The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast

Episode 11: Enrich Your Imagination to Fuel Creativity

• Jill Gottenstrater and Judy George • Episode 11

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Remember how we used to make up amazing stories and worlds when we were little? It's easy to lose that magic as we grow up with so many other things going on.

In Episode 11, we're going to talk about how to bring back that sense of wonder and excitement we had as kids. We'll share some fun exercises to help you be more creative, which can also make you feel more confident in your art.

Mama Judy and I both think that a lot of people forget how to use their imagination. We believe it's important to spend time remembering how to dream and play. Like Mama Judy says, sometimes we need to "take the rational mind out of the picture." Our hope is to help you feel like that creative, playful child again when you're working on your art!

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Jill:

Hi. Welcome back. We're so glad you're here. And today, mama Judy and I are going to be diving into all things imagination when it comes to art. Hey mama, Judy.

Mama Judy:

Hey, Jill. You know, since that is our general topic for today, let me ask you what you've been working on this week that might be enhancing your imagination.

Jill:

Well, I'm working with circles, so I took a piece of linen cloth. I'm doing some slow stitching, so it's a stitch journal, but I decided to draw some circles on this, piece of linen napkin, and I'm just doing miscellaneous stitches, so it's kind of like who knows what's gonna happen. But this morning I was doing a bunch of seed stitches with my embroidery thread.

Mama Judy:

Oh, wonderful. What are you working on? Okay. Well, same thing, just trying to allow my inner child to play with all the materials it likes to play with nothing new, just, just plain really with all the mixed media techniques.

Jill:

And So you're talking about like paints and collage, that sort of thing at this point.

Mama Judy:

Yes. Paints, collage, ink stamps, jelly prints, whatever. I love the word mixed media for most people probably know what it means, but it's just that large umbrella for anything instead of, say, for example, focusing just on painting.

Jill:

Okay. Well, let's get started. I wanted to talk. Imagination and, you know, I would love to know your thoughts since you've been an artist for so many decades, you've really been in this and so I'm curious over the years how you've, developed ways to enhance your imagination. Or if you feel like I don't have, or if someone's listening and feels like I don't really have a good imagination, how would I even know how to get that going? What does that look like? You know,

Mama Judy:

you know, Jill, that's an excellent question because everybody has an imagination, but it's like any other muscle in your body. You have to use it. And so I think people that think they don't have one just. Either haven't recognized when they're being imaginative or they haven't used that particular, um, aspect of themselves. When we're kids, there's no problem with our imagination. We, we. Make believe. We dress up in our mother's clothes, we play whatever robots. It doesn't matter what games we're involved in. We use our imagination. So one of the things that I like to do in refreshing my imagination are very simple things. The first thing is, To go out and look at the sky, um, whether it's in the daytime or at night, you've got clouds up there, or stars at night. Nowadays you can have a fast moving satellite go by, but just look at it without thinking and just let your. Thoughts a lot like the clouds. You know how clouds change their shape and move quickly. Let your thoughts just go, oh my gosh, that looks like a big turtle going across the sky. Or look at those clouds. They look like a giant ice cream cone. Try to use that exercise, which is available to everybody as a way to start thinking imaginatively.

Jill:

And so let's say, so someone is thinking we're, we're talking more about, you know, doing art. Yes. So are you saying that if someone's kind of feeling like, I don't, you know, I'm not really sure where I wanna go on my next art project or something, this is just a spark, maybe something, some new ideas for them, or someone that's feeling dried up of creativity or something like that. These are little exercises that they can just go and is that first of all, correct.

Mama Judy:

It is. It's part of it. And it's also for the person who does not have a developed imagination, they put it on the back shelf all their life. Because let's face it, the rational world of making a living, raising a family can squash that type of thing, that seems frivolous. So even people who. Or at that point where they'd like to do something creatively, but they don't feel like they have that imagination. Just start going back to what you did as a child. That's a theme you're going to hear me referring to through many of our discussions because that's when we were not inhibited by rules. We were not inhibited by the adult voice. So anytime we can do something like a child, In fact, if you want, go buy a can of finger paints or whatever they have now, or crayons and just sit down and doodle the idea that you are just taking your rational mind out of the picture. I. Yeah, and I

Jill:

think another thing too, you said going back to when you're a child is that when we were children, we would allow time to just lay in the grass and look up at a cloud as we become adults and have jobs all of a sudden we're busy running from one thing to the next and we've got our iPhones and our faces and we're, we're stealing. The time for imagination away from ourselves. Whereas a kid, you just, you know, you didn't have a job and you, you had, you had to be outside. Your parent may have told you to go outside and not come back for 10 hours, so you had to figure out something to do.

