Make it Happen with Cherry Jeffs - Building a Creative Habit and give it wings

Ali Meehan of Costa Women talks to Cherry Jeffs - artist and creative practice coach. In her artist persona Cherry makes Artist’s Books  https://www.cherryjeffs.com/artistsbooks.html which in her case are like a cross between origami and pop-up! 

And as a coach Cherry helps people establish sustainable creative habits, develop their creative strengths and get their creative projects or businesses off the ground.

How did your professional journey start?

In terms of being an artist, I studied theatre design at Wimbledon School of Art, then I worked as a graphic designer, and then a jewellery designer-maker before eventually being stopped in my tracks by a repetitive strain injury and making the decision to finally do what I’d always wanted to do - which was make my own art. 

In that journey I overcame a lot of creative blocks until I eventually arrived where I am now - making work that feels totally natural and right for me.

In terms of being a coach, that came in the second half of my life through a confluence of circumstances. Because of my own experiences, I wanted to find a way to help people overcome creative block so I’d been toying with the idea of creating courses. But recording myself talking to a video camera isn’t my favourite thing. 

I was teaching Yoga locally but my partner and I decided we wanted more freedom to move around,so I was letting that go. Then I got an email from a company called Coach.me - I was a user of their habit-tracking app - asking me if I would like to become a coach. Within a week or two of giving my last Yoga class, I got my first client. A classic case of one door closes and another opens!

What does your inspiration come from?

I suppose, ultimately, we’re all influenced by what we experience in our lives aren’t we?...I portray my life - and my creative journey - but in an allegorical or ‘symbolist’ way. I love magic realism literature and traditional folk tales…so my pieces are mini-stories. And I often don't know how they end until I’m done!

The different areas I’ve worked in add their own slants to the work - so from theatre I have stories, from jewellery I have my love of metallic colours, and from graphic design I have the precision of measuring so that things fold where they should, and so on.

I also do get influenced by where I am physically - so when I’m in Spain, the colours are different from when I’m in the UK. 

How do you approach roadblocks to creativity? 

With a lot of patience! I’m never truly blocked any more, only stalled at the incubation phase of creating which is frustrating but doesn’t induce despair.

There’s a big difference. I’ve learned to wait it out. Once I feel like I can’t put any more fuel into the furnace, I just wait for my subconscious to start the fire.

But I did plenty of due diligence in the creatively blocked stage. And I fought my way out of it, trying every technique that I could get my hands on. 

I remember once feeling so frustrated that I decided I would just sit down with a stack of blank paper and a pencil and draw until I stopped hating what I was doing. That worked! 

From that I learned that there is no thinking my way out of a creative block, I have to work through it in the art itself.

Who is your business role model and why?

I’m a big fan of Alyson Stanfield. She wrote a book called “I’d rather be in the studio.” She was very early into the world of coaching artists in business skills and she’s very knowledgeable because she came from working in a big art museum. 

There m

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