ECHO Talk / Ideas, Hope, & The Creative Process

Yesterday I led a breakout at the ECHO conference here in Dallas on Ideas, Hope, & The Creative Process. As some of you know, I spent the last few weeks trying to put into words what my creative process looks like and what has helped me most as an artist. It was a daunting task but well worth the effort. As it turned out it was a great exercise to have to force myself to explain just how I make things.

For those of you who didn’t attend (or who did and want to see the talk in black and white), I’ve made my notes available as a pdf here.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, a few lovely friends have posted their own notes and comments: Tim Schraeder, Church Juice, and Vince Marotte.

Also, there were a number of resources that I either quoted or have found helpful in my work. As promised, I’ve posted links below as well as my slides.

Thanks to ECHO for having me. It was a great honor.

BOOKS

• Art & Fear - David Bayles and Ted Orland
• The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
• Let Your Life Speak - Parker Palmer
• To Be Told - Dan Allender
• Understanding the Ennegram / Personality Type: Using the Ennegram
• Making Ideas Happen - Scott Belsky
• Rework - Jason Fried
• The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working - Tony Schwarz
• The Creative Habit - Twlya Tharp
• Now and Then / Telling Secrets - Fredrick Buechner
• How Proust Can Change Your Life - Alain de Botton

ORGANIZATIONS

• Mars Hill Gradate School / MACS Creative Art & Theology
• 99% Network & Conference

TOOLS

• Action Method online / Paper products (I love their action pads & notebooks!)
• Field Notes mini-notebooks