The Spark File with Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien
Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien
Your one stop shop for creative ideas and inspiration. Sign up for our newsletter HERE. Each week on The Spark File podcast, Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien reach into their spark files and share stories, ideas and fascinations to ignite your imagination. Obsessed with creativity, Blackwell and Camien also talk with artists and makers, movers and shakers who have taken the spark of inspiration and fanned it into a flame. Hear from inspiring creatives like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles, Eric Stonestreet, Jonathan Groff, Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich, Zachary Quinto, Leslie Odom Jr, Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Billy Eichner, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Karen Olivo, Sutton Foster, Michael R. Jackson and many more about their passions and their failures, their inspirations and their aspirations. Refill your creative fish pond with new ideas and fresh perspectives. Listen, then take it and make it! Learn more at thesparkfile.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 17, 2021 • 1h 7min
Makers: Jenny Clift: Tapping into our Emotional Freedom
This week, Susan and Laura delve into EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) with Jenny Clift, Coach for classical musicians and stage performers. Jenny paves the way to wealth, success, balance, and inner peace using the scientifically proven power of tapping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 10, 2021 • 1h 53min
Creativity Sparks: WHY + The Creative Habit
This week, Susan and Laura dig into two worthy explorations -- Do you know your Why? Do you know why your Why matters? So many ways to consider how we can act intentionally, on and with purpose. Plus, they revisit Twyla Tharp's classic book: The Creative Habit. Do you have a habit of creativity? If not, you know The Spark File feelings on it - better get one quick! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 3, 2021 • 58min
Makers: Dax Valdes of Hollaback on the 5 D's of Bystander Training
This week, Susan and Laura have the honor of spending time with artist extraordinaire Dax Valdes of Hollaback, discussing their free bystander intervention trainings aimed at making the world a better, and safer, place for us all. Tune in to hear how you can make a difference in ending harassment in all its forms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 26, 2021 • 1h 57min
Creativity Sparks: The Attention Economy + Einstein Time
This week, Susan and Laura dive into two new sparks of creativity - the attention economy that will literally eat up all of your time (if you let it) and the Einstein Time concept that will allow you to make more time, if you need it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 19, 2021 • 60min
Makers: Taylor Mali: Poetry, Performance + What Teachers Make
This week, Susan and Laura talk to poet, teacher, speaker Taylor Mali. Called "a ranting comic showman and a literary provocateur" by The New York Times, Taylor is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam”. He is a four-time National Poetry Slam champion, in fact, we've read one of our favorites Taylor Mali poems, “What Teachers Make” on a previous episode of The Spark File and we're so thrilled to get this time with him to catch up and talk shop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 12, 2021 • 1h 57min
Creativity Sparks: Champions of Breakfast + The Feedback Process
This week, Laura and Susan take a deep dive into the fascinating tale of betrayal, corporate espionage, and family feuds that resulted in the world's most famous breakfast cereals, and how the feedback process can work in service and support of the artist to the benefit of all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 5, 2021 • 1h 1min
Makers: Sir Richard Eyre: The Opposite of Schadenfreude, Yeats + a Career in the Arts
This week, Susan and Laura have a bloody delightful time talking with Sir Richard Eyre, whose creative work has spanned all manner of Arts -- directing theatre, film, television and opera, as well as writing books and plays. He has guided Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Dame Judi Dench and many more to some of our favorite performances. His insight from decades of experience is both practical and inspirational, and at 75, he is far from finished! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 29, 2021 • 1h 58min
Creativity Sparks: Making Art Out of Art + Reflections On a Moment
This week, Susan and Laura offer up two new sparks of creativity - the many ways we can be sparked to make art out of art, plus, a myriad reflections on the tumultuous past few weeks, and how reflecting might just put us on the path to healing. Tune in, get inspired, and then take it and make it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 22, 2021 • 1h 6min
Makers: Susan Stroman: Fill Up With the Art of It All
This week, the incomparable Susan Stroman sits down to share it all with Susan and Laura, including lessons learned from the lockdown, insights from her 5x Tony Award Winning career, as well as what it's all for. Spoiler Alert: the answer is love.From her work on The Producers, Crazy For You, Bullets Over Broadway, Contact, The Scottsboro Boys and so much more, Susan recommends that we fill ourselves up with the art of it all! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 15, 2021 • 1h 56min
Creativity Sparks: The Upper Limit Problem + The Storytelling Secrets of David Sedaris
This week on The Spark File, Susan and Laura explore how an Upper Limit Problem (as defined in The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks) might be keeping you from pursuing or completing your creative goals; AND file under "Insight from The Greats"-- storytelling secrets gleaned from the David Sedaris masterclass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
