Author Archives: jp

This Wednesday, June 18th, 2014 from 9pm until midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Jigsaw Puzzle Shuffle! 
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink Special: “The Lyla” • LYLA: The sassiest four letter word on heels!

This week’s craft is an exciting BLANK jigsaw puzzle for you to play with! You can write a secret message on it on one side, paint a picture on the other side and send it to someone special! You can paint the pieces, punch holes in ’em and make a necklace! You can build a pictorial mosaic using the pieces to build an entirely different visual experience! You can turn each individual puzzle piece into a trippy googly-eyed space monster! I love this project, hope you’ll come in and try it!

CraftNight is kind of the mini-masters degree in art you always wanted, except tuition is only $2!
NOTHING costs $2!
In fact, if two bucks blew out of your wallet across the street, you’d probably just watch it blow away. It’s not even worth typing this much about $2 to get you to understand what an incredible value two dollars is when a gallon of gas is almost five dollars.

Last week I told you how to let your brain be more free at CraftNight. In my continuing quest to eschew the 148-character-obsessed culture, I shall now give you another long-winded set of helpful tips for Creativity outside of CraftNight. These concepts are great for home and office!

1.) CARVE OUT THE TIME
If you lament that there is no time to make things and do stuff, you are right!  It won’t happen unless you make it a priority. Schedule creative time like it’s an appointment. All those unfinished awesome projects on the shelves aren’t going to magically pop up and start making themselves.

2.) GUARD THE TIME
The more seriously you take the time you scheduled, the more your brain can chill out and know it has a place to rest and experiment. It’s like taking your brain to the dog park, except it’s a brain park. Or imagine you have “a class every Monday night” and make sure you don’t let in any interruptions like Facebook, Cell Phones, or Game of Thrones.

3.) DO IT EVERY WEEK
Or do it every night, or every 20 minutes of every morning, you catch my drift? Make a practice of this time, whether it’s writing, sculpting, playing the banjo, doodling, learning code, make it a routine, and you’ll really start to like it.

4.) TELL YOUR PALS
You’ll be surprised when you tell your friends/family that you’re doing this, they’ll almost always support your endeavors and ask you about it from time to time. That kind of stuff helps bolster the commitment you have to your creative time, and it also could open the door to creative collaboration.

5.) JUST START ALREADY
Sure, clear some space to work, and a little procrastination is fine, but don’t over-clean, over-buy, over-prepare yourself into thinking you need to be “ready” to create. You don’t need a NEW guitar or a bunch of different oil paints or a pristine working environment, you are ready NOW.

6.) EVERYONE IS CREATIVE AND SO ARE YOU
You don’t have to be an alcoholic slut-wagon drama queen manic depressive to be creative. You don’t have to be a calendar-carrying, schedule freak, 16-hour-a-day work ethic, ambition-hog to be creative. You don’t have to wear a beret, grow scraggly facial hair or stay up until 3am in Paris. You can be all or none of it! Stereotypes are just that: oversimplified fixed formulas. If you don’t feel like being creative, that’s also something that creative people do. There’s no way to be except to just begin.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

www.akbarsilverlake.com
www.crafthead.com