ON RESTLESSNESS AND NEW PATTERNS OF CREATIVITY IN MODERN LIFE

"The more aware I become, the more I learn that in restlessness lies real opportunity for growth and expansion in the deepest sense"
Anna Murray

In another space and time we'd be heading out to New Zealand to speak at Semi Permanents Summit of talks, presentations and innovations. 

Before the Pandemic co-founder Anna spoke to Christopher Barker at Semi Permanent about 'Restlessness in design, creativity and changing patterns in culture and life. Anna shares her perspective on the value of slowing down and tuning into natural cycles and rhythms to lead more conscious creative lives... read some excerpts from the interview below:

THE LIFE LABYRINTH INVITED CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION AND RECONNECTION TO SELF AMIDST THE BUSY WORLD AROUND
"It felt hard at times, going against the traditional model of growth and success in a business that tells us more is better and busier is more successful"

A few years ago we needed to radically slow down.. our overheads had expanded and we chose to say no to some work offers that didn't align with our core values around care for the planet. We moved out of our big studio and reduced our outgoings and went back to working remotely as a smaller team. It felt hard at times, going against the traditional model of growth and success in a business that tells us more is better and busier is more successful...

But we took some time and space to really go back to our roots, why we had started PATTERNITY in the first place and connect back to our own creativity. Grace and I started to work more in alignment with monthly and yearly cycles, taking more space to rest, be in nature, more time to nourish ourselves again in whatever ways that meant for us.

We both undertook a life-changing training at a women’s health and leadership organisation called The Red School understanding more about the link between hormonal cycles and creativity (something we felt was totally misunderstood in the creative industry) and we would start to take certain days each month to fully rest and reflect. 

We would also use this same cycle as a roadmap for how we approached our creative projects and internal process; working with the energy of each phase of the creative cycle. Fundamentally we would start to take more time to pause, celebrate and rest, particularly at the end of a project before zooming into the next (something we virtually never did in our old pattern!) We would go about trying to find a more sustainable way to create and live that didn’t involve being ON the entire time.


"Just as we expect ourselves to endlessly churn out amazing creative work and never have downtime, we expect the planet do to the same, constantly creating for our own wants and needs"
Anna Murray
OUR GRATITUDE JOURNAL ENCOURAGING DAIL MOMENTS OF CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION AND REFLECTION
"For me, gratitude is about sensing the inter- connectedness of each moment, to be aware that what I am experiencing now is the result of an infinitely interwoven pattern of connections and relationships throughout time that have lead me to this place"
Creative cycles are how nature works, how life works, how everything connects and yet we’ve totally lost this somewhere in our world of emails, spreadsheets and man-made timelines. Just as we expect ourselves to endlessly churn out amazing creative work and never have downtime, we expect the planet do to the same, constantly creating for our own wants and needs. So it really is time for us all to wake up and reconnect with these powerful patterns and cycles, both for our personal and collective sustainability at this unique turning point in history.
"Creative cycles are how nature works, how life works, how everything connects."
Anna Murray
WORKING WITH ARTISANS LIKE TRIBAL TEXTILES IS IMPORTANT TO US. HONOURING A SLOWER WAY OF LIVING AND CREATIING
"In slowing down we were able to go back to the roots of what PATTERNITY was all about in the first place: honouring the power of interconnectedness and the true meaning of creativity"
Anna Murray