Monday, November 17, 2014

The Business of Nurturing Creativity


Most days I'm designing a landscape.  On site, in my head or in the office.
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Foundation plantings, lawn, annuals, a weekly mow-blow-go-testosterone-on-wheels-commodify-all-I-touch ?  No, hire someone else for that travesty.
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 Providence provided the template for gardens, le jardin rustique, for sure.  
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My gardens are like joy.  Always there for the taking.  
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Take joy.
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There is an action step before the joy.  Take.
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Knowing the Providential template for creating a garden, there is still the job of 'taking'.
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Creativity.


Creativity is honored, deeply, everyday of my life.  It is a tool to use.  I do not own the tool, merely allowed to partake of its precious gift.  Daily.  Honored.  This tool is kept working, with having pets, books, music, walking in Nature most days, having my own garden, colors/furnishings/art/comfort of my home, meals with the pleasure of choosing plates/silver/tray/linen napkin eating in the bay window or conservatory or potager, deep friendships with girlfriends, knowing to get out of my comfort zone every few months, travel/seeing new things, gratitude in Providence, and Beloved.
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Creativity.
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I lost it once, decades ago, not knowing it needed nurturing.  Remember, well, feeling its loss.  Not the loss of Providence, exactly, but the loss of a great gift from Providence I had not honored.  Never want to go there again.  It's not uncommon for issues to arise, needing attentions subtracting from honoring my creativity.  I don't go there, the answer will be, 'no'.


Seeing, deeply, the creativity of others delights my soul and feeds the muse.  In Jamaica, a few days ago, investigating the restaurant while our meal was cooking, above, I was given a gift.  Looking up from our table, below.



Better, below, walking on the beach were these 'chairs' and table.  The table was obvious, but I had to investigate the 'chairs'.


At waters edge, and going nowhere, these chairs are perfect, and they were free.  For the creativity.
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Are you faster than I was?  My brain was molasses for a few seconds, figuring out the 'chairs'.
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Bird bath pedestals buried in sand, with a ring of concrete added to the tops.
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Perfect joy, feeding my creativity, in Thanks at the gift of someone else's creativity.
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Hope their chairs have done the same for you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken in Discovery Bay, Jamaica, WI, this month.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.
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NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 
Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.
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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.
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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow
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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
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What do YOU want?
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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.
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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 

 I  welcome your input.

3 comments:

Maria Killam said...

Beautiful, love those chairs too! you are so poetic Tara! x Maria

Lori Buff said...

Making something from nothing, that is creative beauty. Love the chairs and the light.

Anonymous said...

Need to both nurture creativity while getting far more done than ever.

Challenges, and this helps...the can light is amazing. I wonder when we'll see it on some Caribbean-themed restaurant's ceiling or over tables?