Where creativity comes from
Issue #41 🏁 That's a wrap! 3 years & 12 Quests later....
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, delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue or send to a friend in need of a creative boost.
Well… we made it!
Hello! Sam here 👋 Last Tuesday we hit the finish line of our 12th and final Quest of this epic chapter. A 3 month experiment turned into a 3 year journey.
It would be an impossible task to thank everyone who has shaped this project so far (literally 100’s of people) and even harder to reduce our learnings down to some pithy, newsletter worthy bullet points. What we have co-created and discovered through our first chapter of Quests deserves a much more rigorous excavation… which it will get!
I will simply say that I am so grateful for all that we’ve explored, learnt and created together so far ❤️
Our new chapter (ooo mysterious) will begin in Spring.
I won’t give the whole game away now, but our aims for 2024 are to:
⏮ revisit our first 12 themes
🌀 foster a more ongoing, lower intensity Quester ecosystem.
🔮 release Quest inspired products that galvanise creative ways of living
Over the course of the next month of Quest Digests we’re going to be weaving our way through some of the ideas and creative concepts that underline our vision.
🌱 Where Creativity Comes From
When I started Creative Quests in January 2021 - it was really an experiment in meeting people and creatively exploring together.
“What happens when a global collective channel their curiosity in the same direction?” was the general investigation.
3 years on I can say we achieved much much more than that - but one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learnt is about the place (or places) that make creativity possible. This applies across age ranges, cultures, disciplines.
To make creativity (an output) possible, we must focus on the conditions that let it grow (the inputs).
These conditions are elemental parts of the human spirit - attitudes, approaches to living, behaviours - things which each of us can hone, whether we deem ourselves ‘creative’ or not.
We may have explored 12 themes in our Quest series so far… but truthfully it’s never really been about simply the themes themselves. It’s been about collectively exploring the traits that can help us lead more connected, inspired, meaningful creative lives.
A round up of curious finds from our Quester world.
🌸 The Agency For Nature is an experiment in the future of creativity. In the context of climate change and the collapse of nature, what if our creativity was used in service to life on earth?
👀 ‘Curiosity is a business imperative in 2024’ via IDEO
🎶 Creativity has no best before date (this is my new jam)
📈 The World Economic conducted a skills most needed in the future job market… number 1 between now and 2027? You guessed it… Creative Thinking.
🙏 Our pals at Huddlecraft are hiring a new Creative Lead! This is such an amazing (and rare) opportunity to work with a great organisation making change through the power of peer groups
🪄 The Magician's Way: What it Really Takes to Find Your Treasure by William Whitecloud
📲 Dating app, Hinge, are sending free phone-shaped books (to people in the US) filled with creative ideas to help you unplug from your phone. Loving this new, connection-centred, direction that Hinge are on right now.
⛔️ Is this the end of free pitching for creative work? via It’s Nice That
🅰 Like cool, free fonts? One of my favourite typeface designers, Brandon Nickerson sends out brilliant fonts via his newsletter every couple weeks.
Finally…
This week I’ve been visiting universities! Sharing ideas for creative life and work with both Theatre Making students at University of Kent and social entrepreneurs at SOAS, London. In my guest lecturer/practitioner era it seems.
🎭 Monday: back at my old campus UKC to take guide Theatre Making MA students on a trip through their perceptions and showing how Questing is a way to make the world your studio and unearth new inspiration in familiar settings.
💭 Wednesday: At SOAS university for the penultimate session of a brilliant 5 month programme I’ve been designing and facilitating with 18 students on a learning journey to found social enterprises.
Exploring constantly parallel paths in ones work is a challenge. But a worthy one I think. I believe the future belongs to creative generalists - those who can bring their whole eclectic self to a wide variety of work.
💌 If you’re in education and looking for someone to share their mixed experience working in arts and business with your students - drop me a line!
You can be an artist, run a business and create social impact simultaneously. Don’t believe the nonsense this system will sell you on!
Quest regards,
Sam x
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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