You can wake up your creativity—and thrive, guest Jaime Townzen, author, illustrator
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Beth: [00:00:00] Hello, my creative friend. Welcome back to another episode of Create Today with Beth Buffington. I have a special treat for you today, someone I cannot wait for you to meet. Her name is Jaime Townzen, and let me tell you a little bit about this wonderful person. So Jamie is a Southern California based writer and professional artist whose watercolor paintings have earned.
International recognition. Her essays and micro fiction have been published in Light Magazine and Fairfield Scribes. Jamie's debut novel Absorbed is going to be released early in 2025, and she's got a bunch of her books sitting right behind her right now.
And when Jamie is not in her studio, she can be found at the beach with her family and their dogs. So welcome, Jamie to the Create Today Podcast. I cannot wait to dive in and [00:01:00] talk about your creativity with you. So first off, let's just get everybody a little bit better acquainted with you.
Tell us about who you are and your background in creativity and how you grew up with it.
Jaime: Well, thank you so much, Beth, for having me. I grew up in a very practical household with a very practical stepfather who started his own company and a mom who was a dental hygienist, but on the periphery of my family were so many artists.
My aunt, my mom's twin sister, was an English teacher and an artist. My mom's mother. Even in the fifties while juggling four babies in three years, had a dual master's degree in mathematics and fine arts. And I have a stepsister, my oldest stepsister, who was an artist all through my growing up.
And so I always had a fascination with the arts, with especially [00:02:00] visual arts. But, I always kind of considered myself more crafty when it became to the visual arts, and I was a word person. I loved to tell stories. I love to consume stories. I love stories in books. I love stories in music. I'm a big.
Folk music fan for that reason. Punk rock music even tells a great story. and I also, I love film and television, because I love the storylines. So as I was growing up, it was always there and it was always a rich part of my life, but with very practical parents and the fact that I was a very, successful academic student, I was.
Never encouraged towards the arts. I was encouraged towards, either law because I was very good at arguing things or medicine, because I was great in math and science too. so when I first graduated high school I got into UCLA [00:03:00] pre-med and thought that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and I was deeply unhappy.
I could not. Feel comfortable in my own skin, pursuing any of those math and sciences in that environment. I was out of my element because I was away from friends and family But it wasn't until as a freshman I was in an upper division English class.
Leading the discussions about the books we were reading, especially, Joseph Campbell's, books about how to build a story and, the power of myth in particular really changed my life. And one day I. This adjunct professor who UCLA probably doesn't love when their professors do this, but she pulled me aside and she said, why does my role sheet say you're a bio major?
You are not a bio major. Wow. And for the first time in my life, I felt really seen. I had had plenty of teachers who had told me I was great at writing [00:04:00] essays and, leading discussions, but. I really felt seen in that moment in time, and it was like this adult was giving me permission to pursue what I loved instead of pursuing what I was told would be the best choice for me.
At that moment in time, my whole life changed. I decided I didn't wanna be at this huge university anymore. I wanted to go to a smaller school where I could write and get really good feedback. So I transferred to a small liberal arts university near my home, and I moved into an apartment with my best friend.
I started studying writing. I became a creative writing major and at the University of Redlands I had professors that, were all published authors and could really guide us in our writing and help us understand what publishing would look like.
I got to study abroad in Salzburg, Austria, and traveled at 13 countries that semester writing a travel journal and really. Filling journal after journal after journal [00:05:00] of my own personal experiences in that time. it was just me really coming into who I was as a person and what I really wanted in life.
And it helped that I happened to meet my husband at that time. he was, Economics major, same small school. but he loved this artsy person that I was, and I think I needed to find who I was before I could meet the person who would really recognize and appreciate the true me. now we just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary, and he has.
Always been my greatest champion for supporting, my writing and our family. And I'm just so grateful for that professor who pulled me aside and suggested that the path I was on was not the right one for me. Wow.
Beth: Oh my gosh. Sometimes it's one sentence that you hear that makes the biggest difference.
that's incredible. you mentioned that, you found your creativity and I know in the [00:06:00] questionnaire that you wrote to me, about rediscovering the.
Tactile part of your creativity. so just share a little bit about how you found your painting.
Jaime: Absolutely. So yeah, when I was first outta college, I worked in, some different jobs, mostly somehow creative, related.