Mama Judy:

Mine did, okay, we'll see you in about 30 years. No, you, you put it very well. We are stealing. Time away from the child within us in the imagination. And you and I both use technology and there's some wonderful, wonderful things about it, but you have to put down your technological devices and go back to that time when you were out there, you, the world in your imagination. Mm-hmm. And not only, you know, somebody maybe goes well. I don't wanna stand outside and look at the clouds. The other thing that is so good for the imagination, and actually this is scientifically proven because it changes our brain and our body, is to go out like you do for a walk-in nature. Yes, and when you go for a walk in nature, you can just listen to the sounds. But one of the things that I love to do is spot the patterns in nature. Every flower, every leaf, everything there has similar patterns. And when I look at those patterns, I can bring the thought of that back into my art. But while I'm looking at it, I'm just enjoying the natural art or the art of the natural world. Look at the shades of green that are out there. Just start being present in your walk. Look at what's around you. Yes. You'd be surprised how that will open your imagination.

Jill:

it does, and it's, about paying attention, number one. Yeah. Paying attention. And there's Mary Oliver, who's one of my favorite poets. Yeah. She has, that poem called, instructions for a Way, A Living Life. And it's three simple lines. It says, pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. Pay attention, be astonished and tell about it. And if the tell about it could be talking about it, it could be painting about it could be, you know, stitching about it, whatever. But it's so simple. But it, it starts with paying attention, opening your eyes to things.

Mama Judy:

Absolutely. Those three lines, simple lines, encapsulate it so well. If we pay attention to the natural world, if we pay attention to our imagination. What we will wind up doing is finding some way that we want to express it. Tell about it. Mm-hmm. Words, paint, inks, carving sculptures. It doesn't matter your expression. All we're trying to do is figure out how to give that foundation if that foundation is weak, to allowing the imagination to play. One of the other things that I have, and I thought about this when you mentioned you, uh, talking about imagination. We used to have paper dolls when I was growing up, and you would cut these paper dolls out and you would put clothes on them and you would make up stories. So you're living in an imaginative world when you're doing that. Well, in my, mixed media journals, one of the things that I did is I would take an old photograph, maybe a picture even cut up. Person out of a magazine and I would write a one line or two line story to go with that person. Sometimes it fit, sometimes it was ridiculous. So you can go back to that concept if you've got photographs around the house. Pick one up, and then allow yourself to tell a little story around that picture. We're not talking about describing when you went to the lake and the canoe ride, but if you have a picture of you and William in a canoe, make up that story that goes around it from your imagination.

Jill:

So, for example, like when you did it with your collage mm-hmm. And let's say, let's say someone, um, picked up a bunch of old pictures from a yard sale and they didn't even know these people.'cause that could be fun too, when you for sure don't even know who it is. So you put it in your journal, And so you would write the little few words around on the paper, because that would become part of your collage, correct? Correct. Using your imagination. So what might you have said or what did you say about an image? What's like one line you would've written down? I'm just curious. I.

Mama Judy:

I remember one that got a lot of, uh, response from people out on Instagram. It was a picture of a woman from probably the 18 hundreds, and she was sitting on a chair with a very glum look on her face and a gun, a shotgun across her lap. And I don't even remember where I found it. And I put a caption out there, something like, uh, Mama Judy sat at the garden and protected it from rabbits. Something like that. Just, you know, something silly that came to my mind from my imagination when I saw that picture. and another one I found in the same timeframe was a man with a bicycle. And I put a comment out there like, uh, Just after this picture was taken, Henry's bicycle was stolen on his way to see Lucille. Oh. Doesn't make any sense.

Jill:

I love that.

Mama Judy:

It's a great exercise and you know, if you allow yourself, whether you write it down or even use it, just do it in your head. It is a little fun exercise. What

Jill:

I love about that too, for people that might feel intimidated about writing, if they were, if you were to say, here's a picture of your dog. Tell us a write a story about your dog, your actual dog, and you're, then there's this pressure like, I gotta write this, correct. I gotta make sure the story, you know, lines up. And when you're just using your imagination, it gives you such freedom and you can be silly with it. Like you're allowing yourself just to go with the flow and which makes it so much easier and less intimidating. I love that idea.

