Aliza Einhorn is a writer, an astrologer and a tarot reader.
Her first book, The Little Book of Saturn, is a smart, friendly introduction to the astrological Saturn. It is a book for curious readers who know there is more to astrology than their sun signs.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/alizaeinhorn
-How her first book ended up not being a poetry book even though she thought it would.
-Why she stopped writing poems while in her thirties.
-Identity and whether or not we can define ourselves by something we no longer do (or haven’t done for a while).
-A crash course of Tarot and how it can help people with their creative blocks.
-Having a dual-identity, where one-half of you is focused on a day job and making money while the other half is focused on your creative passion and doing what you truly love.
-How astrology is a tool for self-awareness and self-discovery.
-The validation that creative people can get when they are (finally) told that they might be meant to do the thing that they’ve always known that they are supposed to do.
-Why Saturn is so important.
-Working with Tom Hart and the Sequential Artists Workshop.
-How creating art and finding your audience is like internet dating.
-The experience of writing and publishing her first book.
“I remember thinking ‘I’m not going to write anything anymore unless it is directly related to my income, which I want now to be astrology.’”
“It’s not one-size-fits-all. You can create your work and create your life. You just have to do it. You can’t wait for someone else to do it for you.”
“People are afraid. They’re afraid of others seeing their insides.”
“If you don’t expose yourself, people aren’t going to care.”
Youngman Brown's astrology reading
The Little Book of Saturn: Astrological Gifts, Challenges, and Returns by Aliza Einhorn
Tom Hart on Your Creative Push
Astrology and Tarot Readings by Aliza
Website / Facebook / Patreon / Twitter
Danny Gregory is an artist, author, teacher and co-founder of Sketchbook Skool. He taught himself to draw in his mid-thirties after a tragic accident changed his life, bringing with it a new peace and perspective. One that informs his creative habit everyday.
Danny has written nearly a dozen internationally best-selling books on art and creativity including Art Before Breakfast, Everyday Matters, The Creative License, Shut Your Monkey, An Illustrated Life and many more.
Before starting Sketchbook Skool, he spent three decades as one of New York’s leading advertising creative directors and has created award-winning, global campaigns for such clients as Chase, JPMorgan, American Express, IBM, Burger King, Ford and Chevron amongst others.
Danny resides in New York City.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/293
-The importance of your partner understanding your creative needs.
-Creative postpartum depression that often occurs when we are finished with a project.
-Why he left the advertising industry.
-Meeting Koosje Koene and how Sketchbook Skool started.
-The value in seeing how many different artists make art as well as seeing where they make it.
-The role that community plays in developing as an artist.
-The difference in motivation when you are paying for something as opposed to getting it for free.
-Going to clown school.
-Giving yourself constraints or challenges.
-What it means to clear space in order to start new things (or finish old things).
-How he got past imposter syndrome (and his advice for Youngman in getting past his).
“I think that having a partner that understands you and your creative needs is essential to be able to focus on your work.”
“If you want to start something new, you need to clear some space for it to happen.”
“Thinking you know yourself too well can be limiting. Sometimes you’ve got to just jump off the cliff and see what happens.”
“I think it’s really important to have skin in the game. If it’s too easy to walk away from, you will.”
“I always find that if I have that glimmer of an idea, if I have that grain of sand to put in the oyster, I’m on the way. I’m going to get to the end just by having a beginning.”
“There are people out there waiting for your art. Give it to them.”
“Every time you have the impulse to distract yourself, instead try to focus that energy into making something new.”
Sketchbook Skool (Use offer code SBSPUSH to get 10% off!)
Danny Gregory on Your Creative Push Ep. 50
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Blog
David Talley is an internationally recognized photographer, director, and producer operating out of Portland, OR. His works exhibit the darkest moment before an explosion of light, a story broken, but changed for the better, and the ability to transform the present problem in to a prospering future. David is the founder and creative director of the world's largest photographic collaboration event, Concept Collaboration.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/davidtalleyreplay
-How his personality doesn't lend well with a normal job where he is told what to do.
-How many people are afraid of making money with their creative talents because they love it so much and don't want that love to disappear.
-His "single sentence" and how it applies to his creativity as well as his life in general.
-How if you want bad things to turn around, you have to seek out your "explosion of light."
-How his creativity was nurtured from a very young age.
-An important first experience photographing a sunrise in Hawaii.