But when our kids were born, which we, they're now 18 and 16 years old, I knew how fortunate I was to be in a position to stay home with them, and that that was time I would never be able to get back. That if I could be with them, I should. So I chose that and gave up my career. And during their. Early years, I was a mommy blogger and I was in all sorts of mom groups and I would take them on our adventure days where we'd go to the zoo or the Sconzo Gardens or the Huntington Library.
And, it was always about exploring and opening their eyes to the world around them. But in [00:07:00] terms of actually having a career for myself, it had been put on hold I. thought that I was going to go back to it at some point. And then in 2014, our family, had the beginning of several moves and a lot of loss.
we were told that the people we were renting a house from needed to sell it right away. And so we needed to move because we weren't gonna buy it. And we changed entirely our communities and our school districts. And within, that last two weeks of preparing to move, we lost first my grandmother.
And then the biggest shock was my father-in-law within two weeks. And my father-in-law passed two days before we moved, and it was just this huge blow to us. It just broke our hearts. my husband couldn't be with me for the move he needed to go help plan his father's funeral. My kids had to start at a brand new school with dad, not even home.
And then we had to get in a car four days later and drive up for the funeral. It was just the [00:08:00] beginning of what then turned into six years losing eight people in our family. my sister had a LS and it was really heartbreaking to watch her slow decline. We lost my stepfather from Parkinson's. We lost so many people and that all.
Sort of ended. I mean, it never ends, but. It, it was bookended by the pandemic hitting. So by the time 2020 happened, I had spent six years just full of anxiety and grief and I had sought out, some therapy and I'm grateful. I have a wonderful therapist who helped me work through some real trauma and some, my own personal issues, but.
That wasn't quite enough. I was walking, we had a puppy that we didn't know was going to be a pandemic puppy. He came home March 7th, 2020 and suddenly the world shut down. And so I was walking him as many as seven miles a [00:09:00] day listening to audio books and podcasts. And that was good, but it wasn't enough.
And I had this hum of anxiety through my body. This just grief and stress and fear. And I was not the best mom or wife during that time because I didn't know what to do to handle any of what was going on in our family and the world, I kept. Seeing these same ads pop up on social media as I was doom scrolling like we all were at the time, for let's make art this sweet, woman on the screen was so calm and encouraging that anyone could learn watercolor
And so in July of 2020. I thought, why not? I had my then, fifth grader sit down next to me and try a project, and she didn't love it quite as much as I did. she was seeking perfection. [00:10:00] I was just seeking an outlet, and it was such a beautiful outlet for me to just focus on something outside of myself and outside of all of the grief
the protests that were happening the pandemic and everything just to focus on something beautiful. Try to get it onto a piece of paper with a simple brush and some water was, transformative. I started painting first maybe a project every two weeks, and then a project a week.
Then it became a project a day, and then by the fall as the kids started school again online, in their bedrooms, and my husband was working from our bedroom, I set up a little desk in our garage and I started painting every single day, multiple projects a day, and. What started as tutorials, I still would do tutorials, but then I started getting inspired to do my own projects and I would, on my walks with the puppy, I would take [00:11:00] pictures of flowers and I would paint them.
I have behind me a rose that on Mother's Day of 2021, I think I, I chose for myself to spend it. I think seven or eight hours learning how to paint raindrops because that rose is covered in all these beautiful little drops of water. And I just was so focused and it brought me such joy and all of that stress and anxiety melted away from my body.
And the other amazing thing about that was, even though most would consider watercolor has nothing to do with writing at all by becoming that student again. My brain re-triggered on all these new neurons that were firing. And I wanted to write again. I missed writing. My body craved it. And so I thought I need to start, I need to just start however I can.
And I would put pen to paper. I would start journaling. I would, Come up with a story idea and I decided by July of [00:12:00] 2021, I enrolled in a Master's of Writing program and I did my, I did a dual master's in writing and literature for the next 15 months, and my final thesis project of that was the first 10,000 words, which actually became my debut novel that is now available everywhere.
It was like water color. Re reminded me of the person I was and let me let go of all of that grief and stress that wasn't serving me well at all. They
Beth: say that when you are so full of anxiety and grief and worry that those emotions can shut down creative areas where you used to be proficient.
So very often if you can find another place where you can go and play and relax, that it does then open [00:13:00] up doors that were previously shut. And just absolutely let in it, it's like, yeah, releasing the water that has been shut off, it starts to flow again.
