Exploring Creativity with Poet/Creative James Navé

July 27, 2010

When he is not performing poems and stories that pluck at the heartstrings like a virtuoso on blues guitar, James Navé might very well be gently pushing your buttons to reveal the truth of you, to you.

At the core of all that we are, most of us desire to be more than we are right now. We find excuses to not be those things. We say we cannot do it—we can’t find time, we invested so much energy getting the degree or training for our current job, we have to shuttle the kids, we do not know how, we are too busy, too poor, we can not take the chance and lose it all … the list is endless.

All the great teachers say that a fulfilled life is just that—fulfilled. They tell us that when we accept and become the fullness of who we are, we become radiant. This radiance comes from within, it is all-powerful, and it draws to it that which will support it. Yet, it is up to us to reveal our own radiance. Sometimes, when life seems very busy and it is so easy to be overwhelmed, we must seek help. We need someone to shine a light on us, and that this is exactly what Navé intends to help us do, through two new workshop series offered in Taos this summer, including “The Artist’s Way Creativity Camp,� July 11-14 at the Taos Gallery, and the Taos Art Experiences’ workshop, “Writing from the Imaginative Storm,� August 1-4 at Wired Café.

James Navé credits his career as a poet and writer to attending the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, in the fall of 1981. He listened as the storytellers painted worlds in words, realizing he wanted to share their craft. Memorizing Tennyson’s “Ulysses,� and then another 500 poems as well, he co-founded, with Bob Falls, the theater company Poetry Alive! to introduce traditional poetry in the form of theater to school kids across the country. Navé began performing internationally, working in public radio and teaching performance, speaking and creativity seminars. He began writing his own pieces for competitive performance poetry slams. Navé went back to school and completed his MFA in Poetry at Vermont College. Today he travels the world teaching techniques perfected in his 29 years working in the creative realm.

Navé, himself transformed by the work of Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,� teamed with Cameron for many years to produce The Artist’s Way Creativity Camp, which he brings back to Taos this summer. Described as “A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Destiny,� the workshop is geared to creative people in all walks of life, revealing the creative nature that we all possess, and helping ferret out what we can do with that creative energy to be better professionals, parents, students, citizens and, yes, even become or improve as artists. Navé invites participants to learn to “dwell in infinite possibility.�

For those who already know that their passion is writing and want to hone their craft alongside other writers, Navé has teamed with screenwriter, journalist and editor Allegra Huston, the best selling author of “Love Child,� to produce Writing from the Imaginative Storm. The workshop is described as a place to “celebrate the energy of words� and “explore your imagination’s toy-box.� In this workshop, Huston and Navé will help writers to find the muse within and face their inner “storm� to reveal the form that can help them tell their stories in more engaging ways.

Navé describes his workshops as being similar to “a great dinner party: you create a comfortable environment, then champion deep thinking, great conversation, and spirited dialogue. Once the doors are open, a person’s better story starts to reveal itself.� He points out that he was 40 years old when he began writing and says it is not too late for anyone to become a creative. But to do that, he says, we have to “create a space where we can feel intimacy� with ourselves and one another, pointing out that intimacy can be read also as “Into Me See,� and that this ingredient is critical to revealing the creative nature.

Are you feeling inspired? Do you know there is a creative force within you that wants to be revealed? Maybe it is time to let it out.

This article will be published after the first workshop, but future dates will be scheduled. For more information on The Artist’s Way Creativity Camps, visit: web.me.com/jamesnave/Site/Artists_Way_Taos.html.

For information on the August workshop Writing from the Imaginative Storm, and other workshops for would-be artists and creatives, visit Taos Art Experiences website at: taosartexperiences.com/artexperiences.html.

For more information on James Nave, visit: jamesnave.com or imaginativestorm.com.