Living Creatively: Creative Crafts

I have an admission to make: I love crocheting. I know that’s not a particularly masculine thing to say, but I don’t care. I have found that no other activity manages to capture my kinetic energy in the same way that crafting does. There is something about coming home from a long day at the office and being able to sit down and experience the unique combination of mindlessness and focus that crocheting offers. And I have this Pinterest board to prove that I’m not alone! Not that I really care to be honest, I basically feel like most of the commenters in this Quora thread do- get over it.

With that out of the way, I wanted to cover a few of my favorite crochet ideas…

Crochet Cactus

You can bring one of these to life using a pattern or just improvising. And after you make one, you might find that it’s so much fun that you just can’t stop and create a whole garden. I have yet to make any of these myself but they are definitely on the ToDo list. I do live in Tuscon, after all! The best tutorial I have found on these yet is this roundup here.

Check the video below for a step by step on how to crochet a Kawaii Cactus:

Crochet Chair Socks

If you are like me and have a matte finish on your floor, you might find that it gets easily scuffed by the movement of your chairs in your kitchen. You can usually buff these out, but why bother doing that when you can avoid them in the first place. There is also likely the fact that the movement of a chair on tile is eerily similar to the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, and nobody enjoys that. Instead of resurfacing your entire kitchen floor, why not just pick up some chair socks. Basically these are adorable little socks that you place onto the foot of your chair, and which allow for easier shifting and far quieter chairs. To bring these to life you’ll need a 3.5 mm hook, worsted weight yarn, and a yarn needle. Oh, and a chair. Don’t forget that. This great tutorial from Crochet Bug shows how you can bring these to life your own chair socks to life. I am considering selling my own on Etsy, and recently got a pair of woven labels custom-made for them. They will arrive in a week and I can’t wait!

Other Crochet Items

One of the things I love about crochet is that it is completely unlimited in it’s scope. Basically, if you can imagine it, you can bring it to life in crochet form. It won’t necessarily be functional, but it will often look great and make a welcome addition to your home. A few fun ones I’ve found with just a handful of Google searches are: avocados, crochet computers, R2D2, and a bagel with cream cheese. Unfortunately you’ll need a real avocado and bagel to get those calories in, but if there is one thing I have learned in life it is that nothing improves one’s mood like the thought of avocado. If I can look up from my computer and see a miniature yarn avocado staring back at me, I’m a happy man.

Cultivating Creativity

I have been thinking of this word “creative” a lot recently, and wondering what it is that makes it. Why do some people seem to have it while others don’t? Is it an attribute that can be cultivated at all, or is it simply native to people who have won the genetic and or environmental lotteries

The short answer is that I don’t know, but I do believe that creativity is an attribute that can be honed in virtually everyone. If you have the mental capacity to read and understand this sentence as you are now doing, you have the capacity to turn on a creative side of yourself. Yes, even if that side of yourself has been long neglected. Yes, even if you don’t think you have it in you because you are not a creative type.

I think so much of creativity is born of experience. As Steve Jobs said, creativity is simply a matter of connecting the dots. And the more experience you have, the more dots you have to connect. So get out there and see the world and enrich yourself, and you will soon find that you have many many dots to connect!

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Nashville, Tennessee. It was my first time in what I guess would be considered the “Deep South”. And I have to say that the experience was very different from what I expected.

Actually, to be honest, I wasn’t entirely what to expect. I am currently writing a book on creative people and thought that Nashville would be an interesting place to visit, as it seems to be the creative hub of the southern US in a lot of ways.

But before I get into the creative individuals who I had a chance to meet, I need to first write about the food. THE FOOD. Now, as you now know, I have never been anywhere in the south. Maybe this is simply the caliber of restaurant cooking throughout the area, in which case, wow.

Firstly, compared to where I was spending the previous year, New York City, the food here was cheap. And delicious. If you have ever read about Nashville then you have heard of Jack’s Barbecue. Jack’s is an institution, having first opened in 1976. I got a pulled pork sandwich that was absolutely amazing, and massive. I couldn’t finish it, and I pride myself on having a strong appetite.

The coffeeshop scene seems to be booming as well, with a lot of creative types sipping on cappuccinos throughout the city. Apparently the frontman of the Black Keys lives here, as does Jack White, the singer of the band The White Stripes. White called Portland home for a long time, and I have to admit I questioned his decision to relocate to Nashville when I heard of it, but now I understand. I really do.

The music scene is another plus that Nashville offers. We saw a seriously wide range of bands perform during our week long stay in the city. And if you are into Bluegrass- forget about it! This is the city for you.

In fact, I think it might be an even better city for music than Austin, Texas, which is saying a lot.

But the real purpose of my trip to Nashville wasn’t just music and beef brisquet. It was to help a friend’s aging mother get situated with assisted living there. My friend’s mother is a widow and is in a wheelchair, and while she had been receiving homecare from an excellent provider (thanks Marty), it was time to move her into assisted living. It is also a city that my parents have been considering as a possible retirement destination, so I was keen to check it out.

It’s not ALL good though. For example, locals complain that prices have gone up a lot in recent years. And the weather is seriously humid in the summer. Really gross. I’m not sure about levels of crime but that is something I always research before moving to a new city.

So we’ll see. My parents might well end up here in 10 years. Even if they don’t, one thing is for sure- I’ll be back, if only for the beef brisket.

If there is one individual who I find myself looking to more than any other for inspiration, it is Steve Jobs. A lot of people consider Jobs to be a great entrepreneur, but I don’t really fit him into that categorization for a few reasons. Let me say that more clearly: Steve Jobs was not one of the great entrepreneurs of the 20th century.