And I think, and I'm talking to a lot of, people who maybe their job is something that deals with. Creativity, professionally, graphic designers or people who are copywriters and enjoy writing, but their writing is so every day and jobs maybe are stressful. They find it hard to come home and then just paint or write
Sometimes you need to get that secondary passion that's going to light that fire up again, and then suddenly, like you said, you just had to. I mean, there was no, should I, you were just like, give me some
Jaime: paper. Right. Absolutely. And I see that with a lot of other people. who pick up maybe cooking, baking, they, they might enjoy flower pressing as a way to [00:14:00] reconnect with nature and creativity, but not feel like they have to produce something.
And I think that's what it really was for me because I did watercolor just for myself. It was about the process. And the healing from that process. And it was not about any deliverable to anyone else. I had spent so long having to have deliverables to all my loved ones who had been sick and my needs of my kids.
And this was just for me.
Beth: Yes. The secret to, getting into that creative flow that is so healing is the pure act of just doing, and like you said in the beginning when you were starting your watercolors.
You weren't thinking about perfection, you just wanted to put your brush to paper and just see what happens. Mm-hmm. And so when you don't have that worry of it must look good, or I have to make it for someone, and you're just experimenting and doing. That is when you allow yourself to do [00:15:00] that resting and that healing?
I think
Jaime: so, yeah. And as you said before, the playtime really, I think playing in a creative way is so good for us, and we all recognize that children learn from play and heal from play, and grow from play. But I think all of us are just big kids too, and we need to hold ourselves to the same standard.
Beth: Sometimes that's the easiest way to find out what your creative passion should be. or can be, is to look back and say, what did I do when I was a kid? What did I love to do?
And go and pick that up again and see if it doesn't just light you up somehow.
Jaime: Yes,
Beth: Let's talk a little bit now about your book. I love the stories behind the stories, so like what made you, think about the characters you developed?
what brought you to I think I have a story. I need to write. what's the story behind that?
Jaime: So I, as I mentioned, I, I started it at the end of my, master's program, which I was doing, my classes, online [00:16:00] at four o'clock in the morning. I'd wake up and do my work. I'd squeeze it in when the kids were away at school or at practice.
I'm a busy mom, and so when I needed to in six weeks come up with 10,000 words of a novel, I needed to figure out what I could write about that I knew so well that I would have plenty to write about. And having two teenage daughters, I certainly knew, the subject of being a teenage girl was something that I could write about a lot.
Having been a teenage girl in the nineties. And having been a lifeguard at a, community pool, I knew that I could draw a lot on that experience. And what started to occur to me was how so many, gen X moms like myself, struggle to communicate with their Gen Z daughters on what it's like to be a teen because they feel like it's so different now.
we didn't have social media, we didn't have phones back then, but I thought to myself, if I just. Play in this world of the [00:17:00] nineties as a teenage girl again, and I just create these opportunities to explore what challenges I know my girls and their girlfriends are all going through right now, but without the cell phones, maybe I can create an opportunity for those moms.
To talk to their girls about the same issues that they knew from their own childhood because it's so real to all of us. the main character in my book, Stacy, she starts out extremely insecure. I've had a lot of people reach out to me from reading it that there's a scene where she's trying on a bathing suit for her first.
Job as a lifeguard and how she hates how her body looks in it. She's so uncomfortable, nothing fits the right way. that resonates with every woman I've ever spoken to.
All of these things at the very beginning of the book are so common to all of us. And then Stacy starts going down this spiral of making one bad choice after another bad choice, after another bad choice. And [00:18:00] she, isn't reaching out for the help she needs. She's trying to do it on her own. I sadly see that with a lot of teenagers, and I even understood that as a teenager myself.
I thought, I can figure this out, I don't need help. But by incorporating into the story, both an art teacher for Stacy who helps her to. get a new perspective on things. she's able to see how blind she's been to the people around her and their own realities of what she's going through.
And then when she hits really rock bottom, and she has no choice but to open up to her mom, she learns that the people she needed were always there for her and really wanted. To help her and support her no matter how bad those choices she'd made have been. So, it was interesting to write this book as a mom of teenage girls who's surrounded by teenagers all the time [00:19:00] because I got to decide how bad things went.
But I also got to decide how they turned around for Stacy in the novel. And what I really wanted to communicate through that is that all of these kids. can make any choices they want for themselves, for their future. They can take, no matter how bad it gets, they can turn it around and the next day can be better.
they can follow their dreams, but also that they don't have to do it alone and that there are people around them to help them. And then. Just incorporating the art throughout the book as a little bit of a tribute to how healing it was for me to be able to have the art be a healing aspect for my main character as well was such a wonderful experience.
