Cooking Up Some Creative Ideas

Here's something for you Creative Doctor cooks, and a story to go with it that might inspire you.

Tamika Woods is a young woman with a passion for art and cookery that stems from a childhood and adolescence where lactose and gluten intolerance forced her to take a keen interest in what she consumed. Her artistic heart was not happy with the "ordinary" stuff.




She's a girl who won't let obstacles get in her way. Since completing her training as an art teacher
Tamika has embarked on further studies in nutrition. She puts it all together in a beautiful blog called  Sproutly Stories.

This month Tam launched her first e-book - a week's worth of fabulous breakfast recipes. It comes with a promise that if you make them for a week not only will you feel better for it but she will give you back your $10 investment if you can prove you have done so. There is creativity in everything she does - including the marketing approach! Here's a link to the e-book if you're interested. The Morning Mission e-Book. Its worth clicking through to the blog just to look at the pictures.

We are all hoping her inspiring and nutritional gluten and lactose free recipes and gorgeous food photos are a great success

Performers Night 2016

What a slacker I have been - no posts since April! I have to admit that I get discouraged as I'm never sure if anyone is actually reading them
BUT
I do need to tell you that Performers Night is on again

Visual Arts Night 2016 - What an Inspiration!

CREATIVE Doctors - the blog is back!

We’re sorry about our absence over the last few months – like many doctors (and real people for that matter!) our lives have caught up with us and time and inspiration have trickled away.

But our Visual Arts Networking Night this month was such a treat it was worth coming back to tell you about it.

We know there is a lot of talent out there amongst medicos and nights like this are a great way to display some of it and share our passions with our colleagues. We also know we are probably only looking at the tip of the iceberg. There are many more of you who dabble in or seriously engage with the arts, and it would be great to hear your stories and see your work.

On our networking night we heard some terrific and inspiring stories. We heard of one man’s dilemma in having make a choice between general practice and a life as an artist after studying at the National Art School and another man’s sadness – having made a choice in favour of art over medicine 30 years ago and establishing an international reputation as a glass artist he is now closing his studio as fickle art investors turn away from the fragility of glass

We learned of one woman’s development of herself as an award winning artist when depression forced her to retire as a physician and a GPs use of art to ease the pain of being uprooted by her partner’s career.

A psychiatrist told of her lifelong affair with art and displayed the exciting and eclectic art she has produced

Two haematologists with similar stories of struggles in achieving recognition in their specialties after coming to Australia told of turning to art to provide solace – one is now an accomplished painter while the other displayed her fabulous felt creations and fabric dying work

We saw the work of a GP psychotherapist with a penchant for double exposure photography, a GP with a talent for faces, two others who make jewellery into the night and an young doctor who displayed a fabulous kinetic sculpture that incorporated a beautiful pastel artwork and a message for humanity.

If you are a doctor whose world is made richer by creative pursuits, let us know your story. It may be helpful to others who are struggling to put medicine in its proper place in their lives.

Art as Therapy - using other people's art.

Sally Swain, on her Art and Soul blog, recently published a story (click on the link to read it) of one person's recovery from her grief through art. There are many such stories, not all of them leading to exhibitions and shifts in career direction as this one did.

Picasso Sculpture at MOMA
November 2015

Wikipedia says that art therapy began with the psychoanalytic interpretation of symbolism in the client's art work, but using art as therapy was discovered long before that, and art therapy itself has subsequently evolved into a great deal more than the psychoanalysts used it for, with a greater focus on self-expression rather than on interpretation.

Mostly when people talk about art as therapy they mean doing art. Alain de Botton (Swiss born philosopher and author of many well known books) and John Armstrong (Glasgow born philosopher and author now living in Melbourne) published a book in 2013 called Art as Therapy. In it they explored the notion that looking at art, if you do it in the right way, has therapeutic value as well. They contend that this therapeutic value has been lost in the modern world because when we look at art we ask the wrong questions of it and of ourselves.

As Alain de Botton's website says: "This book involves reframing and recontextualising a series of art works from across the ages and genres, so that they can be approached as tools for the resolution of difficult issues in individual life" 

It's an interesting idea that we can solve our problems by enjoying other people's creativity not just by exercising our own.

Enjoying work by Jim Shaw at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, November 2015

The Healing Power of Slam

If you have any doubt about the healing power of poetry read this. It's the story of Emtithal Mahmoud's win in this year's Individual World Poetry Slam a competition that attracts the world's best slam poets.
A member of the Yale Slam Poetry Team and in the final year of her undergraduate degree, Emi is heading for a career as a research physician. She won the competition not in spite of but because of the death of a beloved grandmother that occurred just as she set off to compete.

Emtithal Mahmoud

Emi says of her experience in the competition "you could lose yourself on stage and everyone was there to hold you....I came away from it feeling much better than when I went in and feeling like I did something for [her grandmother],” 

But its not just personal - its political as well. Emi has been a political activist since her teens. She was born in Sudan and her performances call upon her own and her family's experiences in the violence in her country of origin. 

Watch Emi performing at the 2015 National Poetry Slam. Emi's performances epitomise the powerful potential of spoken word poetry.