Following is my argument for why that is…

Jobs founded three companies in his lifetime: Apple, Next, and Pixar. We know that Apple was the big winner of the bunch, with over $100 billion in CASH sitting in its coffers. The massive success of Apple outshines that of Next and Pixar, but these have both been very successful companies in their own rights. Personally, I’d be thrilled to create just one company of Next’s caliber, and Jobs created three in the course of his lifetime. Pixar went on to be acquired by Disney and Next, the “loser” of the bunch, was still eventually acquired by Apple for nearly half a billion dollars.

So if Jobs has created three multi-million dollar companies, how can I say that he isn’t one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 21st century?

I say this because, while jobs had moments of great entrepreneurial inspiration, he also worked in the companies that he founded for extended periods of time. On the entrepreneurial spectrum, Jobs would sit somewhere between a one time founder like Phil Knight and the frenetic non-stop founder of Richard Branson.

I don’t say this to discredit Jobs in any way. In fact, I believe Jobs deserves recognition as being one of histories greats. And there is one thing that Jobs has done better than anybody else in the history of the world. And yes, I mean it.

Steve Jobs was the greatest product manager that the world has ever seen.

Jobs has repeatedly built products that have spanned categories and even created entirely new ones. He was the first to understand the direction that the music industry was going in and he capitalized on it with iTunes.

His ability to do so is testament to his vision and unique understanding of the time he lived in, a time of collapse and disruption when an electronics company could become a publishing company nearly overnight.

Jobs genius started with the Macbook, but went mainstream when he unveiled the first generation of the iPod. Looking back on this product now, it seems a bit clunky and obtuse, but Jobs was at the cutting edge during the time it was produced in the middle 2000s.

From the iPod, Jobs set his sights on his next great innovation, the iPhone. It was the iPhone that was the clearest expression of Jobs’ appreciation for minimalist design, sleek lines, and no clutter. To our eyes in 2015, the design certainly appears overly skeumorphic, but at the time it was first released in 2007, the iPhone not only met the standard of the day, it set it.

Product management requires an appreciation for several disciplines. One must work with marketing to understand precisely what the end user wants, and coordinate with engineering in order to bring those specifications to life. Jobs had an innate understanding of this that even the best product management guru in Silicon Valley can teach.

So there you have him, Steve Jobs. Not the greatest entrepreneur in the history of the world, but the greatest product manager of history, bar none.

Before getting into the details of this post, one thing to mention is that you want to make sure you have the right camera when it comes to your new creative pursuit of photography. Personally I recommend the Rebel (comparison here) but everybody is going to have their own taste and flavor when it comes to selecting cameras. IF you want to see even more, you can check out Canon’s Youtube Channel.

The automatic coverage feature on today’s cheap digital camera models is frequently better than the auto exposure was on expensive movie cameras ten years ago. Improvements in computers permit an extremely advanced auto exposure mind to be packed into a small space in today’s digital camera models. Even the most advanced auto coverage functions may occasionally simply make a mistake or read the picture wrong and set the wrong publicity. The exposure compensation feature of your digital camera allows you to pay for these mis readings by making your pictures lighter or darker than you’d get using auto exposure alone.

Here are several tips for enhancing your digital pictures by utilizing the exposure compensation feature of the digital camera. Take a photo and check the publicity – Once you take your photo, review it in your camera LCD screen. Among the joys of digital photography is that you may always lighten or darken an electronic photo later using Adobe Adobe Photoshop or another kind of digital photo editing software. While you are still on the picture, why don’t you utilize the exposure compensation feature to make the correction in the original. Adobe Photoshop can darken a picture after the fact, however it cannot bring back details which were lost within an excessively bright section of your original photo.

If they got beaten up when the image was taken, they’re merely not there to bring back. Select the camera program settings – You may always use exposure compensation with the fully automatic mode, but there’s a better way. If you wish to increase the depth of field, change to aperture priority and maintain the camera aperture small. Obviously this may reduce the shutter speed to permit more light to come in to the camera. Be sure the resulting exposure will not be at a shutter speed of less than 1\/125th unless you are using a tripod. If you are shooting a moving object, you’ll have to switch to shutter priority and set the shutter speed fast enough to eliminate blurring – usually at least 1\/400th.

Just bear in mind that, whenever you do that, the depth of field are affected, therefore focus cautiously on your main subject. After you have selected aperture or shutter priority, take another photo and check the results. In case the depth of field and sharpness are appropriate, now it is time to use exposure compensation. Most digital cameras allow you to increase or decrease the auto exposure setting by 2 stops in 1\/3 stop increments.

I have been writing a lot of haikus lately, and they have gotten me thinking about Rugged Creativity. What is Rugged Creativity?

In a sentence, Rugged Creativity is the creativity you need to survive in a rugged world. That hiker who had to gnaw his own arm off when he was trapped un a boulder represents rugged creativity. The Ethiopian entrepreneur who went from a shack to a mansion almost overnight because of her inspiring idea to create internet access for all of Ethopian citizens? Rugged creativity.

It is creativity born of necessity, the kind of creativity that helps you to survive and does not compromise. If it is soft, it is not rugged creativity. If it forgives, it is not rugged creativity.

If it allows you to think unfiltered and unhindered thoughts, doesn’t bend the the will of any man, and tastes like the whiskey on Hemmingway’s breath. That, my friend, is rugged creativity.

May it be with you too.

Peter