Mama Judy:

it really is a fun thing. And you were talking about people who might be intimidated by writing a story, you know, when you're, it's easy to be that way to feel intimidated by things. And so all of this. Practice on your imagination helps you build your artistic confidence. Also, because as your imagination gets stronger and it's getting stronger simply because you're paying attention to it and you're exercising it, then you're gonna feel. More confident to express that imagination? Yes,

Jill:

I, read this book. So there's a book, I have it right here. have you ever heard of the Artist's Way?

Mama Judy:

My sister-in-law gave that to me probably 25 years ago. Yes. Yeah.

Jill:

Julia Cameron. So this is a book. Yes. And I was just leafing through it earlier and I wanted to make a, i, I actually wrote something down in this notebook that I wanted to read. It had to do with imagination. So let me just read this real quick. It says, here, I wanna hear what you have to think about this.

Mama Judy:

Okay, good

Jill:

things. This is on page 58 in case anybody has the book, at least the version I. Oh, good. Um, she's talking about even so about you're using your imagination. She says even a five minute pit stop into a synagogue or cathedral can restore a sense of wonder. And so a sense of wonder, wouldn't you say? Like imagination wonder. You're wondering, and I mean, wonder can also be sort of like awe. A sense of awe, a w e, awe. and then she went into saying, maybe it's just a, a drum listening to somebody playing the drums for a few minutes or going into a greenhouse. But she said, the point is that even the slightest attention, again, that word attention, the point is that even the slightest attention to our impoverished areas can nurture them. Impoverished areas, meaning if we don't ha don't have an imagination right now that's being developed. And I thought, That is so good that that will nurture this. And we talked about going outside. It could be looking up at the clouds. It could be going into a cathedral, it could be going into a bookstore, but using your imagination in different ways. So I just thought that was a neat little quote in there.

Mama Judy:

It's wonderful, and I love her word impoverished because that's really what it is. We've allowed our imagination to become impoverished. It's there. It's like the creative flow. one of the other books that I'm reading talked about it, it never goes away. We're just not paying attention to it. Right. We're choosing not to participate. Whether that choice is conscious, like taking a break or unconscious, but that's right. And going back to what you read from her book, I. Remember that in childhood everything was new. It was a surprise. It was filled with awe. How many times when Billy was little, did he come running in with a caterpillar or a bug or a moth, and he was so excited about it. Yes, a child's world is filled with wonder and awe, and so she's correct. We need to find those moments. Of wonder in awe to help, to help what is the opposite of impoverished, to enrich our imagination. Yes, I still do it. I don't think these exercises or enriching your imagination stops at any point. For example, I just put a, downloaded an entire album of the best opera music. Now I have never seen an opera in person and I don't need to, but when I put beautiful music on, it transports me to a different area and it feeds my imagination.

Jill:

And so what does that look like with music though? I'm curious, like, so you're sitting down, you're listening to the news. Okay. What's going on in your imagination? Like how is that feeding it? If you could talk about it tangibly, I guess.

Mama Judy:

Okay, so what happens when, and it isn't necessarily just that music, but beautiful music that speaks to my heart. Mm-hmm. Opens that heart. And what I have noticed is, It elevates my mood. It's almost like endorphins are now cruising throughout the body. And when I'm depending upon what music it is, for example, if I'm listening to classical music, what I hear and what I imagine is the orchestra playing out. Mm-hmm. Or sometimes what will happen is colors will float by. Or sometimes nothing happens. I just sit in the moment and listen. But all of that changes the state of your body, your attitude, your altitude, everything and all of that feeds into the imagination. Oh, walking into the cathedral, for example, when I used to live in Spain and we would go into one of the gorgeous churches, I was not thinking about a religious deity or anything like that. I was simply in awe of the beauty. That was all handcrafted a thousand years ago. Just the awe that somebody could create that. So awe can come in many forms, in many ways.

