I was delighted recently to be selected for this year’s Creative Learning Aberdeen’s ‘Sustaining Life as a Creative’ (or SLAAC) programme.
It is a programme for any Aberdeen based creative, working in any art form and at any stage of their career seeking to define and professionalise their creative practice.
There is an amazing bunch of 10 creatives selected for this year’s programme ranging from poets, filmmakers, print-makers, graphic designers, and textile artists. It’s really lovely to be surrounded by these brilliant makers, who all just happen to be females, just doing their own thing and trying to deal with all the other things that life makes us deal with! Balancing kids, jobs, husbands, partners, lack of space, lack of confidence, isolation, and just generally trying to figure it all out!
Our first proper session together was last week and it was brilliant. We were thinking about goals and ambitions and thinking about how to get there. I have to say, I am a big planner, so the exercises were a lot of fun for me.
My main mission at the moment is my own ‘In Progress’ project where I am exploring my own creativity and what it means to be creative. I guess it is becoming very clear that being a creative today means that you have to be good at balancing a lot! And it doesn’t happen overnight. Even the most established creatives are doing part time jobs, teaching, mentoring, freelancing, all on top of their creative practice. And then also working on all the business side of things, selling, marketing, book-keeping, the list could go on!
Having the programme, and the support of the others and the mentors is going to be an amazing help at this fledgling stage of my creative life to help me figure some of this out. And I’m looking forward to reading the book ‘Living and Sustaining a Creative Life’ edited by Sharon Louden to find out how other more established creatives manage it.
We’ll see what happens! I’ll keep you posted on how I’m managing!
And if you are interested in finding out about other opportunities like the SLAAC programme then check out:
https://opportunities.creativescotland.com/
https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/index.php/services/leisure-culture-and-sport/creative-learning-team