So as I was, Putting different, scenarios in the book where the art teacher, Ms. Moreno, would be teaching a new technique to Stacy. I would have my own brush and paper next to me and I would recreate it myself. And as I was painting the image, the words would come to my [00:20:00] mind on how to describe that on the page.
And it was just such a. Full circle moment for me. So cohesive between the art that I was creating for myself and the art that I wanted to share with the world, through my book and through the art that I sell. And I just, really felt like it was a gift to be able to put that aspect into the story for sure.
Beth: Oh, That is so beautiful. So your book, Is it written for teenage girls? Is it written for those teenage girls as moms, or is it kind of a book that both can read and get a lot from? Who's your audience?
Jaime: It is a book that both can read and get a lot from. I do find that I have a lot of, millennials and Gen Xers who are drawn to it just for the nostalgia of the nineties.
People who loved Clueless and 9 0 2 1 oh are right back in there. It has a lot of pop culture references throughout, and so that's an instant draw for those, age groups. However, I do have a lot of. The younger, the Gen [00:21:00] Z, the teenagers now, it's a little, older ya or even new adult and some of the stuff that, my main character goes through and experimenting with drugs and alcohol and her first sexual encounters.
she is 17 in the book. so I wouldn't necessarily lean it for the younger teens, but. It opens up so many conversations between the different generations of women, and I've even had some boomer moms, grandmas who were moms in the nineties who have read it and said, I was right back there being Stacey's mom and I just wanted to shake her and tell her to wake up and stop making these terrible choices, and so they all understand because so many of the issues that she goes through are so familiar to all of us.
I love when I have had book clubs come together with mother daughter pairs and talk about these things as a group. that was my dream in opening those dialogues up through Stacy's story.
Beth: Lovely, lovely. Now, uh, I know your book is right behind you. [00:22:00] Can you tell us a little bit about your book jacket?
Jaime: Absolutely. So, I loved. The idea of putting everything that really mattered about the book, onto the cover. And I did work with a graphic designer, a book illustrator, but I had already come up with this on my own. she gave me 10 different ideas and none of them were quite what I had come up with on my own.
So she used my original artwork, which was so exciting. Um, that is amazing. That doesn't often happen. No. No. And it's really, what I've incorporated into the cover, is a lot of very basic principles of red, yellow, and blue, color scheme going on. The waters just so, attractive and cooling in the back, but that red of the water color on the front with, not knowing if it's watercolor or blood, that is the
Tragic incident that's happening in the water behind her. And she's, you know, she's a lifeguard, quite obviously, but she's a [00:23:00] little not paying attention. she's a little nonchalant. So I feel like it just communicated so much about the story and, the title absorbed has so many meanings in terms of self-absorbed teenagers in terms of the absorption of the water and the,
watercolor as well, so, yeah. Oh, I love it. It was fun to put that together,
Beth: play on words. I love it. I love it. Yes. So, everyone listening Make sure you look in the, show notes. I'm going to be able to tell you best places for you to go and find the book.
But I know, Jamie, you were telling me before we started that. You are a huge proponent of people supporting their small, local bookstores. So if you have a bookstore in your in your town, that is one of those smaller bookstores, go and check it out. And even if they don't have the book, I bet they could order it for them.
Is that right?
Jaime: Absolutely. I'm gonna have that information for you, for your show notes. I would love for them to, order it directly from their local [00:24:00] bookstores that keeps bookstores open on main streets across America and around the world. And also for those of you who, struggle financially to purchase a book, your local library can order it with the exact same information.
And I am very much in support of keeping those libraries, getting everybody coming into them as well. They're a huge resource for our communities. So yeah, the same information can be ordered in either place.
Beth: Yep. I have library books I need to return today I love to go to the library and just browse some of my favorite books I found just because I thought the title sounded cool.
Yeah. And librarians are great resources for finding new books too.
Yes, they are. So yeah, that's a really great way to go in and add to a library collection or find out that, oh my gosh, this book is already here. So check that out. Yes, absolutely. Great idea. So, we talk a lot on the podcast about creativity and how.
You can become confident because you're creative and you can become more creative because you're confident. do you have some stories you'd like [00:25:00] to share about your creativity and confidence?
Jaime: Absolutely. So I mentioned before the ad that brought me into watercolor in the first place, And I've even, gone on a retreat with some of those ladies in France. It was the most magical trip I've ever been on to paint watercolor in the Lure Valley.
