Imitate to celebrate
QD #67 🗿 plus an upcoming event in New York on 16 Feb
In this weeks edition:
✷ We’re hosting an event in New York on 16 Feb. You’re invited.
✷ Magnification as a form of appreciation
✷ A fine selection of sculptural links and things to explore
Dear Questers,
Sam here 👋 Dialling in from the half-way mark of our current Quest on the theme of Sculpture. We’ve spent a couple of weeks raising our curiosity for this medium, expanding our creative interest zones and becoming more mindful in process. In the second half of a Quest we start to shift our energy toward making and bringing our ideas to life!
✷ IRL EVENTS! ✷
In 2025 we are hoping to programme more regular in person events in certain cities! New York is first up… and our event is next Sunday 16 Feb. If you’re in New York - come along and help us launch this chapter-based experiment 📍❤️
EXCURSIONS NYC
A playful exploration of the material world of Sculpture - hosted by Questers, Hannah Singleman and Jillian Lenser.
🗓️ Sunday 16th February
⏰ 1.00pm - 4.00pm EST
📍 Brooklyn / $20
🎟️ Tickets & detail: https://lu.ma/wxg6986b
Expect curious conversations, hands on sculpture experiments and celebrating the world as our studio. Our events are rooted in the joy of collective curiosity and exploration. A chance to meet like-spirited people, exchange ideas and grow connected creative lives.
All materials provided. No prior Sculpture experience required - beginners are lucky! Less workshop - more playground.
Magnification, imitation and celebration.
Have you ever experienced the inspiration of a great artist?
Held in your hand or witnessed the very same things which spurred the creation of something iconic? I've written about the concept of the 'Creative Pilgrimage' before - journeying to places that hold significance to your creative heroes. It's a humbling feeling - walking the same footsteps as someone who has left an indelible mark on your life. Knowing that the sights, sounds, stories and atmosphere of the exact place you are standing held so much significance that it led them to create something you hold so dearly.
But what about when this happens unknowingly?
This week I was walking on the beach with my metaphorical sculptural goggles on and discovered the most brilliantly shaped pieces of chalk. They were so impossibly playful that you can hardly believe they were sculpted by nature. I knew they looked familiar and couldn't work out why.
It was only later that day when reading about British sculptor Barbara Hepworth that the puzzle pieces came together.
"Retreating to the coast in 1939 Hepworth found the power she had been unable to find in the developing metropolitan world, and with this rekindled connection to landscape produced some of the finest sculptures of her career. The move clearly affected Hepworth's practice. Works produced were named Sea Forms, Rock Formation, Sea Formation, Figures in a Landscape, all centred around this new environment in which Hepworth would remain for the rest of her life."
Sat comparing images of Hepworth's sculptures and the photos I had taken on an earlier walk, I felt a deep illumination at the similarity.
Had I been holding the exact rocks in my hand that Hepworth held?! Somehow making a 500-mile trip over 50 years to meet me on this beach right now?!
A Quester can dream.
Whether or not these were THE stones - I felt a connection transcending time and space. It made me wonder at all the other times in my life I had unknowingly felt, touched, witnessed the same inspirational source material that spurred other artists to make their most iconic work.
This is why I’m endlessly fascinated about how others see the world and how our passions shape our creative perception.
What really struck me in this instance was that Hepworth's creative act was a kind of a magnified imitation. She was taking forms that she could likely hold in her hand and magnifying them through her sculpture practice to shed light on the beauty of their impossibly sculptural forms. Reframing the familiar.
This felt liberating to me. The role of creative people doesn’t have to be about making entirely new forms. We can use our creativity to magnify small, everyday things that we think deserve attention and appreciation. Imitate to celebrate.
A prompt:
✷ What is something small you find beauty in?
✷ Why is it beautiful to you?
✷ How could you magnify it through a creative act?
If you have some starting point ideas - leave a comment and we can explore them together.
A round up of illuminating discoveries from our Quester world.
✷ Sculpture ✷
🪑 Materials Materials is a podcast where design writer and commentator Grant Gibson talks to an artist, maker, designer or architect about their relationship with a particular material or technique and discover how it changed their lives and careers.
🎨 Leap Then Looks digital archive from their residency at Black Mountain College is a treasure trove of making experiments!
🧪 A guide to experimental art practice for young people
📚 The art of book sculptures via The Marginalian
🪵 Richard Serra’s Verb list is a great tool for getting starting and diving into the act of making
✷ General ✷
🌀 Curiosity as the antidote to doom
🫀 A five part series about bringing humanity to all you do as a creative person via Its Nice That
Finally…
Thanks for reading! A lot of time, heart and energy goes into writing these each week. If you enjoy what we do at Creative Quests - you can support by joining a Quest or booking us to run a workshop in your community or organisation. Sharing this newsletter with a curious loved one also helps!
big love,
Sam x
CQ HQ
🥾 Quest Guide / Founder
📲 @saaamfurness
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