Creativity takes courage.
That is one of my favorite quotes.
It is from the French artist Henri Matisse, known for his bold use of color in his paintings.
Creativity Takes Courage is also the name of the first book I am featuring in the new Coffee with Courtney Book Club.
Coffee with Courtney is a live chat we do Monday mornings at 10 am (eastern time) over on the All Things New Again Facebook page.
UPDATE: We moved! Coffee with Courtney is now seen in our new All Things New Again Artisans Group on Facebook. Same time, different place.
It’s about a 15 to 20 minute live, interactive video chat — just long enough for a coffee break.
We have an awesome group of people who join us every week–and you are invited too! We chat about all sorts of things, encourage each other and try to start off each week on a positive note.
I love to read and I often talk about the books I’m reading. I’ve had this idea for a Coffee with Courtney Book Club floating around in my head for awhile now. When I found the Creativity Takes Courage book by Irene Smit and Astrid Van Der Hulst, I knew it was perfect for what I wanted to do!
This is a Book Club for People Who Don’t Have Time to Read.
What?
Stay with me here. I’ll explain.
Creativity Takes Courage
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Of course, I encourage you to read the book!
It was just published in 2018 so it may not be available at your local library yet. Besides, this book has lots of cool little “presents” inside like a mini Quietness Diary and a handful of whimsical postcards proclaiming “Offline is the new luxury” that you can mail to friends.
You can purchase the book here on Amazon.
The authors are editors at Flow magazine, an international publication that “celebrates creativity, imperfection and life’s little pleasures.”
That is my kind of magazine!
And Creativity Takes Courage is my kind of book! It is a quick read brimming with happy illustrations, encouragement and practical exercises to help you tap into the creativity the authors believe is inherent in every person.
I believe this too. With all my heart. I talk about it a lot — and write about it too.
Stop Believing These 3 Lies … and Start Enjoying Your Creative Gifts
Creativity Takes Courage is organized into 13 short chapters–each a different “dare.”
The first one is Dare to Fail and that will be the focus of our first Coffee with Courtney Book Club on Monday, Jan. 7.
We will do a new dare from the book on the first Monday of every month, which will take us to the end of 2019 as more courageous and creative people.
UPDATE: I accidentally made up a new word: CRE-AGEOUS! It sounds cool so we go with it. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Let’s do this!
Remember I said you don’t have to read the book? During Coffee with Courtney, I’ll recap the chapter briefly, highlight the key messages and feature some of the questions printed at the end of each chapter for us to discuss. Then we will have a weekly challenge straight from the book.
(Don’t freak out about the challenges! The first one is: Make a list of things that you can do to be kinder to yourself and comfort yourself when your inner critic becomes overpowering. You can totally do this. 🙂 )
Here’s the link again to the All Things New Again Artisans Group, the (new!) place where Coffee with Courtney happens at 10 a.m. on Monday mornings. Everyone is welcome to join our group, whether you consider yourself an artist or not (yet!). If you can’t make it live, no worries. We leave the videos up to watch on replay.
And here’s the link to the book again on Amazon. Whether you purchase the book or not, I hope you join us for Coffee with Courtney on Monday. I’m really looking forward to it.
At a time when everyone is making New Year’s Resolutions to improve their lives, I know it seems weird to focus on failing. But we are going to follow the authors’ advice and Dare to Think Differently this year!
2019 is going to be a wonderfully courageous and creative CRE-AGEOUS year!
~ Courtney
All Things New Again is a boutique furniture store and paint studio in Leesburg, Virginia (about an hour or so west of Washington, D.C.) We sell hand-painted furniture, home decor and several lines of paint for your next DIY project. We also offer the most comprehensive hands-on furniture painting classes in Northern Virginia. Here’s our latest class schedule.