And we have a small group that we meet together as well. And what those groups are all about is really, supporting one another in the prioritizing of any creativity in their life. Whether it's just for a few minutes in the morning, whether it's the way that they unwind at the end of the day, or if they have the ability to sit down and paint or create something all day long.
We are there to celebrate it. I think that being a part of a creative community is so valuable because those people help fill you up with the encouragement you need to keep going when, as we all who create, have those days that we feel like it didn't turn out the way we wanted it, maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves.
[00:26:00] Sarah Ccra has us take a pledge. And that pledge is such a big part of how I found, the courage to share more openly in those small groups.
And then more publicly with my own website, sharing my art, and, now having a published novel. So, before every single one of her lessons, when she is. on the screen, Sarah asks everybody to raise their right hand and say, I promised to be kind to myself. I promise not to compare my work and I promise to have fun.
And when you start any creative project with that promise to yourself, what you're saying is. There isn't a deliverable that matters at the end. The only thing that matters is the process of creating anything at all. I have it up on my wall. I look at it from my desk. It reminds me in whatever I'm creating that I'm being kind to myself just by doing it in the first place.
Yes.
Beth: Oh my gosh. [00:27:00] So true. There is no bigger gift you can give to yourself than. The permission to do some creative play.
Jaime: And then once you do and you start sharing it, you find that the people out there that you're being so vulnerable, sharing this creative piece with, are so encouraging coming back, and then it just feeds your soul and you wanna share more and more.
it absolutely adds to your ability to be vulnerable in all creative areas and in the rest of your life. in my experience, the most confident people in the world are not afraid to be vulnerable because they believe in what they're sharing. I absolutely, encourage anybody out there who's listening to really start small and start sharing because you'll find that you have a lot more supporters out there than you realize.
Beth: Absolutely that, that's such good advice for everyone, and I agree too. If you can find a community where you can have those [00:28:00] like-minded people who are encouraging you to share and you are also learning to appreciate what they are doing and then you are able to appreciate without comparison.
That is huge. That's gonna be something that will help you calm that inner critic when you can realize that your creativity is different from someone else's. And that's what makes you authentic. That's what makes your creativity unique, and that is a cool thing. So when you're with that community, you are able to see that creativity has so many different sparkly facets.
And you are just one of them. But a diamond wouldn't be sparkly if it didn't have a lot of sides to it. and when you're with a community, you just get to sparkle with all the goodness that is happening inside there.
Jaime: and you really get to see that there is no lack of space for more creatives and more creatives that it, that one person's success doesn't mean anybody else has less opportunity. it's like love creativity just [00:29:00] breeds more creativity,
Beth: You find. That you have, depths you never thought you could explore.
and it comes from that confidence being built by other people going, this is nice. You should maybe think about this. Did you ever Try one of these things? and you are starting to be vulnerable. You're trying new things. you're allowing yourself to get uncomfortable in areas that are new.
And that makes you, realize that experimentation is half the fun. And then suddenly you're somewhere where you never thought you could be. Just like you. I mean, did your book come from the reawakening of your painting?
Jaime: Absolutely it did, and it was a dream of mine that I would be able to publish a book someday.
And I had put myself on hold for so long, but by the time I prioritized, watercolor every single day and found that I could keep up with chores and laundry and grocery shopping and my kids' busy schedules. I could [00:30:00] then make time for writing for my master's program. And I found the more I fed my soul with the creativity, the more I had available of myself to give to it as well.
Yeah. That by the time I actually wrote my rough draft of the novel, people were like, how are you doing that while you're. On the basketball board and your kids are, you know, competing in these, you just,you want to, you make it happen because it is so rewarding to do it that this dream coming true of finally publishing my first novel, really truly started with prioritizing creativity in my life again.
Beth: It's important for you to give yourself permission. It's important for you to make this a priority. You are the poster child of how that can become something that will blossom you into the flower you were supposed to become.
Mm-hmm. So explain a little bit more. how are you finding the time? To give yourself that permission, because it's [00:31:00] two things.
It's giving yourself permission to do it and then finding the time. So that's a really, difficult juggling to manipulate both of those things, time and permission. So how are you doing that with your busy life?
Jaime: Life? I absolutely, used to start my day scrolling social media, like so many people.
Back when I started painting every day though, I realized that it was a much healthier way for me to start. I don't know how familiar you and your audience are, but I'm guessing you probably are familiar with, Julia Cameron's the Artist's Way also? Yes. Yes. I have reconfigured my morning. I.
