I am Christen, and this is my life as a dreamer.
One of my favorite spots to dream is usually in the comfort of my own living room, just as the sun rises and with a freshly made locally brewed french pressed coffee in hand. On the days that I just can't seem to muster the strength to make my own coffee, I wander across the street from my little river home and go visit Dan the Baker.
The days I end up walking out of my front door, are usually the days I am found to be most creative. To dream is to find a spot where I can be completely at peace and quiet, taming the insecurities and watching myself react to the world in a slow motion stillness. For me, to be inspired, is to be in complete chaos in comparison to the controlled environment of dreaming. These are things I have learned about myself in years I have been a children's book illustrator. Working out of my home studio, often makes for a great safe place to express, but I can quickly become too comfortable and uninterested in my own thoughts. I see beauty in a lot of the world. It makes sense that it inspires me to be courageous enough to create something new.
I often say "we live in a magical world and with everything I create, I intend to reveal it".
Sometimes I will find beauty in the people I meet up with that will stir in me an inspiring thought,
or a creative idea. To be bold, as an artist, it seems that it is truly courageous when we have learned to communicate that magic we see. Whether it be in the people or in places. I try to remind myself something that occurred to me in a quiet morning of dreaming. "It's Business not Busyness".
Keeping my heart alive, and remembering my rhythm are keys to creative success. I have moved a lot and I have experienced so many things, one of the reasons I believe I am often easily inspired. The memory of these experiences sticks with me and comes into my drawings every day.
We can inspire each other when we remind each other who we are. To express ourselves is to feel seen in that inspiration and to repeatedly communicate it is our art. Being brave enough to be original, is usually brought on by something or someone reminding you that who you are is magical in itself. Therefore to express it would be to create the art of you the artist. Because, after all, you are a part of the magic.
To dream, is emotional. You must look inside yourself and not fear how truly great you are. You have seen what you can make, but to see what you haven't is terrifying. Most of my friends that I surround myself with are simply an encouragement to not fear the self. To dream big, and to work hard for that big dream. They take risks without guarantees. They don't fear the approval of others and get back up when they fall. They are most sensitive to spurring on and helping push out the very best of me. To make dreams happen it takes hard work, persistence, and an intuition of how to never quit. I had a 6 month exercise of creating a "doodle-a-day" on my instagram, and sure enough it was the practice of self-discipline that spurred my dreams into actuallity. I now have a clothing line that was a product of those ten minutes a day of simply being myself and expressing it, without quitting. You may not even know why you are creating. Sometimes you just have to create to see what is inside you. I have heard it said that making any kind of art is the process of improv. You have to just go with it and see what you come up with.
I try to find places to create and get inspired that involve getting to know someone with passion. This is the one thing that I can say will pull me out of anything I am stumped on when I am creating. If I have dreamt all I can dream, and have felt more inspired than ever, yet have nothing to focus on, it will only take a few minutes of being surrounded by passion that will spur me on to just leap into the smallest of a start. Passion itself will be the patience and persistence that jump starts any soul into motion.
I love to travel,
I want to experience people,
I want to leap, I want to create,
I want to dive in without knowing the end result,
I want to be myself,
I want to dream,
I want to see magic and create it.
I can't do any of this, without others. I need the people around me just as much as I need my own head. It's the others that I create for, it's the others that I dream about, it's the others that inspire me, and it's the others that I come alive around. When my heart and soul work together in balance, I am me. The creating will flow, and I can only dream it will change the world for the better. If I ever write a "How-to" book, which I won't, it would be about how to never quit.
Dream big, start small.
Photography by Davia Schwind, Photo editing by Christen Cushing
