being dressed in an Armani suit very thin and her high heels. Her stilettos would poke my arm as I held her, and I would hold her and I would rock her like a baby. And I would say, I’m sorry you’re so afraid.

[00:40:57] Joanne Foster: With all this talk about creativity, what I didn’t mention is that I myself am challenging my own creativity by pivoting away from the types of books and material that I’ve written in the past. And I am currently working on a children’s picture book, which is a huge leap of faith for me and a big change. And it’s been lots of fun and we’re moving forward. We need to take those leaps of faith and, um, stay enthusiastic and use our energy and try new things in life because every day’s a fresh possibility.

[00:41:39] Voiceover: The almost literal elephant that is in the room for most creative people right now is the sudden change in the artistic temperature of the United States. Under the current administration, arts funding is being cut. Arts and liberal arts education is being downplayed and defunded, and people are suffering consequences for speaking freely about the way they see the world.

[00:42:01] Every creative person I know is reacting to this situation. We talked earlier about using restrictions in education to inspire creativity, and many artists are currently creating more than ever.

[00:42:13] Patrice and Joanne are both in moments of great creativity in their lives, but also in a time of restrictions and fear. Joanne is Canadian and regularly travels to the US. This simple act has now become hazardous for Canadians who are seeing a belligerent neighbor to their south for the first time in modern history.

[00:42:31] Patrice is an American and a highly sensitive and thoughtful person who is responding not only by creating art, but also by taking steps to advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves.

[00:42:42]

[00:42:44] Patrice Vecchione: One thing that’s that happened for me was, um, the anxiety that I was living in, for a few months and I gave up my joy. And joy is a creative act and if we succumb to despair, we are going to be unable to find solutions to problems. Solving problems, whether they’re mathematical problems or cultural or societal, political problems, is a deeply creative act. Something I, did, um, recently is I spoke at my city council meeting and that was a very creative response to what’s going on.

[00:43:33] Um, if you look at the signs that people are making for the protests. I think there’s an energy that we don’t often associate with creativity, which is, and it comes into the black dandyism too, you know, the, the black dandy, you you’re gonna take away this freedom and that freedom, but you can’t control how this body looks. And even, you know, the slaves, they, they were doing indigo dying in certain, parts of the country and, and creating clothing to personalize to, to, to say, this is my creativity.

[00:44:10] I think about a, a story that, Colm Tóibín told when I went to hear him speak last year. He talked about, Oscar Wilde who was imprisoned and for being homosexual and Oscar Wilde wasn’t given pen and paper. but he had a kind warden and Oscar Wilde wanted to write a letter to his lover, and the warden provided him with paper and pencil and said, there’s nothing in the law that says how long your letter or how short your letter can be. So he wrote a book . So, so there, there’s a quality of, of creativity that is based on resourcefulness.

[00:44:54] Joanne Foster: You are listening to the Babblery and our discussion of creativity with Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione.

[00:45:00] Voiceover: Here Patrice addresses the way that artists and creative thinkers are driven to expose themselves in times of political peril.

[00:45:07] Patrice Vecchione: I had an experience recently of going to my city council as I do have for the last couple of years for National Poetry Month to read some high school students’ poems. And I knew I was going to read one poem that was very critical of what’s going on in our nation. I was also knew I was going to speak out and, um, I did, I, I did speak out.

[00:45:33] I, I quoted Salman Rushdie who said that, uh, a poem can’t stop a bomb, but it can, is a way to name the liars. But as I was driving over there, I noticed I was feeling a different kind of vulnerability than I had ever felt before. I live in a town where the city council is, um, I’d say, predominantly conservative and there are a couple progressives, but I don’t really know where everybody stands, but it was enough knowing enough to make me feel uneasy. And I, not having, a, a full citizenship.

[00:46:10] So I was nervous that I was making myself, um, vulnerable physically, even though, you know, I’m 67-year-old white woman, gray hair. I’ve lived here all my life. I’m like among the safest of the safe in theory, but right now we don’t know. So if I’m feeling fearful for my safety creatively, I think about all of the people who are not as safe as I am, whose creativity is literally being repressed because they are not safe.

[00:46:52] And in many countries, as, as we know for eons artists have been at risk. You th we think about the fatwas against Salman Rushdie to mention his name again. And many other artists who have had to leave, have had to flee for their lives because they wrote something in a poem or a novel. Here, that has never happened to, to, to my knowledge, or, I mean, I’m sure it has. I’m sure it has happened with Native peoples and, gay and trans people. I’m sure that repression has been happening, but it hasn’t been as widespread as I am afraid that it currently is. So if you don’t feel like you are safe to say, to speak what you know is true, then your creativity is being hindered and being snuffed out from the outside.

[00:47:48] And the more we move into an authoritarian government, the more people are going to be affected and the more people who have thought and have been safe are not going to be safe. We look at what happened to Carla Hayden recently, the the head librarian, director of Library of Congress. How she was, they have, they have attempted to remove her from her position.

