🧭 Cultural Compass #16

A round-up of culture influencing my navigation of life: On Creativity

🎧 Industry Insights

Following last week’s issue of Career Compass featuring Gaby, a Creative, the topic of creativity seems to be on my mind and my wider radar.

I’m not quite sure how or where I came across this podcast episode of Conversations with Founders, featuring Lydia Pang, but it was a really interesting listen on a morning walk.

Pang is the co-founder of creative strategy studio MØRNING, having previously worked at big names like REFINERY29 and Nike. She grew up in rural Wales, and still has a lovely lilted accent, which I find both comforting and inspiring to listen to - not dissimilar to how I feel when listening to

Abigail Bergstrom

speak; these incredible Welsh women doing incredible things out there in the world.

Being half Chinese, Pang talks of how experiencing a mix of cultures growing up influenced her sense of creativity, and how she enjoyed being different, including by choosing to express this through the clothes she wore, which still resonates today. Having been a fresh face at big brands like Nike, where her fit for the environment was questioned, Pang talks of how her different outlook and perspective became the golden ticket to attracting new customers and increasing revenue.

Now changing the game in creative agencies by running a values based organisation, Pang is demonstrating how and why things can and should be done differently, in an industry often famed for late nights and little pay. Residing back in Wales, after globe-trotting for various roles, Pang’s enthusiasm for creativity is a joy to listen to, and is bound to put some fire in your belly for a new project or idea to explore!

📑 Fresh Perspectives

I recently came across

Sydney Bass

and her Substack

Vogue [ish]

(I think through one of

Farrah @Substack

’s wonderful workshops!) and enjoyed this piece on re-establishing (herself) as a creative.

After working through The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s seminal book on creativity, including weekly reads, artist dates and daily morning pages, even without completing the full programme, Bass discovered a new found acceptance of her creativity - and that of others. Looking at creativity in a new light she shares an appreciation for the ways she herself is and has been creative without intention, as well as for people in careers we don’t typically consider to be creative.

This linked nicely to some points that Gaby made around creativity in last week’s interview, on her belief, backed by her experience of working with Richard Holman, that everyone really is creative in their own way. Whether that’s discovered through The Artist’s Way, in the boardroom, or by allowing the space and time for hobbies.

Thinking of creativity in relation to hobbies cast my mind back to an Esquire article I read last year and returned to a few times since, on whether writing may be considered a hobby or a career when it is not the sole focus of what one does to earn money. Rainesford Stauffer’s words, which have featured on

The Navigation

previously, really landed with me as someone who daydreams about “the writer’s life” while still feeling decidedly removed from that ever being a reality. And yet, I still show up here. Writing is, for me, an undeniably enjoyable creative hobby.

Might you reconsider any perceptions of your creative self, and discover a whole new outlook?

📖 Queen of Creativity

Last month I read Floor Sample, a memoir from the aforementioned Julia Cameron, of a creative life. From her religious schooling, to complex marriages (including to renowned film maker, Martin Scorsese), and heartbreak and healing, Cameron charts her life through the creative projects that marked each moment. I didn’t really know what to expect from the book, not having much knowledge about Cameron beyond the fame of The Artist’s Way (which this read shares the interesting back story of), but knew I’d be onto something good with a foreword from

Emma Gannon

, and having been kindly gifted the book by fellow Welsh Substacker,

Tanya Lynch

.

What struck me most about this memoir was the relentlessness of Cameron’s creative output. The sheer volume of screenplays and novels and musicals and guidance books that just seemed to keep pouring out of her - I couldn’t keep up! At times the intensity of ideas and characters and songs trying to find their way into the world felt overwhelming, even as a reader, particularly as Cameron faced mental health challenges.

But her tenacity shone through. Her dedication to birthing something new into the world whenever she got the sense that something was meant to be, regardless of the difficulties in surrounding circumstances. Sometimes that meant collaborating with an eclectic mix of muses, other times it was about getting grounded in the creativity, with the ritual of a writing desk against a window to sit at every morning, and churn out the infamous morning pages before delving into stories to share with the world.

The backdrops of LA, New York, and Cameron’s beloved Taos, made it an escapist read as much as a galvanising, fascinating one, and I’m sure I’ll take away something new each time I re-visit.

A beautifully packaged treat from Tanya.

When this lands in your inbox, I’ll not be anywhere as exotic as Taos, but on the North Devon coast with friends, the rush of sea air perhaps invigorating my brain (or dare I say, soul?) with some fresh ideas and perspectives.

Wherever you’re spending this weekend, especially if you’re enjoying an extended one with the bank holiday too, I hope you’ll find a spark of creativity in something that you do.

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