An interview with Dave Rowley: artist, poet, and creativity coach

This week we're joined by artist, poet and creativity coach, Dave Rowley who keeps a beautiful blog at creativechai.com. As well as creating his own artwork and poems, Dave runs labyrinth and creativity workshops, and leads Tea House writing sessions based on the metaphor of a Japanese tea ceremony. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two young sons, and can be found hanging out at Twitter (@creativechai).

"...maybe I’m on the cusp of creating the best thing I’ll ever create. Who knows? I don’t know. The only way to find out for sure is to pick up a pen, to pick up a brush." Dave, on Creative Chai.

Thanks for joining us Dave, what drives your creative work? Mostly curiosity and play. I learn about the world by exploring it through art and writing. I also love to build my own odd worlds and characters, so I can sit inside them and hang out for a while.

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and meet yourself at the beginning of your creative career? Feel free to hop around, to try out different things.You don't have to specialise and you don't have to be the best at anything. Don't compare. The fun is in the learning. And also: relax.

How do you keep creating when things get difficult? I used to run workshops with young people and when I turned up I'd always be told: “Be brief, they only have a fifteen minute attention span”. I found that wasn’t true, everything was fine if I kept moving and switching things up through the session. Turns out they didn't have a short attention span, they had a shifting attention span. I find the same approach works well for me too, and so I hop around from writing, to drawing, to painting, and physical things like meditation, or Shiva Nata (which is like a body/brain yoga) or labyrinth walking.

How does your creative work affect the rest of your life? Having a creative practice trains me to notice small things, it feeds my curiosity. Every day I notice at least one little thing that amazes me, those tiny details often give clues to the bigger things going on in my life.

What is it like to send your work out into the world? I find it difficult. Especially with poetry, where I only submit a small amount of the work I do. Part of it is the fear of putting myself out there and partly because I have an emotional investment in what I create, and don’t want to send anything out into the world until it feels ready. 

What was the best advice anyone gave to you? When I first started running workshops my mentor advised me to meet people where they are at, and to trust that they had most of the answers inside them, our job was simply to draw them out. That was great advice for running groups, and even better advice when I applied the same approach to myself.

What helps you to pay attention to the world? I loved Frederick Franck's book: ‘The Zen of Seeing’ in which he describes how (and why) he uses drawing as a practice for truly seeing and connecting with the world. I try to do that with my drawing, and also do a thing I call 'noticing' which is a great mindful writing exercise.

Thanks for your great answers Dave, your noticing sounds like the small stone practice we have been promoting here. 


All the best


Fiona & Kaspa