A roundup of the Creative Light Festival, its speakers, masterclasses, and activities. Snippets from Christina Golian's 'Spark Your Creativity' masterclass, an extract from Lisa Paulson and an exciting announcement about future festival dates that you can look forward to - the 2024 event at Broughton Sanctuary and a community-focused 2025 event in Harris.
You can see details of the new festivals here
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
A roundup of the Creative Light Festival, its speakers, masterclasses, and activities. Snippets from Christina Golian's 'Spark Your Creativity' masterclass, an extract from Lisa Paulson and an exciting announcement about future festival dates that you can look forward to - the 2024 event at Broughton Sanctuary and a community-focused 2025 event in Harris.
You can see details of the new festivals here
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
It's the morning after the Creative Light Festival finished and I'm lying on the shore. It's like seven o'clock in the morning and I've just come down here to light the sauna. We had a sauna down by the log side for everybody to go in after swimming, which has been a real treat. I'm actually thinking that I, quite like one of my house, wondering how you can build a sauna Basically. I came down here at 6.30 and we have very calm water and a row of one, two, three, four, five, six, nine ducks lying sleeping just right in front of me, and it's just so lovely.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've seen ducks sleep like this right in front of me before and they're not moving. There's one or two waking up and making noise and tootling off, but the rest of them is up, huddled up and fast asleep. The sun will be coming up shortly, but something really nice about being up before the sun comes up and in that, that darkness of day because there's a stillness and you hear a lot of the sounds more and everything is just more pronounced, I suppose because the world's quieter, so the nature sounds are more prominent. So as I was lying here filming the ducks, I just thought that I would start recording this podcast about the festival, because it's been such a whirlwind. Everybody's going home today and there's always this feeling of I don't know. It's like everybody's been so, so close with each other and I feel that too. So I was struggle on the last day of a retreat that has made people feel very close. I feel that as well. So I'm always really aware to surround myself with people for the next day, because it can be hard coming away from something like this and to be suddenly alone and away from that environment. That's just been so uplifting and I'm happy to say that everybody, I think, has felt like.
Speaker 1:It has been an uplifting environment and there's been a lot of opening up, a lot of support, a lot of kindness, and that's what the ethos of this festival was. For me, that's the sort of fundamental behind it. I built it around the idea of supporting each other and uplifting others. I gave everybody a card at the beginning and it said a rising tide lifts all boats, concept being that we need to support other people and when we do, we all get better and it fulfills us in a way that you can't possibly imagine and you can't do it in any other way. So I think sometimes in photography it can be quite a competitive place and I'd like to change that, and I think I think we did that this weekend. I don't believe that competitiveness gets us anywhere and I truly and wholeheartedly want to see everybody who comes to work with me and to be part of these retreats.
Speaker 1:So the concepts that we were delving into were like the why behind your photography, finding yourself, finding out how you feel inspired. So what are the circumstances in which you feel inspired for your work? And that is a fundamental, because we can't create without that first feeling inspired, and that came from chapter in Sean Tucker's meaning of the making book called Breathe, which is completely relevant to this, and I have spent years looking at how I can create a set of circumstances in which I start to feel that inspiration coming to me, that freedom, that space whatever we want to call it and that clarity of mind to be creative. And I know that now when I just go right, okay, this is what I need if I want to be creative. So I'm going to go off and do that, and for me it's getting up early, down by the water, going for a swim and cleaning that head, so that's subconscious, creative brain can be accessed. So just taking that breather, taking that space, is so, so important.
Speaker 1:I've got so much to say about this past three days and I am literally not a thought about what I was going to say at all. I often, when I record these solo episodes, I write some thoughts down about what I wanted to say, and so it guides me, informs me, but today I have literally just sat here. Everything's been so busy. I've sat down here and gone. Actually, I feel like speaking now. So what I thought he would do was just have snippets of some of the things that people have said and a couple of little, a couple of interviews that I managed to grab during the few days.
Speaker 1:I was speaking to Joe Cornish in that car park Because we were trying to find a quiet space when everybody was around and there just wasn't. So we just kind of grabbed a spot and I spoke to Joe and Joe was quite. He had quite an effect on me actually, because I knew this one. I invited him here. It's his humility and his openness and willingness to share with others that has just impressed me so much. He just genuinely wants the best for everyone else and he wants to teach and he wants to help everybody and that is it for me. That is what I want to be seeing, that is what I want to be part of and that is what I want to show others and bring to others.
Speaker 1:So what a gift to have him here and the other speakers, some of which I didn't manage to record, the incredible masterclasses we had, which I was kind of sorry that I wasn't able to bring them into the speaking stage Because we just didn't have the time, they weren't able to stay, but they had some incredible and really powerful things to say and I think what I want to say to you. Christina Golion is the kindest, most intelligent and well-informed creative coach I know, and it was a real delight to get her up to the festival to lead a session. She is the spark crew on Instagram if you want to have a look at her work and her thoughts, just so in line with myself. And so here's a little clip of Christina Gauleon talking about emotions during her Spark your Creativity Masterclass, which was recorded live.
Speaker 2:It's. You know, all the emotions are important, the negative ones too. As uncomfortable as they are, we have to go through them. This is just about having more like little daily moments of these things in a contextually appropriate way. That's the important bit. There's physiological benefits that boost our immune system when we feel more positive emotions. So we're just going to start thinking about how do we bring more of these into the book ahead, which I think you've probably got really a starting point, because you're here for three days of doing things that I'm getting you're quite excited about because you've signed up too. But really it's, the pathway to flourishing mental health is lit by these little, brief, sweet moments of positive emotions, and then they've even done like research into specific ones.
Speaker 2:So when we feel joy, we tend to be more playful. So there's a reason that I asked you what brought you joy when you were a kid and when we were talking about it, I think we were all just feeling it again and feeling each other's. That tendency that comes from that is that we kind of feel more playful. And then we moved over to the paint and we got quite playful with it. There it builds skills and bonds. When we're feeling that you know, we're more likely to try something new. You just gave the watercolours a go for the first time, which is brilliant. And then just one is serenity, because that's one we maybe don't think of as kind of a client or one. Serenity. It tends to come when we're feeling that we tend to savour and integrate more. So you know, if you were outside this morning or yesterday, you were perhaps feeling that.
Speaker 1:I took a little chance and I hired in a Kaley band. I thought it's some traditional Scottish dancing. I wasn't convinced it was going to work, actually, but a little bit like the surfing that I managed to persuade everybody to do in Cornwall recently, I realised that actually a Kaley dance or going surfing is as valuable to your, your development as a photographer, than going out and shooting, because it's this concept of play. So I think we get a little bit older and we lose the ability to let go and play a little bit, and that is true in creativity as well. So once we can start to learn to let go and to play and to experiment and to enjoy, we start to move forward a little bit. And if we can do that in our lives in different ways as well, then that's going to be a real open, a real learning curve and really, really valuable. So the Kaley was incredible.
Speaker 1:Everybody was up dancing and I'd said to the band before maybe it'll just be an hour and then everybody would have had enough and they ended up with on course and staying till late at night. Ducks are starting to wake up now and make a lot of noise, as you can hear. There's a little bit traffic coming out in the road. Things are starting to move a bit. I'm going to now speak to Mali Davis and anyone else who I can catch this morning and clip together a few of the highlights of this weekend for you. I caught up with Lisa Paulson and asked her to share the beautiful words that accompany her new artwork release with us.
Speaker 4:Overlooking the waters, sand dunes and ever-changing skies at Dunnut Bay in Caithness is the much-loved salmon bothe. Scattering isolated landscapes throughout Scotland, a bothe is a small cottage providing refuge For me. This stone view, bothe and artwork all represent a safe haven, a place we can visit to get away from it all. A place where our coat of armor can slowly begin to shade. A place where tiny glimmers of hope, strength, joy and possibility can be nurtured. A place where a light can shine on our brighter days, and equally the dark, because in time this darkness can bring meaning to the bright, but only once a safe haven is found. This artwork was created using one section of old red sandstone photographed on the shoreline below the salmon body in Dunnet.
Speaker 1:I'm standing here with Ratty and there's some ducks flying overhead now as the sun's getting a bit higher and the world's starting to move a little bit. Ratty I've known for a wee while. He's come on a couple of courses with me in Scotland and he's the loveliest man who really embraces everything that we do, and I just wanted to gather an idea of how he's enjoyed this past few days.
Speaker 3:The last few days have just been purely amazing as an opportunity to step away from the chaotic world that we're living in and just embrace nature in its purest form. Being around like-minded people, sharing experiences, sharing ideas, sharing artistic skills, just so tranquil and peaceful here. And being able to stand here this morning as the morning light just engages on another day of magic. It's just brilliant. We just need more of it. People need to step away and find their own space.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Ratty. So we're sitting in the sauna now. Me, Jo and Karina have just been in the water and it's absolutely freezing. So we've got the sauna going and we're sitting here with a lot of steam going on.
