Joyce van der Lely (Dutch artist and educator) has a wonderfully encouraging and infectious warmth to her which made it a pleasure to be interviewed by her for “All of You” - a series of conversations and explorations on how to include every fabulous thing that you have to offer, created for multi passionate women seeking harmony in life and work.

This free event starts today / tomorrow as Joyce is in New Zealand so for many of us we are a day behind. She leads frequent facebook lives from her this cosy corner in her studio that is like a sanctuary.

When I first chatted to Joyce in an interview to see if we thought we could work together there was one line of coincidence which was her memory of holidays in Wales, including to Aberystwyth and to that town with the name longer than the railway station. This mixed with my memories of a summer school with the amazing David Zambrano at the School for New Dance Development (now part of the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts) when I was a student.

Then what clinched it for me was the combination of our fluid conversation and the painting Joyce has in her office which was like a wild circle. It could have been an illustration for a short story of Borges. I love spirals and when she told me it was a work she'd made when figuring out her relationship to time, I was convinced.

She has gathered really wild and whacky bunch of speakers who are from the fields of Mindset, Self-empowerment, Spirituality, Branding, Business/Careers, Creativity, Shamanism and more.

With such a combination of Doodlers, Educators, Creative Directors, Feng Shui Consultants, Lifestyle Business Coaches, Poets, Transformational Coaches, Film-makers and much more, this event won't be for everyone yet for anyone exploring, re-examining their life choices and pondering what else there is to life, then there is sure to be at least one talk that will catalyse some unsung aspect or dormant desire into finding its feet.

All of You - 16th Sept 2019 
All of You is a week long online summit hosted by artist & coach Joyce van der Lely as a series of conversations and explorations on how to include every fabulous thing that you have to offer and created for multi passionate women seeking harmony in life and work

Fill in this form below if you'd like to get Clear Insight Production's monthly newsletter.

The news around the world is a whirl wind. We search for a horizontals that seems it will  take us forever to re-find.  In this light whilst leafing through old journals I found an inspiring quote from the determined British film-maker Terry Gilliam who has seen his fair share of up and downs, and the twists of outrageous fortune.

Read it to take your mind back to its creative problem solving centre... 

Whole article: Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Terry Gilliam

It's a rainy Saturday in Buenos Aires and Oscar Edelstein just shared a homage to the late Muhammad Ali on his Facebook page.

​Maybe it's strange that an avant-garde composer would be moved to post about the passing of a boxer, especially with so many perceived divisions between high and low culture. Yet perhaps what Edelstein noticed with the nose of a life-long experimenter was Ali's spirit as a searcher speaking out, and looking for meaning and new perspectives.  

So it seems a moment to follow Edelstein's lead, and share the historic interview with Sir Michael Parkinson, who said today that Muhammad Ali "was the biggest star they've ever had boxing, and maybe ever will have."

The interview is the famous speech where Ali asks why are all the cultural images - from angels to Tarzan in the jungle - are of white people. 

Asked about the first time he met him backstage, Parkinson said: "It's not often, given the job I had, that I was allowed to be gob-smacked, but he did gob-smack me as he walked across the floor. I'd never seen a more graceful and beautiful man. He was extraordinary."

As Edelstein wrote, "This man was the greatest boxer that I have seen but someone who also thought, and this is what they never forgave. See the interview, it is really not to be missed." 

The interview is from 1981, an incredible 35 years ago, when this kind of discourse around race was not so mainstream. So it seems that Ali's bravery in the ring was really therefore nothing compared to his fight to speak out.

Ali died the same day that in her final commencement address as first lady, to graduates of City College in New York, Michelle Obama talked about diversity; free speech; the achievements of United States such as Google, eBay, the artificial heart, the telephone, blue jeans, Russian-born Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," the Brooklyn Bridge and the White House; and she even acknowledged that she wakes up every day in a house built by slaves. 

She remembered "the son of Polish immigrants named Jonas Salk who toiled for years in a lab until he discovered a vaccine that saved countless lives" and "the story of the son of Jamaican immigrants named Colin Powell who became a four-star general, secretary of state, and a role model for young people across the country."

Michelle Obama spoke about the danger of building walls. 

Of course we all know that walls can be physical but also intellectual and emotional, they can be of class as well as of race or religion. My naive hope is for a future where the only walls we will need are those to put bookcases against. 

In remembering the brave voice of Muhammad Ali, I hope that we also take a moment to remember to include in that list of achievements of the US many more figures such as (to name a few) John Coltrane, Spike Lee, Prince, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Josephine Baker, and of course next on the list, let us now hope, that Muhammed Ali will be there. 

Thank you for provoking us to see the world from a different angle, Muhammed Ali. When you get to heaven may you float like a butterfly, and please let us know that the angels really are from all walks of life. 

RIP Muhammad Ali. 

Recently I shared on the Clear Insight Productions facebook page the image above. Then this week I was amused when a colleague in the USA, a writing coach called Elaine Bennett, picked it up and wrote about it in her blog (see here). She took my impulse to share it (which I did partly just because for me the words fuzzy felt just make me feel warm and cosy), and wrote about it in a way that wouldn't have occurred to me in a blog post entitled "You don't think like us". Apparently Phil Lucas is a British comedian - a fact that I hadn't even looked into. What had struck me was the way the image humourously captures that certain kind of determination to adapt to the circumstances come what may - something with which all "creatives" can identify. Elaine Bennett wrote about another aspect, that of how her corporate clients say, "We love talking to you... Because you don't think like us and you don't talk like us" - sometimes it is good to be reminded that being absorbed in culture gives access to ways of thinking that are vitally needed in the world. Hats off to creativity and to Phil Lucas who made a great piece of viral marketing. ​

​Good news for the arts in London: “Supporting the arts and creative industries will be a core priority for my administration — right up there with housing, the environment and security — as one of the big themes that I want to define my time as Mayor Sadiq Khan,” he added. “There is no question London without culture would be a much poorer place and we can’t rest on our laurels. We face stiff global competition."

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sadiq-khan-ill-take-the-arts-as-seriously-as-housing-and-crime-a3252086.html

Recommended FREE on line webinar

Procrastination is Genius In Disguise
with Samantha Bennett - actor, teacher, creativity/productivity specialist

April 9th, 2016 at 10am PT/1pm ET


Sam has gone from being an actor and improviser to now having a fabulously successful organsation that trains creatives in getting their work out there. For that reason her company is called the "Organized Artists Company."

She is a mine of information on marketing, creative process, project planning, and boundary breaking with a gift is for kicking people into action who have got a stuck on their creative path. Plus being an improviser she is really funny and has a great book on procrastination and creativity.

In only a week's time Samantha is offering her newest webinar "Procrastination is Genius In Disguise" which is a godsend for when you have too many projects in a drawer, too many balls in the air, and no clarity on how to move forward. It is FREE. Plus, when you register you get INSTANT ACCESS to Sam's "Get Started: Just 15 Minutes a Day for One Week" Project Plan PDF.

Here's what some of her clients say: