share your creative expressions

[slaveofone]

Are you creative? Do you like to make things or do things to express the creative nature that GOD has given you? Do you write? Do you sing? Do you grow things? Do you have something to share online that shows what you have done or currently are doing?

Please use this thread to do so! And if you can explain a little about it, that would be wonderful.

A decade or two ago, I made experimental electronic music as a way to channel my creative impulses, emotions, and general teenage angst. Have a listen. (idea behind track: what seems nebulous, amorphous, or pure chance may actually have taken shape through the work or will a Designer).

[Neto]

My sons would get into that. My oldest has a link to music made entirely with old electronic devices, like dot matrix printers, and floppy disk drives. (They guy who set it all up tagged each device with what note it comes in at, then created software that would activate each device in correct timing to play popular music pieces.)

I have an inventive bent which I believe I inherited from my grandpa. The downside of this is that I see potential for future use for 'something' for most any odd bit of whatever. So that makes me a bit of a pack-rat, I guess.

My biggest and longest lasting hobby is an old Plymouth I bought in 1980. It sat in the same place where I left it in my dad's shop from then until 2 years ago, when my folks were moving into assisted living. So my son-in-law helped get it moved over 900 miles across the country. I am self-employed, which means that the work always follows me home, so I don't get a lot of time to work on it, but hope to finish it someday. Used to write poetry, but not for a long time. I have tried to paint what I have in my head, but while I can visualize it, I can't seem to put it on canvas.

Oh, and welcome to the forum.

[steve-in-kville]

I'm sticking my neck out a bit here.... but I am type 2 bipolar. A bi-product of that is hypergraphia, or simply put, the compulsion to write. Its both a blessing and a curse. I have a rough draft of my memoirs that I want to publish one day and I dabble in poetry a little.

I used to oil paint when I was a teen but haven't picked up a brush in 25+ years. Some of my children have picked up the craft though.

[temporal1]

i guess this isn’t creative, but it’s something i don’t understand. it “feels” expressive.
i have a surprising ability to shovel snow. i don’t understand it. it doesn’t relate to anything else about me. that i’m aware. i do a surprisingly good job. i don’t get sore muscles. i just start (with a cheap, lightweight snow shovel) and, there i go. it’s not even a plan. i start, usually expecting to stop at one place or another. then i keep going. (i have a long driveway now.) in the past, i cleared frost and snow off a pond for skating. i don’t understand it. i often wonder if i’m going to be one of those cases of .. dying from a heart attack shoveling snow. because it seems that would be about right. all things considered.

my husband and i used to shovel our drive and 2 neighbors’ drives before the plow would get there.
it’s a lot more fun having help. but, it’s ok, now, too.

maybe music and ice skating were expressive? i haven’t skated in years. but, i remember.
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... &start=100

maybe shoveling is expressive? i like when it’s done.
and, it reminds of my dear fil, an engineer, who shoveled with precision. he liked ice-fishing, too.
i guess i do think of him often while shoveling. good memories.

[steve-in-kville]

Creative expression can be anything where you accomplish something that puts you in a good place mentally and emotionally. It doesn't always have to be "artsie" or whatever.

I have a SIL that is a big garage sale/flea market hound. That's her thing. I know people that use sports as an outlet. I know a fellow railfan that drives hours to take pictures of trains for a day. He coordinates family vacations around it even.

All of us are creative in our own ways. I see it in my children. We have twins and one has what appears to be a massive imagination, the other, not so much, but excels in other areas.

[Mountain Merle]

I've written a few songs over the years. Which is strange because I know very little about music and have had almost no training. This song is the one that got me the Mountain Merle handle; the boys at Allegany Boys Camp began calling me that some years ago after I sang the song there. (complete with buckskin suit and coonskin hat) My claim to fame is that the song has made it into the official Allegany Boys Camp song book, which gives me the happy feeling!

Mountain Man Forever
I've spent some time under the city lights, where the fog dripped from the leaden skies,
and the tall grey buildings blocked the sun
and by the time the air gets thru to you it's been already breathed by quite a few
I couldn't wait, till I found my way back home.

I love to gaze across the ocean wide and watch the subtle ebb and flow of the tide
where the seagulls scream and the waves crash on the shore
but when I think of all that shifting sand and how my roots run deep in my mountain land
it won't be long, till I find my way back home.

chorus:
Mountain man forever, out under God's blue sky
Mountain man forever, give me fresh air or else I'll die
I've wandered the world over, thru city, plain and sea
but there's no place like the mountains, it's the mountain life for me.

[steve-in-kville]

I've written a few songs over the years. Which is strange because I know very little about music and have had almost no training.

I can really appreciate that, even though I am not a music person, per say. I can't carry a tune in a bucket and never learned to play an instrument. That being said, In the past few years, I've really come to appreciate both traditional hymns as well as contemporary Christian music. Perhaps its the poet in me, but I often wonder what a person was going through when they wrote the lyrics.

Good on you.

[slaveofone]

hypergraphia, or simply put, the compulsion to write. Its both a blessing and a curse.

I think I understand that a little. When I was younger, I learned how to type. It was one of the most thrilling things. I would go to school early and stay at school late just typing up anything. When my dad bought a simple word processing computer, I would spend hours on it writing stories or poems or whatever. It sometime s felt like an impulse had taken over my body. I called it "the beast" because it felt like I wasn't free to just play or do anything until the writing impulse was satisfied.

[slaveofone]

i guess this isn’t creative, but it’s something i don’t understand. it “feels” expressive.
i have a surprising ability to shovel snow. i don’t understand it. it doesn’t relate to anything else about me. that i’m aware. i do a surprisingly good job.

That's funny. But why not? Labor can be enjoyable and creative. Makes me think of mowing grass. As you work, you can create interesting patterns. You are interacting with nature. I never encountered snow that was worth shoveling till I moved to the Midwest. Although I don't find it very enjoyable, I do recognize the beauty and wonder of it. And when it is deep enough to shovel trenches - that's fun.

[steve-in-kville]

That's funny. But why not? Labor can be enjoyable and creative.

Not to side-track your thread, but there is nothing more gratifying then going to bed after an honest day's work.