Brief notes and thoughts for the end of 2020
In this edition: music videos, creative strategies, and the healing power of art.
Network news: Jose Garcia
List member and Guelph-based filmmaker Jose Garcia has been working on a series of music videos for the excellent Toronto downtempo collective LAL. I love Jose’s style – ominous and poetic, it feels very fitting for our time. Here is a sneak preview from the series. Fun fact: my son Alexander and I helped out with this shoot, which took place not in the wilds of Algonquin Park but in the Speed River in downtown Guelph.
Strategy idea: honouring that which has managed to exist
Disease: I have a tendency, as others may too, of discounting past successes and starting each day feeling like a babe in the woods with no clue what I’m doing.
Treatment: Pick one successful creative project you completed at any time in the past. Now spend a minute or two honouring the fact that, in spite of all the things that could have gone wrong, you persevered and got it done.
Yes, it’s corny. But I’ve felt like it’s been useful for me at least to remind myself that I have made cool things happen in the past and will do so again in the future.
Quote I’ve been pondering
“Once I started to paint, a new world opened up for me. It was as if the little box of watercolours made a bright path straight through the apartment walls to the outdoors … In my pictures there was no war, no danger, no police, and no tears.”
-Behind the Secret Window: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood During World War Two, by Nelly S. Toll
Opportunity: project discussion group
List member Nathan Cameron and I have been experimenting with a low-key, bi-weekly Zoom “mastermind group” meetup to check in re. our progress on projects. If you’re looking for some external accountability re. your own schemes as we kick off 2021, let me know via this email address and we’ll add you in.
That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading, and let me know with updates from your end, questions, thoughts, story ideas, hot tips, etc., at nicholascarldinka@gmail.com.