I’ve added a new page which will be devoted to my efforts to #getcreative in the Friday Challenge associated with the 64millionartists website and the BBC’s Get Creative programme.

What appeals to me about this campaign is that for once it doesn’t revolve around a bunch of people all trying to become overnight celebrities, it’s simply aimed at getting people to have a go at something new and encouraging their own creativity. It also relates very closely to something I am hoping to become involved in later this year with AppetiteStoke  (more on that in a future post).

Get Creative is a year-long celebration of British arts, culture and creativity and was launched by the BBC late last week – in partnership with cultural movement What Next? as well as a huge range of arts, cultural and voluntary organisations across the UK.

Get Creative will see a great diversity of and number of external organisations working with the BBC in their aim to raise the profile of creativity in the UK and boost participation in addition to a yearlong celebration of the millions of people who are already doing something artistic and creative in their daily lives.

For the first time on a national project of such magnitude, amateur and professional arts organisations come together including the founding champions Culture at King’s, Voluntary Arts, 64 Million Artists, Fun Palaces, Cultural Learning Alliance, and Arts Council England, as well as other organisations such as Culture 24, The Royal Shakespeare Company, the BFI, The Roundhouse, Sadler’s Wells, The Young Vic, National Theatre Wales, Arts Council Wales and many more.

There are of course the usual coterie of celebrity friends of Get Creative which does assist in raising the profile of the project so I will not, for once, complain about celebrity culture. Friends include: Ade Adepitan, Alastair Campbell, Andrew Marr, Anneka Rice, Claudia Winkleman, Fearne Cotton, Frank Skinner, Johnny Vegas, Dame Judi Dench, Kate Moss, Lucy Worsley, Matt Baker, Michael Palin, Nick Grimshaw.

Here’s a great piece of video of the comedian Jonny Vegas taking part in his own 60 second challenge to make a teapot.  Don’t think he can do it? Watch the video.  I love his quotation on the BBC site:

If it inspires one of you then it’s worth it

Johnny Vegas  is quoted elsewhere on their site as saying that when he is not acting of on stage, he likes to pot:

...for somebody that was struggling at school it literally saved me. It gave me a real belief in my ideas.

For me, as a person who suffers from a massive self-imposed burden of guilt when I’m not working in a writing project it is very often hard to allow myself permission to get involved in other activities, however much I enjoy them. It generally ends up in a rather messy conflagration of guilt and resentment devolving into a depressive spiral of not actually getting a great deal done. It was indeed liberating on Friday night when I arrived home after a particularly frustrating day at my day job to pull out my tools and notebook and give myself a no-recriminatioms hall pass to take part in the Friday challenge. You can judge the results for yourself here.

I’ve returned to my current writing WIP today clear headed and enthused for the task in hand, I’m not sure that would have happened without my excursion into another form of expression that the Friday challenge encouraged.

Whatever your week brings, I hope there’s something creative in it…and if there isn’t, you could always hop over and sign up at 64millionartists!