Always start with my coffee and my three pages, and I write three pages in my journal every single day because my brain, when I first wake up is spinning with all of the appointments I have, the things that are happening down later in the week, the things that I need to respond to from yesterday. Those three [00:32:00] pages.
I hope nobody ever reads those journals. I hope my children, burn them before I'm, gone. because it's a lot of me complaining I'm trying to sell my mom's house right now. In the realtor conversations, it's a lot of, oh, my daughter had her driver's test yesterday, and the anxiety around that, those three pages give my brain a place to put it all down for the day.
it doesn't mean it goes away, it just means I'm not. Spinning about it anymore. as I'm finishing my coffee, I do my little puzzles. I really enjoy, mind puzzles, from the New York Times. I do them every day, Wordle and, the connections and the mini crossword. But immediately after that, the next thing I do is a daily drawing.
So there's another artist who I follow, Sarah Simon, the Mint Gardener. She does daily drawing prompts and every day. She encourages you to just do it with pen or pencil. And then I usually will go over that with watercolor as well. And so I have a journal filled [00:33:00] with those little creative things then as well.
So within about an hour every morning that I've set aside for myself, I have started my day on a healthy, creative path that is all about making decisions. That lead to more creativity rather than what I used to do, which was zapping me of my creativity. The social media was really taking it away from me.
Now, when I go on social media, I am actually engaging with other creatives. I might share something I put together, but I have no desire to sit there and scroll because my brain is like, no, you have to go write, you have to go put that, storyboard together for the trailer or whatever it is that I'm doing.
Working on a pet portrait, I want to go do that because my brain is already awake and ready to feed that creative, outlet more so.
Beth: I love it. I love it. Also, I remember you wrote In your note to me that if you are working on a [00:34:00] project and you think of the laundry and I've got the direct of kids and they have to go to practice and then I have to make dinner, that there are some nights where you're like, I need time for myself, so we're gonna order dinner out.
So Oh, absolutely. Being creative with just where you find your time to do your projects. is amazing and I love your creative rituals. I mean, you could hardly imagine having a morning without.
Doing your journal and your daily drawing.
Jaime: time set aside. Yeah, even like Christmas morning, walking the dogs. I think I've heard you talk about this on your podcast. I, walk the dogs and I take pictures while I'm walking of flowers and birds and palm trees and, these are things that, it doesn't matter what day it is.
I know I will have a much better day if I prioritize it. So we go on vacation, I take those same journals with me and I do those things on vacation. I'm a happier, healthier person when I am true to those [00:35:00] habits. and I can come up with creative things to draw all on my own or paint all on my own, but part of that daily drawing in that journal I just wanna share it, is very similar to back when I first started watercolor.
I wasn't coming up with those projects on my own. It was just a way to get. The juice is flowing. It was just a way to, to follow along with what somebody else put out there. And there's so many sources out there that artists are sharing So if you like animation, if you like animals and you wanna draw pictures of animals, you don't have to come up with it yourself because.
I gotta tell you, my husband's alarm goes off at four 15 in the morning. these are early mornings when I'm sitting there during my journal writing and I, I may not have that creative spark yet, but just doing that daily drawing is. Setting me on the path to all those creative sparks going on later in the day.
So it's my passion now to pursue those things later in the day, but I still depend on that [00:36:00] initial warmup, if you will. It's almost like an exercise. But somebody else is providing,
Beth: That you're, what you said right there, exercise is so important because. you wouldn'tgo and run a marathon if you hadn't done the training ahead of time.
So if you think someday, I'd love to fill in that blank. If you're not doing the training. ahead of time. You can't just expect yourself to sit down and do an amazing watercolor painting. You have to have those hours where you're just doing something mindlessly.
My husband is a runner and I watch him train.
he knows he needs to run, a lot in order to be able to go and do this one thing
but he is enjoying all of that training in the beginning. So by doing a drawing a day, what you're doing is you are building that muscle. You have the creativity
Jaime: Exactly right. Yes. I think our bodies are made of all different muscles, but we often, undermine the creativity [00:37:00] muscle.
and that's in even the word puzzles I write. doing word puzzles every day helps me with that as well. my brain is a muscle that these. exercises are all helping with, and I think they really benefit my creativity, output when it comes to something like a large painting I wanna do or a entire book or even a, a personal essay I might be writing.
Yes.
Beth: I love all the things that you've brought to the table today. So tell me, for someone that's listening in today What's some advice that you would give them to apply to reach some creative goals or even reignite a passion that they've forgotten about or find a passion that will bring them the creative wellness that you've been enjoying.