Jill:

I. Um, and here's another thing, just thinking of you looking at the cathedral One other, thing that in her book Julia Cameron wrote, she said, images trigger the artist's brain. And I would say too, music triggers the artist's brain images. Trigger the artist's brain. And she said images fill the well. And so, you know, when you talk about if you're, if your well goes dry, you need to fill that back up. If your imagination well goes dry, you need to fill that back up. So seeing things visually, hearing things using our senses. Yes. And you know, even the smell and sense of sight, you know, touch all those things. Even if we can't, and I keep asking you things like, well, tangibly,'cause I, I'm just curious about that, but Sure. Even if we can't articulate what's happening when we allow ourselves to experience these type of things, it is, what was the word you said? enriching our imagination and the things that will come out of us as artists, whether we're beginning artists or experienced artists.

Mama Judy:

That's right. And, and. Like you using that book? I think that book is one of the ones that I would highly recommend to anybody that wants to, or is on an artistic journey because she says it so well. All of the images, the sounds, everything. Even, even, for example, if you live somewhere that there's street maintenance or there's someone clipping hedges, listen to those sounds. Truly listen to'em, listen to the bird. It goes back to what you said about being present. It's so easy to get distracted in life. we have all these wonderful technological things like iPhones and TD and YouTube to distract us, and we need to get rid of those distractions and go back. To paying attention, as you mentioned, with all of our senses.

Jill:

Yes. Well, um, so you've given us a couple really good exercises. Going outside, looking up the sky, going for a walk, looking at the textures, using, I love the one, I'm gonna try what you said about taking just a picture of anything. It could be tearing something out of a magazine and just. Writing a sentence or two about it. Just that you're making up being silly. Yes. Being sad, whatever you want to, but like expressing something about that image. What, what a fun exercise. Are there any other exercises you wanted to share but that you can think of right off the top of your head before we, sign off today?

Mama Judy:

Not, not particular ones, Jill. Uh, just again, go back to whatever you did as a child, by yourself. Crayons. Sit down with a piece of paper, do a non-dominant hand, close your eye scribble, and then open your eye and look at it. And it's like your cloud. What does this look like? So anything that will help you get out of your head into your imagination.

Jill:

Yeah, and it made me think when you said write with your non-dominant hand. So, uh, just in case anybody doesn't understand what that means, it just means take. Yes. If you're right-handed and you take your left hand, put a pencil in it, just start writing or try to write your name, try to dry a house or just scribble around. But I. That. I know you've done some work with that. I saw some of the things that you drew, which actually looked really cool, but it is exactly like the clouds when you can look up and see Snoopy floating by or whatever. When you see something with the non-dominant hand written out, you do start to see things and it sharpens your imagination by spotting those things.

Mama Judy:

Yes. It's, it, it's filling up that well, yes, that we've allowed it. To go into drought status and now everything we can to get into our imaginative, well, eventually that well will overflow with ideas and inspiration. But we're just at the point, what we're talking about today is just how do you, as Julia said, fill up the well. Mm-hmm. And being a child. Without censoring yourself when you do these yourself or changing it, I don't care if when you hold that picture up or you look at that cloud, the stupid, you think it's stupid, what your mind that comes up with, don't censor it. Because when you start. To censor your imagination. You can imagine the effect it has on it. It shuts it down, so you gotta be free flowing, whatever comes up, it's there for a reason. I.

Jill:

Yeah, and I think too, to plan for this while, because we were saying that we get caught up in the moment. So even if you say, today, I'm gonna let five minutes, I'm gonna let my imagination go wild for five minutes or something. But sometimes we have to plan for these things. Yes. Otherwise, someone could be listening today and be like, Ooh, that sounds fun. I'm gonna do that. Plan one of these exercises. If you're listening today, like, plan to do one of these exercises we've talked about here today. Or if you've got a good idea, plan to spend some time to nurture your imagination and, be grateful for it because how lucky are we that we get to do this, experience this with our

Mama Judy:

imaginations. Absolutely. Well said. Alright, well

Jill:

we have enjoyed being here with you all. We hope that you will join us next week. We'd love to hear from you too. I would love to hear other people's ideas if they have really good imagination exercises or something. And if we hear back from people, we will put it out there and say, you know, here's some ideas that came in. So feel free to either dmm us on Instagram or email us and that's all in the podcast show notes But we would really love to hear From you and we hope you'll share this episode with somebody else too, and hopefully someone else could be enriching their imagination right along with all of us.

Mama Judy:

Absolutely. That sounds wonderful.

Jill:

Alright, we will talk to you next week, mama Judy. Love you. Love you

Mama Judy:

too. Bye

Jill:

bye.