There's Something About Being with "Creatives"

Mary Ann Beckwith talks about art ©Mary Montague Sikes

I just returned from a week-long visit to Boone NC where I spent five days with nine other "creatives" in Mary Ann Beckwith's experimental painting class. Since I first met Mary Ann in 2005, I have loved her. The atmosphere around her overflows with excitement and positive energy. I listened to her and watched her painting demos, and I just wanted to paint, paint, paint. Sadly, Beckwith plans to retire from teaching workshops and concentrate on her own work. This was her next to last workshop. The last one will be in October 2017 in Austin TX.

Being with other "creatives" in this class was special. I didn't feel the jealousy or competition that sometimes develops in art workshop classes. Instead, there was high energy focus that led me to new ideas and thoughts about making and finishing art. Much of Mary Ann's direction is toward developing design in paintings.

I remembered my early painting classes with Thomas Thorne at the College of William and Mary. He talked about design in artwork then, but it didn't make the impression on me that it should have. I was too enthralled by the intense color of my newly-discovered tubes of acrylic paint to care about anything else. I wanted to be a colorist. I had started out with oil paints that dulled with my overuse of turpentine. I didn't like the smell or the slow drying of the oil materials. Acrylics cleaned with soap and water. I loved them.

Now Mary Ann has taught me to like watercolor paints, especially those manufactured by Robert Doak in his studio in Brooklyn NY. I first painted with those intense watercolors 11 years ago and have been excited by them every since. Because both watercolors and acrylics are water media, I can mix them.

I hated to come home and leave the wonderful intense atmosphere of Mary Ann's workshop at Cheap Joe's in Boone. But I am inspired and thankful for the opportunity to have been with other "creatives". There is just something about them...

Workshop Class at Cheap Joe's ©Mary Montague Sikes

The Creatives - Viewing the World in a Different Way

"Calla, Like Georgia" ©Mary Montague Sikes

The Creatives are a different brand of people. The ones I've known view the world in their own unique ways. They are interesting and amazing folks. They look around them and see things others do not. They are often people who bring vision and change to a community.

I suspect the Creatives throughout history have always been a little different. They "think outside the box" to develop artwork, architecture, writing, and more. They are not your ordinary artists. I have always admired the work of artist Georgia O'Keeffe because she was brave and daring, living mostly in a world of art dominated by men. She looked at a flower and saw more than petals. She lived the life of a Creative.

"Hibiscus" ©MM Sikes

Who are the Creatives among the writers we know? Perhaps they are the ones who have stood the test of time. Shakespeare? Whitman? Thoreau ?

The Creatives "march to the beat of a different drummer," like the words of Henry David Thoreau. Do you know a Creative?