Jaime: I would really recommend that you set yourself up for success by starting with a goal of a small daily habit. So I think I've heard you talk about doing a three [00:38:00] minute journal write. Mm-hmm. That three minute journal write can turn into the Julia Cameron three page journal. Long term, but if you haven't been writing in a journal, don't start with the three pages.
Get a small little journal and write with big letters so that you'll get that full page filled that you, if maybe that's your goal or you'll just set the timer for three minutes just to do it. And same thing if you used to enjoy drawing and you wanna get back into it,
A little calm, brought to your day, a little calm, brought to your life because life is stress. the world around us is not in a healthy place right now.And we can't fix all of that, but we can care for ourselves by pursuing these things. So don't. Feel like you have to go spend a lot of money on art supplies.
Don't feel like you have to have the very best paper and markers or paint brushes or watercolor products. You can start with whatever you have available to you and find [00:39:00] someone on YouTube or on social media who is just doing something simple. A five minute art project that you could learn from.
By putting your attention on something outside of yourself and outside of what's causing you the stress, something small that brings just that little bit of calming joy through creativity, you will start to feel the stress.
Melt away. The anxiety that hum will start to subside. And the joy you feel and the energy you get from that will then reinvigorate the rest of your life. And you can build on that day by day. But start small and set yourself up for success, and I promise it will be rewarding.
Beth: It can be something as simple as, find a coloring book that you love.
Don't even need to think, oh, I have to learn how to draw before this happens. No. Get yourself some markers that make you happy, some color, pencils, whatever kind of instrument makes you think, oh, I used to do that when I was a [00:40:00] kid and just color. I colored with my grandkids over the weekend and we sat and colored for an hour and.
I think I enjoyed it as much as they did.
Jaime: I have coloring books. I have watercolor books that are, there's already an outline I also love. flowers. I have a lot of flowers in my yard, so I've learned a little bit about flower pressing just to the experience of picking a beautiful flower and learning how to press it properly and have something that brings me joy to look at is a creative act that is a healthy outlet.
So you don't even have to draw if you don't want to.
Beth: And again, it's not the end result, it's just mm-hmm. The doing.
The point is just Letting your mind get away from whatever it is that's pulling you down and give yourself time to just be in the moment. Martha Beck has a book called Beyond Anxiety, and she talks that she has interviewed so many artists.
And she says she's never found an artist who said, while I'm creating, I'm anxious. She says, [00:41:00] when you are actually doing your creativity, you're so into the moment that creativity closes the doors to your anxiousness and your dread or your worry about whatever might be happening.
It's a really selfish time to just give yourself that gift of wellness that will, yeah, give yourself a time to exhale and catch your breath.
Jaime: Absolutely. And for my husband and I, listening to live music has always been an important part of our relationship for exactly that as well. He has a very high stress job.
Has always found an outlet in music, and it's that same thing. He can't listen to one of his favorite bands and feel stressed at the same time. So even if we're just going to a local restaurant and there's a cover band playing, we find that stress melts away by listening to the music coming along, even, tapping our feet.
Or even getting up and dancing, which he doesn't do very often, but it's all of these ways that we can really connect with creativity around [00:42:00] us. I do think, and you share so much about the science behind it in your show. I love that you do because I really do think it is the way to, deal with the chemistry in our body that is causing that stress and anxiety.
That's. So toxic for us and can cause so many health problems, but if we can reconnect with creativity, we can bring all of those cortisol levels down and bring back the happy, dopamine.
Beth: Yeah. Well, Martha Beck also shares that, we, we look into the world right now and we think everything is so out of control.
There's nothing I can do, but what she shares is Our, our culture right now is really based on anxiety and we, we then share that anxiety with our culture and we stir the pot. That is anxiety, but if we can be one of those people that can go in and calm ourself down. Then let that be what we, are emitting.
That's what our vibration is. Then we're adding to the calm in the [00:43:00] world, Imagine if everyone in the world had a creative practice and they took time to give themselves that gift of relaxation. Our world would be so different.
Jaime: Oh yeah. And my girls, I love that I found this at such an important time with the pandemic because my girls watch, they see as I start to get anxious that I will come into my office and I will turn on music and I will get a paintbrush out and it all melts away those nights where it's been a go, go, go all day and everything's been stressful.