-How many potentially creative people are idealistic so they never go out and create that first thing to get the ball rolling.
-How lack of structure as well as lack of deadlines holds many people (including David) back from actually creating work.
-How beginning a 365-day challenge gave him the structure and framework to actually take photographs and strive to get better, which actually began his career.
-How it is impossible not to grow when you do something every single day.
-The moment when he realized that he didn't have an answer for why he takes photographs and the way he found an answer, which ultimately led to his single sentence.
-One of his worst moments, when all of his camera gear was stolen, and how he was able to look at the situation from above to realize that in six months, everything would be much better.
-The power that comes from being able to step outside of situations and attempting to determine exactly what is going on and how your single sentence fits into it.
-How sharing your single sentence with people that you care about allows them to hold you accountable for the things that you believe in.
-How more than art, he wants to be able to help people.
-How he balances his time, working hard and then playing hard, along with the concept of sabbath.
-The importance of having some "zest" to your life.
-The Pareto principle and how it applies to him and other artists.
-His greatest inspirations: God, J.J. Abrams and Gregory Crewdson.
-The origins of Concept Collaboration and how it helped many artists and photographers to work together and share resources.
-His ebook "The Single Sentence" and how it breaks down the process of developing your own single sentence and helped many people find vision and focus in their own creativity.
"I don't know if it's like this for other creative artists, but I have a problem with authority and I don't want to be told what to do."
"I was afraid of making money with my creative talents for a really long time."
"At the end of the day, if you're not failing in your art and learning, you're not growing."
"The sentence itself is the guidepost for everything I do and everything I create in terms of art and in terms of life."
"I'm just snapping photos and framing these images and I'm just dying inside. Like this is the best thing ever. I love this so much."
"I think the biggest thing that holds creative people back is a lack of structure and lack of a deadline."
"The first part was take a photo every single day for a year and the second part was try to get better every single day. With that, I found my calling as a photographer."
"As creatives, we love the idea of things, and we hate the idea of hard work. We need to combine the two into one so that we can get stuff done."
"If you want to be something and if you want to say that you're something, then go do something."
"The art that I create is a direct extension of the strongest parts of who I am."
"Who I am at my core is what feeds into my creativity, what feeds into my art, and what ultimately becomes what I produce and what people see of me."
"Go start today. Don't wait until tomorrow because you won't do it. Start today."
"If you want to take the next step in being who you want to be as an artist or a creative person, go take the first step today. Right now."
"Do your art every day for the next 30 days and it will destroy you in the best way. It will completely awaken who you are going to be."
"'Someday' is a very dangerous word."
"The Single Sentence" by David Talley (David's ebook!)
Gregory Crewdson (Wikipedia)
"The Gap" by Ira Glass
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Danny Gregory : Website / Sketchbook Skool
Carson Ellis is the author and illustrator of the bestselling picture books Home and Du Iz Tak? (a Caldecott Honor book and the recipient of an E.B. White Read Aloud Award). She has illustrated a number of books for kids including bestsellers The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket, and The Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy (who happens to be her husband).
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/carsonellis
-Going to school for painting, even though she had a desire to become an illustrator.
-Doing album art for The Decemberists.
-Working in bars while doing her art on the side and why she finally needed to leave.
-Her stance on working for free or working for “exposure.”
-Working with her husband, Colin Meloy.
-What it is like to live on a farm and being surrounded by animals.
-The importance of having your own creative space.
-Battling procrastination.
-How to know when to take a break from a creative project that is giving you problems (and how to know when to come back).
-Creating a new language for her book Du Iz Tak? and some of the other challenges that that book presented to her.
-How she enjoys the laborious process of drawing by hand.
-Getting to her childhood dream in a roundabout way.
-How artists should always be pushing themselves and taking on projects that make them feel uncomfortable.
“It was important for me to do all that art for free because it made me work. It gave me stuff to do and made me feel like I was part of the art scene.”
“I got into this sort of spiral of not knowing how to solve certain problems in the book so I just didn’t think about it for a month and then came back and had a better sense of how to do it.”
“I think that part of the practice is getting through the parts that aren’t inspiring you.”
“In every project I feel like there’s a really inspired part where I’m in a mystical art-making place, and then there’s a boring part where I have to paint blades of grass all day.”
“If you love to do something creatively, make it your practice.”
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