CONVERSATION WITH CREATE WRITER CHERYL MOSKOWITZ

To celebrate Create Week, we spoke to Create’s professional writer Cheryl Moskowitz about the profound impact of nurturing one’s creativity.

Cheryl has a background in writing, drama and psychology, and has been working as a Create artist for 20 years.

A recent study by Linearity revealed that 40% of people feel they need more tools or resources to tap into their creative potential. Our conversation with Cheryl unveils a different perspective, however, showcasing how unlocking your imagination is often about mindset rather than materials.

WHAT DOES CREATIVITY MEAN TO YOU?

We are at our most creative when we don’t have everything we need around us and so we find resourcefulness within ourselves.

Cheryl Moskowitz

“A child’s play is so creative, because they haven’t got a everything they need. And through play they can make the world that they have in their imaginations.

“I think we all have questions in our imaginations and we also have experiences that we’ve had that we need to play out again and again to work out why they were so disturbing or exciting or exhilarating. So, creativity is where you recreate a world or experience that you’re still working out, that you can’t let go of. And that for me is at its heart, a life force. It’s what we need to do. We need to be creative in order to live well. And so, creativity is at the heart of wellbeing.

“I know what creative activity does for me as a person and how my art is both something which is a way of getting to a deeper place of knowing myself for myself, and it’s also a way of communicating something more essential and important to others.”

WHAT ARE ARTIST SHARING DAYS?

Whilst a member of Create’s Creative Council, Cheryl pioneered the concept of Artist Sharing days. These innovative gatherings allow artists and project managers to collaborate, exchange insights, and refine their facilitation skills, fostering a deeper connection and understanding within our creative community.

“I suggested the Artist Sharings as a way to create a forum for [Create artists and project managers] to come together. The things we do as artists and facilitators are often so hard to define. There are no real training programmes out there that teach you how to be an artist, or teach you how to be a facilitator. We learn by participating and by being in the presence of someone who has an effect on us.

“Create has artists working with lots of different participants and bringing in lots of different ideas and ways of working, so it felt tantalising to come together and learn from each other. And I think some of the Create workshops that I’ve enjoyed doing most were the cross-artform ones, where we got to cross paths a little bit with one another. So it just seemed to me to be an obvious thing. We’re all such a rich resource we all want to expand our own way of thinking and working. And it’s a really wonderful thing.”