I’m breaking away from the usual focus of the Creative Spaces series this month to capture a very unique creative space and endeavor. Instead of featuring a single individual, I am featuring an organization led by a single individual. It’s an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and that I believe has gone through a unique journey to discover the importance of having a separate, creative space. A journey I was curious to hear and share. One Group Mind (OGM) is a long form improvisational comedy organization that provides training and performance opportunities to Chicago’s hot bed of talented improvisers. The organization has existed in one way or another for over 20 years and has been the home of performers and teams that have won awards...
Now, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Garreth Spinn since the ripe age of fourteen, so I can attest to his natural talent, but also to his growth as both an artist and a person whose presence I enjoy. Here is a man who does the nerdy work and the dirty work, always pushing to try something new in his music career and taking time to appreciate the artists around him. He can play a myriad of instruments, but considers himself a songwriter more than a musician. “Calling myself a musician would be taking it too far,” he explains, “I’m like a utility baseball player but in music. I play every position well enough to get by, but I’m not really amazing at any one thing…or in this case instrument.” Arguably, Garreth has been...
1. You copy & pasted the top comments from a Reddit thread. 2. You arbitrarily arranged a series of motivational quotes and/or bible verses over various stock photos in Microsoft Paint…or maybe a pirated copy of Photoshop. 3. Your sensationalist headline is longer than your body copy. 4. You screen cap’d a bunch of tweets. 5. You essentially embedded a video & hit ‘publish’. 6. Your “article” contains more direct quotes from other writers than original content. (Props for attribution though, bro) 7. You uploaded images into an ad-riddled slideshow with nothing but 3-4 word captions. 8. You self-identify as a guru, ninja, maven, jedi etc in your byline or author bio.* 9. You care more about clicks than clarity. 10. You wrote a list. Closing thoughts: Don’t get me...
I wanted to take a moment to explain my utter failure at keeping up with the Creative Spaces series for the last two months. I am human garbage, the absolute worst, and I hope you will all forgive me. I have some interviews in the pipeline and hope to write them up and dazzle you with them all soon, but first, a brief exploration of my pitiful excuses… SEPTEMBER: Whatever, USA I had long anticipated skipping September’s edition of creative spaces because I knew I would be traveling for work. In reality, I found a new creative space of my own…an airplane. Guys, when you don’t want to pay for in flight WiFi and have a 4 hour flight to try and prep for a crazy week of work, you...
First things first: Julie Schumacher might be one of the most fantastic people I have met in the last couple of years. There are those people who you can talk to at length about absolutely anything and everything and be completely rapt in the conversation and Julie is one of those people. She is smart, beautiful, generous and just all around fabulous. And, as a mother and wife on top of being the founder, owner, copywriter, editor and epigrammarian extraordinaire behind Well Turned Words, I was pleased as punch that she was able to find time to talk with me for my August edition of Creative Spaces (and then I had to go and get engaged and not have it ready to post when I wanted to). Julie has been...