“The tiger springs in the new year. Us, he devours.” – TS Eliot
Welcome to the first Methods and Madness: Notes on Creativity newsletter for 2022.
Welcome back to all of you who subscribed to my Advent Calendar emails at the end of last year, and hello to new subscribers!
In these newsletters, sent out on the last day of each month, I will include a creative prompt (sometimes two), resources, events, and interesting or beautiful content for your perusing pleasure.
Today’s newsletter is a bumper edition: Tomorrow marks the start of the lunar new Year of the Tiger and I have crammed this newsletter with some good tiger-content and not one but two creative tiger-themed prompts.
So, let’s get into it!
Prompt 1:
Astrologer Suzanne White lists the following as characteristics or dynamics present in tiger years or people:
“Lovable, alluring, warm-hearted, altruistic, honourable, hard-working, pleasant, independent, engaging, idealist(ic)…” or “rash, hot-headed, reckless, infatuate, quarrelsome, caustic, moody, predatory, rebellious, disobedient, irreverent…”
Pick a few and use them to create something. Perhaps:
Draw a character who you think possesses these qualities
Write a scenario where you think some of these dynamics could play out
Imagine these things as flavours and design a menu
Design an event or performance that manifests these dynamics.
Let me know what you come up with in the comments below.
And before our second prompt, here is some tiger poetry:
“A white brow and a rounded head,
A patterned body and eyes of lightning.
Four legs,
Straight and tall;
Twenty claws,
Hooked and sharp.
Jagged fangs ringed his mouth,
Pointed ears grew from his brow.
Fierce and powerful, formed like a giant cat,
Wild and virile as a brown bull−calf.
His bristling whiskers shone like silver,
Acrid breath came from his spike tongue.
He was indeed a savage tiger
Whose majesty dominated the palace hall.”
From Chapter 30, Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’En
Did you, like me, watch the Monkey TV series as a kid (better known as Monkey Magic here in Australia)? Journey to the West is the 16th century Chinese novel it was based on.
Prompt 2:
Did you know that Australia had its own ‘tiger’? Well, the Tasmanian Tiger was not really like a tiger but more doglike and was also known by the alternative name Tasmanian Wolf. It got its tiger name because it was striped. It was also known as a Thylacine and, tragically, it is extinct.
There are some photographs and footage (which I find to be heartbreaking) of the last ever Tasmanian Tiger, called Benjamin, being held in a zoo.
Your creative prompt is to send a message back through time to Benjamin. Will you draw, sing, write, dance, or speak it? What will you convey to this animal on behalf of us all?
By the way…
These newsletters, and the emailed prompts sent to my paid subscribers, form one strand of my practice, which includes mentoring, facilitation, and longer form writing. I see these shorter prompts as a really important part of what I offer and if you want to know about some of my thinking that inspires me to curate and design these emails, then read this blog HERE.
“Tiggers never go on being sad, explained Rabbit.” from The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne
Shameless plug:
Dr Penny Hay and I will be co-hosting a free online event 8pm, 3 February (AEDT), and you are welcome to join us.
Creativity in crisis: Embracing the imagination. Join us for a conversation with arts educator, performer, and researcher Dr. Sharon Lierse, who will share with us her observations and insights from extensive travel and research in arts education, spanning multiple countries.
Book HERE.
A little competition:
This end of month newsletter will always be free, but I have also started offering paid subscriptions whereby as well as this newsletter subscribers also get fortnightly creative prompts. Valued at $5 / month or $50 / calendar year, in this newsletter I am running a competition where I will give a 6-month free trial to the winner. All you have to do is reply to this email and tell me what you like about this newsletter.
Thank you for reading! Before I leave you to read one last tiger poem, please consider supporting me:
Consider becoming a paid subscriber
Make a one-off donation on Ko-Fi
Tell your friends; share on social media
Check out my website – maybe I can support you as well through a mentoring appointment or one of my resources in my online shop
And keep on reading! I so appreciate your subscribing to and reading of these emails.
Finally, the best tyger poem ever written:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?