Interview with Shelley Klammer by Megan Potter

Shelley lives with her partner Andrea and her 11 year old daughter Hadley in a rambling 50's rancher overrun with blackberries and bears on the edge of the city of Vancouver. She will soon be starting a new full-time job in a therapeutic art studio for the elderly. She also teaches expressive painting and spontaneous collage on evenings and weekends. She has recently discovered a new passion for clay sculpture. She hopes to obtain her degree in Expressive Art Therapy in the near future. She blogs on Intuitive Creativity, where I've been admiring her collages and enjoying her writing for some months. I'm really excited to be able to share her with you all, because I see Shelley as being most inspiring in being most normal. Here's what she had to say:

What is your artistic expression(s) of choices?
I love to collage and draw and paint. I don't know how to paint or draw realistically. I never
developed the technical skills but I have always been drawn to symbols, patterns and colors and
putting them together in ways that feel meaningful to me. Early on I knew I wanted to develop my
own intuitive style of expressing myself.

Have you always been creative?
I remember selling my drawings around the neighborhood for 10 cents each when I was 6 years old.
I remember very early wanting to be a painter when I grew up but not being sure what that really
was. My early drawings were filled with patterns. Polkadot pants, flowered shirts and striped socks.
I loved to draw clowns.

What drew you to the creative life?
When I walked into an art supply store for the first time I thought I had found the keys to the
meaning of the universe! I knew I wanted to express myself eloquently and well. I ached to be
expressive. I was quiet and did not share much of myself with others when I was younger. I felt that
art would be my secret language and that I could express anything of myself in it safely and freely.

Are you working on any projects right now?
I have many ongoing projects: art journals, intuitive drawings, paintings, collages. Most everything
has it's own book. I have just mandalas in one book, inner child drawings in another sketchbook and
so on. I go through phases and follow my intuition about what to work on and some books and
projects get shelved for a long time. Right now I am working on a series of miniature 4"x6" mixed
media collages that explore patterns, ornamentation and the natural world. I feel like celebrating the
beauty of my life right now.

What is the hardest thing to overcome in your creative life?
Wanting to do too much and ignoring all the other aspects of my life. I sometimes worry that I
elevate creativity over other aspects of living and I get out of balance. My mind runs away with me
and I try to do and create too much. I am learning to see that all of life is creative and has meaning if
I am quiet and aware enough to see it. If I quiet my mind I can create what is essential and what
needs to be created.

What do you do when you get stuck?
Go for along 2 hour walk in nature. Usually my mind races for the first hour and then I finally get
quiet and the insights come and I know what I need to do next.

What inspires you the most? What makes you want to, need to, make art?
I am quite passionate about exploring the intuition in art. By this I mean letting go of excessive
thinking and planning. I like to just play around and see what emerges. I try to see what I am
beyond my thinking.

What's your creative dream?
I love to teach others how to create intuitively and I am also interested in how art is a language that
heals and connects. I am no longer completely sure how this specifically fits into the larger scheme
of things other that I delight in surprising people to create fom their own unique creative source.
This might and does involve facilitating creativity groups and writing about the subject of intuition
and creativity.

Why did you start your blog?
It seems strange but I started my blog at first because I was afraid to. I no longer feel afraid to
express myself honestly and openly to others but this was a challenge for me at first. I had spent
many years alone in the studio hardly sharing my work with anyone. The blog opened me up to
expressing what I do to others and acknowledging it to myself in a deeper way.

How does it, if it does, inspire your art? How does your art inspire
your blog?
My blog inspires me to keep creating. I can see in tangible form that I am unraveling both the story
and the truth of my life. Posting my art on my blog gives me more pause to consider what it means
to me. It increases my awareness of the deeper meaning of my life.

How do you feel about the creative blogging community?
I have been blogging for over a year and for the first 6 months I resolved not to look at any other
blogs. I did not want to be overly influenced and I wanted to develop my own unique voice. After
that I was astounded at the infinity of blog universes that there are out there. I wish I had time to
look at other people's blogs but I also find it rather overwhelming! I can get lost for hours going
from blog to blog.

What is your favorite thing about blogging? Your least favorite?
(What keeps you blogging?)
My favorite thing about blogging is that it impels me to be honest in my expression, courageous
even. My deepest connections with other people have been when I have been willing to expose my
humanness. I love creating the art for my blog and then writing about it. My least favorite are the
technical parts, scanning, photoshopping and being dependent on technology. I get anxious when
my scanner goes down! What keeps me blogging is that my life seems to be getting deeper and
more meaningful and I attribute this in part to expressing and sharing my truth on my blog.

What are your favorite blogs to read (creative or otherwise), and why?
There is a beautiful blog called "Little Birds" that I love for it's visually stunning simplicity and I love
the emotional writing of Misty Mawn's blog.

For all our beginning visitors teetering on the edge of the creative
life and/or blogging their creative life, what advice would you give
them? What did you wish you knew when you started making art?
If you start a blog write the truth about yourself. It makes for a much more interesting read. As for
your creative life above all just play! Quiet your mind, dive in and don't worry about results.

Megan Potter is a mom, a homeschooler, a wife, a life coach, and an all around creativity freak. Her own artistic expression of choice is painting and writing, but her real passion is teaching and coaching others. She is just beginning a new business, Everyday Renaissance, dedicated to inspiring women around the world to live creative lives. You are welcome to stop by her business blog, Flaming Renaissance or her personal blog, Living Abundantly - she'd love to hear from you!

Comments

[Megan]

Thanks for the comments! Shelley's collage has been inspiring me for months so I couldn't help but share what I'd found. Now, if only I could figure out how to make collage like that! (I'm with you Maria, I'd love a class - if only.)

[Delia]

Thank you for sharing such an inspired conversation!
Love,
D.

[Jessie]

This was a great interview Shelley and Megan! It has made me think about how I approach my own art as well as the influence that blogging has on it (and vice versa). Shelley, I love what you said about the importance of finding your own voice.

Not to mention, I'm excited to have been introduced to someone new (both Shelley and Misty Mawn)! :)

[maria]

Megan, thanks so much for introducing us to Shelley. So much of what she says about the creative life strikes a chord with me, especially the part about elevating creativity over other aspects of living and getting out of balance. But ... it's just so rich, it's hard not to. Still, she's right.

And her blog and art are exquisite! If she wasn't clear across the continent, I would love to take one of her collage workshops.

Thanks again!