All of the Above

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say “I’m not creative” just in the last eighteen months. I disagree. We are all creative, as humans created in the image of a creative God. We’ve misunderstood creativity. We’ve unlearned the creativity so natural to children. We’ve allowed the critical voices to occupy space in our heads and censor us. Honest: I often feel like I’m not creative, or not creative enough, especially when I look at others who engage in creativity different from my own. So I need, as we all do, regular bursts of encouragement from creatives like my friend Nancy.

re:create recess #15: Nancy Ingersoll

reCREATE. Creating over and over again, or having fun (as in recreational). Why not both? Yeah, I choose all of the above.

After all, I choose more than one discipline for my job. I have so many job titles that a friend helped me narrow it down to a single overarching title. So, I am a full-service creative resource. That title covers all of it. Part-time graphic designer for marketing collateral, part-time high school teacher (photography & yearbook), and part-time artist (even that is diverse since artist includes photography, hand lettering, and graphic design). Notice the common thread there? All of them have me creating or fostering creativity in others.

Additionally, I consider myself a life-long learner. I occasionally attend workshops, periodically enroll in online classes, and dabble in a constant battle of self-taught topics. In each, I’m almost always creating something, but rarely duplicating my efforts. Cooking, painting, hand lettering, a myriad of computer/digital based topics, and a few randoms that still fit into the creating category (like the time I attended a tiling workshop and had the carpet ripped out and a tile entry in our house laid before my husband was home from work).

I was hired to teach photography at a a three-day workshop this summer, which makes sense since I teach Advanced Placement Photography at the high school level. As part of the gig, each of the five instructors were asked to come up with a secondary topic for a mini-session on the last day of the workshop to provide a breadth of instruction for each of the attendees. My pick was typography. You see, I know from preparing to teach other things (from the second grade Bible class to each of the ten subjects I have taught in high schools), that the teacher gains just as much from the research and lesson plans.

I have adored typography for ages. It was one of the few college textbooks I did not sell back when the class was over. In addition to creating graphic designs for marketing purposes, my role as Yearbook Advisor has had me examining fonts annually to pick a new mix that works well together, provides personality, and maintains content readability. Creating does not have to be the act of inventing. Creating includes curating and arranging.

While most of my creating involves some visual product, there are a gazillion forms of creating: from writing to playing an instrument, from gardening to cooking, from flower arranging to fashion stylist, and so on. All of which need ideas to feed them.

I am not a real writer, like a few of my friends who have top-selling books or regularly published blogs, I am an idea girl. I tend to give away half of these ideas to students who are stumped or to marketing clients who want to execute something new. Okay, not all of my ideas are given away for free, these are parts of my job. But I also occasionally share some of my ideas, on my totally irregular, sporadic and un-calendared blog.  And of course, I keep a few ideas for myself to create artwork that ends up in my online shop (which has shipped to thirteen different countries, last count).

For a long time, I have integrated my faith into some of my art. But, for fear of what others thought, I kept those pieces to myself. In March 2015, I gained the courage to post some of it on social media. I kept those to small doses, buried between other ‘regular’ posts. Exactly two years later, I participated in a faith-based hand lettering challenge which had me posting a verse everyday for a month. I realized that my faith-based art received a favorable response and I was able to let go of the fear and embrace the fact that my hand lettered Bible verses can inspire others and serve as a means of conversation starters. By conversation starter, I mean that it can open the door to share the Gospel because it is a sign for those with questions that you are a believer, or it can be a reminder to stop and reflect on the message and pray about it. Prayer is also a conversation—a conversation with God.

So the point of me sharing all of this is that everyone can create because creating comes in many forms, and you should never hold back.

Nancy is a California native with an affinity for typography. Professionally, she is both a teacher and a practicing artist. She teaches a high school Advanced Placement Photography class, hence the instagram name, and does freelance design work in addition to creating her own artwork, most of which recently have been hand lettered faith-based pieces. She and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay Area; they have launched two kids through the UC system, one recent graduate and one still in school.

instagram | @thephotocottage https://www.instagram.com/thephotocottage/
website | nancyingersoll.com
hand-lettered fonts | https://creativemarket.com/thephotocottage?u=thephotocottage
print on demand art | https://nancy-ingersoll.pixels.com/index.html?tab=galleries