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
Feb 8, 2023 • 59min
Creativity Sparks: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Do you feel that people value you only for your output, so you put work above all else, even above getting a good night’s sleep? Or have you ever been so busy that you've uttered the dreaded humble brag “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” In this episode, Laura and Susan discuss what going without sleep can do to your life and your creativity, the normalization of grind culture, some positive steps we all can take to rest and rejuvenate, and what, exactly, Warren Zevon has to do with any of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 1, 2023 • 1h 3min
Creativity Sparks: Change
Why is it so hard for us to break patterns that are keeping us from our goals? In this episode, Susan and Laura discuss and discover the ways in which we as humans and artists can navigate lasting positive change. They dive into the powerful process and book “Immunity to Change,” by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, which unravels the concept of change and specifically how to close the gap between aspiration/good intention and actual behavior shifts. Susan and Laura discover that when experimenting with our own paths to change, remaining open and curious, not jumping to problem solving, and trusting the process can help. And so can a game of canasta every now and then.💥 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 25, 2023 • 1h 11min
Creativity Sparks: Stealing (a) Home
What do a 1998 wall calendar, a couple’s disappearance, and a half-burned postcard have to do with one man’s quest to create the perfect home? In this episode, Laura and Susan discuss the true story of a film editor who took his own obsession for acquiring his dream home perhaps a little too far. Petty crime, lost relationships, and a last-minute trip to a remote part of Spain are just a few of the pieces to the puzzle of this incredible story of one man and his quest to own a three-story building in Brooklyn. Sparks and story ideas are everywhere, y’all. Even in the Real Estate section. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
6 snips
Jan 18, 2023 • 1h 4min
Creativity Sparks: Toni Morrison
Explore the life and work of Toni Morrison, Nobel and Pulitzer prize winning author, as Susan and Laura discuss her ability to center her own world in writing and the power of her words. They share their fascination with Morrison's work, particularly 'The Bluest Eye', and uncover the layers of meaning within it. The chapter also explores Morrison's journey from editor to writer and her profound impact on storytelling and race. Embracing creativity and following passions are highlighted as important takeaways.
Jan 11, 2023 • 1h 1min
Creativity Sparks: Artists & Athletes
Artists and athletes have a lot more in common than one might think, but our culture seems to encourage choosing one over the other. In this episode, Laura and Susan discuss what artists can learn from athletes...including training, incremental progress, the discomfort of having a beginner’s mind, and so much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 4, 2023 • 52min
Creativity Sparks: Creativty + Mental Health
You know the old trope that one must suffer for their art? That creativity is somehow the byproduct of mental illness or addiction or self-harm? It is time for that idea to go! An examined life can contribute greatly to our enjoyment of life, and to our creative work. In this episode, Susan and Laura discuss the relation of mental health to creativity and the innovative ways in which creators like Neal Brennan, Selena Gomez, Jonah Hill, and many more are infusing their mental health journeys into their creative work, showing that an artist can be brilliant and also prioritize their mental health. And remember, if you are in the United States and need immediate mental health support, you can call 988 and you will be connected to a trained counselor. (Painting: "Self-Portrait in Hell" by Edvard Munch.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 28, 2022 • 1h 14min
Creativity Sparks: Making Marketing Part of Your Creative Process: The Blue Man Group Edition
Susan and Laura have found that when they bring up the idea of promoting one’s own work with their creative clients, the idea is almost always met with a sense of dread. So, how can creators combat this feeling? By making marketing part of the creative process. In this episode, Laura and Susan explore the methodologies and philosophies of the innovative Blue Man Group and how this unique approach to marketing, (which Cams was deeply involved with), helped build their global brand and, more importantly, stay true to themselves in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 21, 2022 • 56min
Creativity Sparks: Write Like Your Parents Are Dead Again
Many people have the desire to spin their lived experience into their creative self-expression, Susan and Laura included. This desire can present a conundrum as these creations can feature people other than the creator, or have ideas in them that might make a loved one uncomfortable, or are about a topic that some close to us might consider to be taboo. So how do we create with freedom and without fear? In this episode, Susan and Laura turn to the works of Banksy, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, David Wellington, and more while discovering one approach to creating without fear: the idea of creating like your loved ones are never going to read it, hear it, or see it. Or, put another way, creating like your parents are dead…again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 14, 2022 • 1h 2min
Creativity Sparks: The Creative Comfort Crisis
In Michael Easter's book, The Comfort Crisis, he shares his belief that the modern day creature comforts – air conditioning, food storage, etc., have made us more comfortable as a society and in turn given us extra time that we have filled with worry and anxiety. In this episode, Laura and Susan discuss what comforts we have put into place in regards to our creativity that are stopping us from stretching our creative limits. What if we push ourselves to explore those artistic areas in which we don’t feel comfortable? We just might realize that we are capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to be right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 7, 2022 • 53min
Creativity Sparks: A Creative Approach to Reproductive Rights
This spark itself is so vast, but in order to right-size it for this episode, Susan and Laura stay on this important thread: creativity as it relates to abortion rights activism. They discuss risk-taker Carol Downer and her 1960s feminist movement “The Self Helpers," Mexican activist Verónica Cruz, who has dedicated her life to advancing the human rights of women in Mexico and beyond through her organization La Libres, which she founded in 2000, journalist Stephania Taladrid’s incredible reporting on “The Post-Roe Abortion Underground,” how a multigenerational network of activists is taking extraordinary risks to keep abortions accessible, and so much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
