Finding Gold in the Grey
Issue #49 - make it fun, a poetry workshop + illuminating links to explore
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas & stories exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Written by Sam Furness and delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue or send to a friend in need of a creative boost.
Dear Questers
Just about coming back to reality after our festival debut at Latitude last week. It was an absolutely brilliant few days in the forest, bringing our Quest magic to life in an entirely new setting. More on this later. But first…
We have a new event coming up! The next instalment of our Quester Exchange series where we invite different members of our global community to share their wisdom & talents with the wider world.
Finding Gold in the Grey: a poetry exploration with AngieDoe.
🗓️ Tuesday 13th August
⏰ 5-6pm UK / 12-1pm EST
💰 Free
Angie is a long time friend of Creative Quests and was in fact our first ever Guest Quester back in January 2021. She has such a great way of creating poetry from everyday scenarios and helping others tune into the poetic merit of their passing thoughts.
About this session:
”We often see grey areas as something to avoid but there is also gold to be found there. When being creative, sometimes the colors you experiment with end up mixing together and coming out grey. But you can still use that!In this session, we’ll get personal and write some poetry that leans into embracing the grey areas in our daily lives that can manifest in the writing process, and highlight all of the beautiful ways the grey can be interpreted!" - Angie Doe
This is not one to be missed! Come join us next Tuesday 13th August for a gentle, exploratory hour. Suitable for all levels of poetic confidence.
🎱 The Quest Teller will see you now…
Our hypothesis that Quests and Festivals are a match made in creative heaven was truly proven. This past week we managed to hit x3 of our 2024 targets in one playful, festivally, swoop…
✅ Get CQ into a major UK festival (and crucially - be paid to be there)
✅ Invent a pop-up / drop in CQ format
✅ Create a physical CQ product
🎱 Curious festival goers could visit our 'Quest Teller' and be given a choice of Five Pathway symbols (based on our Five Pathways framework) of Noticing, Moving, Making, Imagining, Returning (nature connection).
Each Pathway generated 5 missions to choose from in our new deck of cards ... something that would spread joy and connection around the festival.
📽️ You can watch a video tour our installation here
❤️ 441 wonderful people (across generations!) got their Quests read and set off to fulfil their creative missions around the festival site.
Knowing that our installation was causing a playful, real-time, co-created ripple effect around the festival is the biggest feeling of accomplishment I could ask for.
My key takeaway… REMEMBER TO MAKE IT FUN.
I have a long held belief in the power of fun. I think fun is an extremely undervalued tool for creating meaningful change in our lives and others.
Fun is good for us on a physiological and psychological level. Michael Rucker PHD is leading researcher of fun (seriously) and suggests that fun can:
~ Improve our relationships
~ Make us smarter
~ Reduce stress
~ Balance our hormone levels
~ Make us feel more youthful
Fun is also disarming. It’s a signal that you can bring a more playful version of yourself to the table. I think this is especially important to consider when designing experiences that help people explore their creativity.
To me - our creative potential IS the unknown and I believe that is why so many people resist the call to explore it. Our own potential scares us.
One of our core missions at Creative Quests is to make the unknown feel like an inviting place to explore. The unknown is the only place that we can individually and collectively evolve.
“The role of the artist is make the revolution irresistible.” - Toni Cade Bambara
In everything we do with Creative Quests there is purposeful element of mystery. We want to spark peoples curiosity.
Whether that be signing up for month-long Quest without knowing what the theme is going to be or a threshold made of golden tassels to have your Quest fortune told at a festival.
The best way to encourage exploration of the unknown? Make it look and feel fun.
Help people choose curiosity. It’s incredibly easy to forget this as we strive for recognition as ‘serious creative people’ who should be worthy of precious time and attention.
What you do beyond the point is what really matters: give people an experience that feels like a pay off. Creatively challenge them, playfully provoke them. Show them that the unknown is both fun and a place to evolve ourselves.
"To change the world, you’ve got to throw a better party than those destroying it" - not actually sure who said this, but they are a clever person.
💭 What’s next?
🔮 We’d love to bring The Five Pathways to more places! Maybe you have an event, party or conference that needs an extra dose of creativity? We also have a workshop version of this experience that works well for teams and communities.
🤫 We miiiight have just secured some funding to bring elements of this experience to life in a town in the UK. Turning an empty high street unit into a hub of creative potential. More on that one as it happens.
📧 Want to chat about any of the above? Comment on this post or drop me an email: sam@channeltwelve.co.uk
A round up of curious finds from our Quester world.
😆 Here's why you should make a habit of having more fun via NPR
✨ This artist turns loved ones ashes into astonishing, cosmic works of art
🗺️ Poem Atlas is an exhibition platform and publisher that connects people to the transformative power of visual poetry,
❤️ On the note of our creative potential scaring us… check out this incredible poem by Marianne Williamson ‘Our Deepest Fear’
☎️
is a wonderful publication. They have started The Internet Phone book and are seeking submissions for personal, poetic, and human websites.❣️ If you are proud of your work, promote TF out of it via Tyler The Creator
🖼️ Make art out of curiosity, not fear via David Choe
🌠 This curator has released a global collection of handmade signs from the COVID 19 pandemic.
Finally…
I love hearing from readers in the comments, and always value feedback.
If you enjoy I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two; you can send them here to sign up.
❤️’s and comments make me feel good too!
Big love,
Sam
Quest Guide / Founder
@saaamfurness
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas & stories exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue or send to a friend in need of a creative boost.
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Thanks for the kind words - and for linking to the phone book :)