[00:48:12] I think it was at the Cannes Film Festival, Robert De Niro spoke and, he said that in, in my country, we’re fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted.

[00:48:25] And that affects all of us here because the arts are democratic, art is inclusive. It brings people together like tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity, and that’s why art is a threat. That’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists because art is democratic and it embraces truth and diversity.

[00:48:53] Voiceover: I asked Joanne and Patrice what they personally do to nurture themselves in this time of stress for creative people.

[00:49:01] Joanne Foster: I like to spend time with my grandchildren , do silly things and watch the sunset. I sometimes stay still and reflect, which may look like I’m doing nothing, but it’s not that I’m doing nothing, it’s that I’m thinking that I’m breathing, that I’m taking time to, think about what I value or what I I need to do or what I want to make for dinner. Whatever it is, it’s, it’s, it’s a time for me to just sit and have a sense of calm. I can look forward, I can look backward, I can look any way I want when I’m by myself and being calm.

[00:49:40] Knowing what helps me personally, enables me to do the things that I need to do, especially because sometimes there are very complex challenges. You know, I mean, you turn on the news and you know, it’s a daily thing. It helps to be, and I mentioned this before, preparedness, to know yourself in advance well enough that if you do hit those roadblocks and things, you have the mechanisms or strategies, ready to go.

[00:50:09] And then when you’re doing that thinking piece, think about, you know, okay, what, what might be, um, a creative way to honor my own uniqueness, to capitalize on, on my strengths, to motivate me to progress, to, to, you know, be a better person or to next levels in, in, in what I do, whether it’s writing or, or whatever it is.

[00:50:29] But, I think if you engage in creativity, it’ll help you learn to appreciate it more, and the bonus too is that it’ll fuel somebody else’s creativity, possibly as well.

[00:50:39] Patrice Vecchione: It is through creativity that we are going to get through this difficult time, and it is through retaining joy and celebration that we are going to get through this time. I implore people who are listening to celebrate. Your creativity is yours. Your defiance is a creative act and you have joy that is irrepressible, and we need your joy. We need to bolster each other up right now. There’s another, quote that I, that I want to share with you from the psychotherapist uh, Marie Louise von Franz. She said It’s easy to be a naive idealist. It’s easy to be a cynical realist. It’s quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.

[00:51:34]

The joy of creativity
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[00:51:37] Voiceover: I spoke to Joanne and Patrice separately, and as I said at the outset, in a way I saw them coming at the question of creativity from two sides. But where they intersect is in the joy of creativity and the conviction that if all of us pursued our creativity, even in times of stress, and maybe especially in times of stress, humanity would be all the better for it.

[00:52:02] Joanne Foster: Get to know yourself and how to tune out the things that are causing you stress, look for those outlets that maybe will enable you to, to feel more positive. What whatever it is that will, help you find that way forward and, and, and build your own momentum and, empower your, your creativity. Find a way through. Find the supports that you need in order to extend what matters in your life, what matters to you in your life or to, to your family.

[00:52:32] Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself.

[00:52:34] Patrice Vecchione: I think we have to look at what does the experience of making art and writing give us. What do we get from that encounter? I do see it as an encounter. And it’s another way in which creativity to me is mysterious because it’s an encounter with ourselves, but it’s also an encounter with what Jung called the collective unconscious.

[00:53:03] So something happens in the creative process one of exploration, one of curiosity, one of unpredictability. Look, let me put it to you this way. when I was young, by the time I was 20, I had done almost every drug that was available. And when doing all of those drugs, I was always after the same thing. And I was after the experience of ecstasy, I was after the experience of feeling one with the universe and being beyond myself. just like in that little bear story that we many of us read to children, I realized I didn’t need the fur hat and I didn’t need the mittens, and I didn’t need the scarf. All I needed was myself and a pen and a piece of paper. So what happens for me when I create, whether it’s with a needle and thread or a pen and paper, is I experience a level of joy and ecstasy that I have only experienced in the best sex and the best feeling in love and moments in nature.

[00:54:16] So I think that experience is the domain of everyone. And everyone has the potential to experience that sense of ecstasy through creative expression. Now sometimes writing is hard, I mean, making art is terrifying. There, there’s no doubt about it. You can encounter things in the creative process that are difficult to face, and, it makes us nervous. It makes us, uh, want to turn away. Yes, that’s some of it. But also the experience of going beyond what you, what you know, I always tell students, you know, more than you know, you know, you know? Because we do, we all do.

[00:55:29] Voiceover: Thanks to Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione for sharing their thoughts on creativity and their creative lives with us. Their books and writings are too numerous to mention here, so please do visit the show notes for links and more information. If you haven’t yet subscribed to the Babblery Substack, please do so because more material related to this episode is forthcoming, including readings by Patrice and Joanne.

[00:55:55] The song Ragout by Rrrrrose Azerty is courtesy of LoyaltyFreakMusic.com. The song Colors by Ayla Nereo is courtesy of freemusicarchive.org. Thanks for listening.

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