And I say, we're just ordering pizza and I'm gonna paint for the next 30 minutes until it arrives. They see that that's a self care that I am. Choosing and that brings more peace and joy to our home as well, and that that's something they can choose for themselves. So you're absolutely right. The more that we are emitting to the world, the sense of calm, the more that it also is something that others around us will seek as well.
Beth: Absolutely. Yes. That can be the gift we give back [00:44:00] instead of just adding more anxiety and more judgment into what is already chaos, let's take a moment for you to let everyone know where can people find Jamie Townsend?
Jaime: So I have a website, jaimetownzen.com, and I am on, Facebook at Jaime Townzend or on Instagram and TikTok and threads at Jaime Gets creative in all of these different spaces. What you'll find is a little bit about my book. You'll find a little bit about my art, and you'll find a whole lot of me just trying to encourage people to find joy and peace in what's going on around them.
If you're looking to escape from that, pot stirring society on social media, you'll find some peace on my pages 'cause I am not doing any of that.
Beth: I love it. So I make sure everyone go to the show notes and we'll have a space where you can go and find Jamie's book Make sure that you buy several copies [00:45:00] because I'll bet you that you have people in your world that could really benefit from the topics that she talks about, with either moms or grandmas or children who are teenagers and dealing with just all of life's stuff.
I love that you've shared all that and it really helps us figure out where we would fit into the perspective when we would read your book.
Jaime: For anyone who's ever come of age Yes.
Beth: We've either come of age or we're coming of age,
that means that your book is ready and waiting for a lot of people to get some goodness. I love the fact that when we look at your book, that's your art. I can't imagine them not using your art for the book. It's, that's beautiful.
Jaime: Thank you so much. it's a really wonderful reality for me and I've personally had the opportunity to thank Sarah Cray directly for how she inspired me down this road.
And, so there's a little dedication to her in the back just thanking [00:46:00] her for how I've come to this point that not only have I written the novel, but I've created the cover as well through art.
Beth: oh my gosh. I bet that made her day
being able to reach back and say, this is what happened because I found you. I'm pretty sure that just rocked her world.
Jaime: I think so. I hope.
Beth: Well, Jamie, you have been such a delight to have on the show today.
I hope everyone has gotten as much from Jamie as I have. you've, solidified so many things I think are important for. The entire world. everyone says when you do a podcast, you need to niche down, but with my podcast, creativity isn't for a niche. Creativity is for everyone, and you can pick your niche, but everyone needs to do something creative.
So if you're listening to this today, what are you doing that's creative? And then remember just to enjoy the doing. you never know where your creative passion is going to take you.
And [00:47:00] Jamie is an amazing example of that. Here's to you, Jamie, and I wish you the most amazing good fortune for where your book is going to take you this next year.
Jaime: thank you so much, Beth. It's been such a pleasure talking to you today, and I am really grateful for how you're sharing the healing power of creativity with your audience.
Beth: Well, thank you. Thank you. So everyone get out there, find your creative passion and no matter where it takes you, Just remember that the most important thing is that you stay creative, my friend. We'll see you again next time on Create Today with Beth Buffington.
Bye-bye.
00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Jaime Townzen
01:09 Jamie's Creative Journey and Early Influences
02:55 Discovering a Passion for Writing
05:55 Rediscovering Creativity Through Painting
09:26 The Healing Power of Art
15:35 Writing and Publishing 'Absorbed'
21:57 Book Details and Supporting Local Bookstores
24:32 Exploring the Library's Hidden Gems
24:47 Creativity and Confidence: A Personal Journey
25:20 The Power of Creative Communities
26:16 The Creative Pledge: A Promise to Yourself
31:16 Daily Creative Rituals: Building a Healthy Habit
33:54 Finding Time for Creativity in a Busy Life
37:28 Small Steps to Reignite Your Creative Passion
40:46 The Healing Power of Creativity
43:13 Connecting Through Creativity: A Family Affair
46:22 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Show Notes:
How to find Jaime Townzen:
www.jaimetownzen.com
http://www.instagram.com/jaimegetscreative
https://www.facebook.com/jaime.townzen/
https://tiktok.com/@jaimegetscreative
How to purchase Jaime’s book ‘Absorbed’
Jaime highly recommends finding her book through your closest independent bookstore.
To order her book at a bookstore or library use this ISBN number:
Paperback: ISBN 9798218513580
Hardcover: ISBN 9798218516178
Also available for purchase through: Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jaime-Townzen/author/B0DNHZY5BQ?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=cad1506b-7bd2-474f-9356-1a03603be0c5