Speaker 5:Plenty of steam. Karina, what's changed for you in the last three days? Because a lot has happened, but do you feel like a different person?
Speaker 6:This weekend has happened so many things, so many beautiful people, so many openness, connection, sharing, emotions, experiences. It's hard to capture this in one word, but if I have to say something, maybe that really everybody has that creative spark inside. So this weekend I saw people who were afraid to start painting and drawing, but as they started, the most beautiful expressions just came up. So it was so wonderful to see this and being part of this festival.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like people were looking and going I think I'd like to do that, but I don't paint and then they would come along to you and then all of a sudden everybody was sitting there like really happily painted.
Speaker 5:Did you paint? Absolutely? I was terrified. It was just therapy. There was absolute permission to make a mess, make some crap, art. It was enough permission to just start. And don't be afraid of the white paint, I think, as your face goes.
Speaker 3:And as soon as you start.
Speaker 5:It's absolutely therapeutic and liberating.
Speaker 1:Did that relate to your photographer? Did you see how it relates to progressing as a photographer? Because a lot of people, I think, come along to these things and think, well, I just want to get better as a photographer, and it's quite a difficult concept to go back a step and then to start to let go and play with other ways of being creative and realise that that's actually influencing your photography.
Speaker 5:In the journaling class that Chloe talked. Because everyone's apologetic, I will tell you what I've just written. But I'm sorry, I'm not a photographer.
Speaker 5:And then everyone had absolute insight and meaningfulness that was coming out. Chloe's point was well, you're all creatives, you're all observing things all the time. It's just words or paintings, just a slightly different tool to what you're using. And I think, as photographers, we think we're capturing what's in front of us as opposed to creating. But it's a realisation that you're making your photos because you're seeing a structure or a thing that's meaningful to you as well.
Speaker 2:Sorry, there's a lot of steam in this one, quite a lot of steam.
Speaker 5:It was made to some dots and connectivity between all of those tools and mediums of self-expression, which is what art is.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and can you just tell me what's changed for you then, joe?
Speaker 5:Everything, Not even joking but fabulous people, everyone is. So it was lovely hearing even the presenters talking about their self-doubt despite their success and stuff, and then seeing everyone creating such beauty. So, yeah, I'm going to think a lot harder and start using words. Yeah, great, because that really does add a lot to the photography. I realised a lot of what I see in my photography isn't necessarily obvious to other people, so I'm going to spend a lot of time with words. I think, oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:Chloe's session was incredible. I actually didn't stay or started it. I know Chloe really well and she was powerful with her opening. And then I kind of realised I wasn't in the right place to be able to stay yesterday. So I kind of knew that that was just the right thing for me. At the time I knew it was the right thing for you all to be there. I was like, no, these people need to be there. This is going to really change a lot for them. You're a very wise woman, I'll take that compliment, thank you.
Speaker 5:If I can just add something. But it's been such an holistic experience as well and I'd loved doing the art and I was absolutely terrified and I just feel like it's something I could do. I might even hang my own pictures on my own French, because no one else does either. And with Christina's first session as well, sparking Creative, I loved doing the collage. It's just been such a rich experience. It just feels like there's a lot of opportunity in her head.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, I think we'll leave it there, because Melly's now flying a drone.
Speaker 5:It's getting really hot in this sauna.
Speaker 1:And you're going to hear my stomach rumbling in a minute as well, because it's my first time, so we'll leave it there for now. Thank you, joe and Karim. So that's all from this year's festival. I have opened bookings for the next two years and next year we are at Broughton Sanctuary, which has been an incredible opportunity to be able to use the historic Broughton Hall and its retreat houses on its estate, and we will have the one of the estate and well-being sweet as well, and lots of woodlands.
Speaker 1:We have Simon Baxter and Joe Cornish joining us and some others to be confirmed, so please do go to the website CreativeLite and book your place, and I've also released 2025, knowing that it's a little bit of a bigger ask to get to Harris for the festival in 2025. However, we are almost approaching being sold out already, so please, if you're thinking about coming, just get your place booked and get the accommodation booked, because there's real limited accommodation in Harris. The festival in 2025 is going to be a bit more community-based and I'll be using local artists and photographers and local businesses as well, so it's bringing together the people of Harris as well and Harris as an island, so it will be an exciting year. We'll see you on the next episode. Take care for now.