Creative Mapping
From the studio of Kimberly Hodges
Welcome to my new column! Scrapboek has asked me to write a quarterly column to inspire you, and explore this wonderful world of ours that is creativity. The irony of creativity for me, is that the higher you want to go, the more grounded you need to be. In order to fly, you need to have your feet on the ground. Many of us creative folk usually have about 100 ideas flying around in our heads, with only one or two runways at any moment in time to land them. And then there's that other thing-Life-that also vies for our attention. Well, I am here to help. Over the course of the next year, we will explore the themes of grounding, creative mapping, intention, and getting all of that love, spirit, beauty, energy, inspiration, and creativity that is YOU-your life-into physical form.
Our first theme is what I call Creative Mapping. Since we scrapbookers are often very visual people, it can be an interesting exercise to visually make concrete an issue or idea that is intangible. I have a huge map of Paris that was created in the 1930's hanging on my bedroom wall. It's not only a literal image of what a great city is and can be, but also symbolic to me in many ways. This gigantic map shows centers upon centers converging upon each other; past, present, and future creating one matrix in time and space. This map is a metaphor for ideas like unity in diversity, the macrocosm is in the microcosm, that there are many paths to many centers, and many paths to one goal or place, to name a few.
Keeping this map theme in mind, what would a map of an inner you look like? You create scrapbooks of your family history and moments, but how about a pictorial map of your moods and recurring thoughts? Can you find the time to make a map of your moods in one day, or your thoughts in one month? I can assure you that patterns will quickly form of your feelings' favorite haunts, like worry or excitement, as well as territories that are frequently avoided like terror or joy. Locating a wide range of feelings is important terrain in the world of creativity. Emotions can be your greatest ally, anchoring you in your heart to create your most meaningful work, or your greatest hindrance to creating anything at all. You may find in making your creative map that finding a consistent, clear path through the Mountains of Resistance may serve you far more than negotiating the breezy coastline of Inspiration that comes and goes so easily like the waves. You could create a village or a city of all the people, personalities, and archetypes that live inside of you. Does your control freak and perfectionist reside in the "good neighborhood", while a more authentic self is just getting by on the wrong side of the tracks? Maybe they need to swap residences for awhile! Is Mr. Nice Guy controlling the toll road to your land of the Juicy Shadow?
What would a map of your own soul look like? Are you your own cartographer, or are you relying on the other’s maps for guidance? Do you stay on the creative highways and sustain yourself with fast food, are you willing to take some chances with the back roads? What’s on your map legend; time, friends, goals, hopes, fears, aspirations? Bills, responsibilities, the past? Maybe your map is actually several that transparently lay on top of each other. Would would happen if you made one map of your perfect world, one of your world as it is now, and one map to get you from here to there? 
Perhaps you will find that the perfect world is a little boring, or maybe it is exactly where you will find yourself someday very soon. Take a large sheet of paper and plot those 100 ideas flying in your head onto land. By writing things down, you can free your brain’s hard drive up from remembering everything little detail-to doing what it does best-creating in the present moment!
A picture truly is worth a thousand words. Words can often distract, or trap you in your logical mind. Your creative maps can let your right brain breathe, and teach you enormously about yourself, your patterns, and your desires, and your own creative process. Getting to know yourself is the first step to a more creatively fulfilling life. All the rest will follow. I would love to see your creative maps, so please feel free to email or mail them to me, and I will display a few on my website. Good luck, and happy mapping!
Kim
