How many of us put "be more creative" at the top of our New Year resolutions list? It's an itch that's hard to ignore, despite the self-deprecation that usually accompanies it ("I'm not talented, I'm too busy, I'm too old to start . . . "). Some voice keeps insisting that if we can get over our apathy, inhibitions and fear of judgment, and simply start writing, sculpting, singing, knitting or whatever, our lives will become richer and more fulfilling.
With the wealth of creative courses now available throughout the country, there's one excuse less to avoid the artist within. What's it to be? Painting? Acting? Writing screenplays? Hunt around and something unusual might grab you. According to Helene Hugel, who co-runs a puppet-making workshop in Dublin, puppetry has holding power for evening-class drifters.
"Puppetry is a crossroads between two forms, the visual arts and the dramatic arts, so it offers something unique," she explains.
Another off-the-wall pursuit is storytelling, a radically different medium to short story writing, as Chuck Kruger, facilitator of the annual Cape Clear Storytelling Workshop, is at pains to point out. "A good storyteller is not just telling something from memory," he says. "He or she is connecting with the audience in a spontaneous way, so if someone sneezes it can be incorporated into the story."
Embarking on a creative course brings a sense of satisfaction and new, often interesting people into participants' lives. It can even result in a marketable skill with which to earn extra cash or pay for further artistic training. "Many students come along looking for jewellery they can't buy," observes Cormac Cuffe, a Dublin jewellery teacher. "They often end up making jewellery for friends. Next thing, they're being commissioned to make pieces. The shops look at designs, not qualifications. If you have good original designs, you've every chance of selling."
Cuffe's jewellery classes are small, intimate and geared to individuals, an ethos shared by many in the creative courses sector. Without the pressure to do exams or get a qualification, people can explore creativity at their own pace, gaining confidence in self-expression while learning the technical skills of a particular art form. "My students don't follow a curriculum," says Cuffe. "I've found that people learn the most by making things they like."
Many arts courses are flexible, with weekend sessions, one-off workshops and drop-in classes just as common as regular night courses. And if you still can't squeeze that longed for silk-painting class into your busy schedule, you can always make your holiday creative by taking one of the many residential courses dotted around the country.
At the residential Nature Art Centre in beautiful West Cork, Thomas Wiegandt and Annette Patzold offer custom-built creative holidays. "We run workshops in drumming, dream painting, oriental dance, voice work, shamanic journeying, meditation, relaxation, healing and vegetarian cooking," says Wiegandt. "People can choose from these and make up their own creative menu."
The Nature Art Centre has capitalised on the fact that healing and creativity often go hand in hand. Dr Michael Corry and Dr Aine Tubridy, both doctors, psychotherapists and authors, elaborate.
"Physiologically, creativity is very positive," says Tubridy. "It gives you healthy molecules, molecules of hope, because it hooks you into the future, into something that has yet to be formed. This attitude is very important for people who are ill: for example, cancer patients."
"A formula I came up with recently is that optimism plus creativity equals happiness," adds Corry. "Therapy and creativity are inseparable. In therapy, I try to help my clients recreate themselves. To be more than what you're given, to expand, is the task of life. And creativity is a brilliant way of doing that."
Perhaps it's this realisation which has led to 180,000 people in Ireland taking evening classes every year. "Up to 70,000 people are logging on to our website each month," says Kevin Brannigan, the brain behind www.nightcourses.com, Ireland's first centralised database of part-time courses, probably the easiest way to research what's available in a particular area (The Wolfhound Guide to Evening Classes is also useful if you live in Dublin). "Of that figure, 20 to 22 per cent are looking for creative classes," adds Brannigan.
Working at the coalface, has Brannigan met any of that often-mocked breed, the evening-class junkie?
"We've certainly come across people who so want to better themselves that they spend the whole time wondering what class they'll do next," he says. "But I suppose being obsessive about learning is a good thing."
www.nightcourses.com offers a help desk for anyone looking for evening classes. Contact at tel: 01-860 0784 or e-mail: info@nightcourses.com
