wild at art: June 2014

Wouldn't you like to be able to discover your wonderful creative self whilst beavering away at your daily duties in the workplace !

Well 20 lucky souls at Red Fuse Communications in Hong Kong, got to do just that recently. Thanks to the inspiration of their energetic and inspired operations manager, Marianne Gable. Of course one can imagine that an advertising agency is bound to be full of creative types, inventing, designing, imagining and envisioning all kinds of new ideas !!! But as I soon learned, to keep an agency up, running and ticking like clockwork there are a plethora of essential people in the team, who keep the whole ship afloat !!

So Marianne thought it was time that everyone got a crack at the creative game and so she booked an Art workshop with me, for members of the Red Fuse team who are involved in finance, human resources, client management, strategy, digital and more. " Its a great opportunity for people to actually use their hands to create rather than focus on emails and speadsheets " she stated!

So 20 very nervous and practically silent people arrived to find out what lay in store.....they were quick to tell me " We are not the creatives.... " clearly cautioning us all against any high expectations !!!

Katie's Secret Mandala Recipe

So I suggested we start the workshop assuming that everyone in the room IS " creative" and if they would trust me, we could tackle a failsafe way to relax and surrender into some gentle doodling, well doodling in a circle ! People generally felt able to say that yes they doodle and that its not quite such a threatening concept as perhaps drawing or designing might be...

We began with a warm up game, sharing doodling with a a friend.

People loosened up and felt good about what they had produced and relaxed into it all...
I absolutely know that starting an artwork on a surface which is not white and blank helps everyone, so then using the wonderful tried and tested 8 x point Mandala recipe, people set off to design and doodle their own circular doodle or Mandala on pre textured and stencilled boards.

Aha Moments !!!

Creating an 8 point Mandala can be as freeform or as structured as you wish to make it, totally depending upon the individual approach. The delight rests in the open structure of the four directions, interpretations are completely personal..............

However, the Mandala making process can be an interesting mirror as to how we all strategise and people had fun observing themselves as they worked, some got lost in the moment, some flowed and chattered, one or two confessed to feeling under pressure to be accurate, others marvelled at how pleasant it felt to just relax, others felt mesmerised by the repetitive process, others found it hard to make decisions about next steps.....

But everyone was delighted with the results, and many just couldn't stop, judgements were released and imperfections embraced when people finally held their own completed piece !!

What an inspired idea by Marianne Gable to provide Red Fuse team members an opportunity to step outside the box and realise they too are the Creatives !