Creative DC Profile: Kimberly Wilson

Kimberly Wilson is proof that you can take an idea - a dream, even - from concept to reality. Seven years ago, this former paralegal became so inspired by yoga that she began teaching classes in her living room; now, without any formal business training, she runs a popular Dupont Circle studio, along with a clothing line and more. Her first book, Hip Tranquil Chick, is coming out this fall.

I first encountered Kimberly's studio, Tranquil Space Yoga, a few years ago, when I signed up for a "creativity circle" there. "Creativity circles" are book clubs dedicated to reading and discussing The Artist's Way, a book by Julia Cameron which I've come to see as a bible for creative living. Since then, both The Artist's Way and Tranquil Space have had profound effects on my life, both inspiring and supporting my creativity. (If you're interested, Kimberly is offering a creativity circle this summer - more info here.)

I recently interviewed Kimberly over email to get her perspective on living a creative life in DC, and what yoga's got to do with it.

1. When did you move to DC? What were your first impressions of the city?

I moved to the DC area a decade ago. Ahh, as a girl from the Midwest, I was excited with all the offerings of DC--art, museums, restaurants, night life, music, schools, and more! I'd lived in Bethesda for a summer when I was 16 so I was somewhat familiar with the city and always planned to return here.

2. What inspired you to create Tranquil Space Yoga?

I was working as a trademark paralegal and seeking a more holistic lifestyle. I spent my lunches reading inspirational books in the park, signed up for a yoga teacher training seven years ago this month, and began inviting strangers into my living room to practice yoga.

Tranquil Space has evolved into a lifestyle-focused yoga studio with a hope of enhancing lives on and off the yoga mat. I consciously decided that I didn’t want to become a yoga teacher who leads students through a series of poses and then simply sends them on their way. So when I began teaching in my 4th floor walk-up, I knew I wanted to offer (people) more -- ways to live life more fully, ways to explore their creative side, ways to connect with other like-minded Washingtonians, and ways to find their edge.

The book The Artist's Way also had a profound effect on my launch of the studio. It gave me the courage to explore my creative side.

3. Do you think yoga is creative? How do you see the relationship between yoga and creativity?

Yoga is very creative, especially the style I practice and teach--vinyasa. We're always in flux--growing, changing, evolving, seeking. So is our yoga practice. Some days I want a strong, powerful practice. Other days I'm looking for a softer, restorative practice. Yoga provides numerous variations and modifications to offer variety on the foundational poses. Yoga allows us to honor these variations and provides numerous styles and poses to accommodate our shifts. As a teacher and practitioner, I find a strong creative outlet in vinyasa (flow) yoga. No class is ever the same, we never approach the mat feeling the same, and yoga encourages a connection to this inner spark of creative juice.

4. You are obviously a woman with a vision - you not only run the studio, you have your own clothing line, a blog and podcast, and now a book coming out this fall. Can you talk a little bit about your vision, and how it's come together for you?

Absolutely! The vision continues to unfold. I have no business experience, but a huge desire to create something that will help and inspire others. It's been interesting to watch seemingly unrelated pieces of the business come together. Something that began as a seedling of yoga classes has grown to encompass trunk shows, colorful studio décor, lifestyle-focused “off the mat” workshops, the tranquiliT boutique, expansion to Bethesda and downtown, creativity circles, the tranquiliT collection, four main charities, and Hip Tranquil Chick. My initial reason for starting the studio continues to expand with yoga and tranquility at the helm.

I believe that yoga for the sake of yoga is powerful, but not as powerful as sprinkling it throughout your lifestyle. I want to share ways to infuse our world with passion and creativity--yoga has been my catalyst for it all.

5. What advice do you have for people looking for a more creative life in DC?

Seek out a community of like-minded folks. If you can't find one, create one! There's bound to be someone out there like you. Promise! Throw a party, invite an assortment of people you'd like to know better, and watch the creativity unfold. Take advantage of all DC offers--museums, gardens, parks, nightclubs, wineries, book clubs, yoga studios, cafes. Get out of your comfort zone. Explore unchartered territory. Take a new route to work. Go see a new genre of movie or music. Hang out at a bookstore--SURE to inspire! Walk through the Arboretum. Read The Artist's Way at a new sidewalk cafe.

Photo credit: Amy Mullarkey Photography

Creative DC: aspiration or reality?

The other night, I told a friend of mine in his 50s - someone who's lived in the DC area his entire life, save a few years in upstate NY - about my blog. I explained how one of my goals was to counter the image of DC as a buttoned-up, khaki pants kind of town by shining the spotlight on the city's creative community. "DC is a buttoned-up town," he said. "What you're doing is trying to change that, and that's great - this is something a lot of us have wanted to see happen for a long time." In his view, the influx of young people into the city has primed the city for a creative renaissance of sorts, but to him, we're a long way from being a creative town. If I see creativity flourishing, he argued, it's because I live in Adams Morgan, which is an atypical part of the city.

I disagree. I think creativity is such a basic part of human nature that there are creative people everywhere, but we don't always recognize it because we define creativity in narrow ways. I think DC doesn't market itself as a creative town, and our more creative businesses are spread out, not clustered in a host of funky neighborhoods... but that doesn't mean there aren't people all across this city doing incredibly creative work every single day.

What do you think? Are we fighting an uphill battle toward making DC a more creative town? Is there more creative activity in certain neighborhoods than others?

Touring DC blog-land

Tonight I went on a whirlwind and inspiring tour of blogs run by artists living in DC.

I started with Paint and Plaster, the blog of local painter and sculptor Sean Hennessey, blogger ID ScenicArtisan (the name of his faux finishing company). Sean posted to Creative DC so I decided to check out his site. Not only did I get to see some really cool work he did on a condo in Penn Quarter (featured on HGTV, thank you very much!), I also fell dizzily into his list of DC arts-related links.

I'll let you explore the links yourselves, rather than recreating the list here, but among the things that inspired me:

• Sean and a group of friends get together every Monday to draw. They call it Art Mondays, and they blog about it. Sometimes they meet at a place called the Argonaut, which looks really cool.
  
  
• This painting, from the Darn Knit blog run by Shoofly:
  
  
  
  Shoofly explains the painting thusly:
  

  Meet Claude. Claude's all-time hero was Mike Teavee. Just like Mike, all Claude did all day long was play video games. And all day long his mom and dad took turns repeating "Don't sit that close to the TV! You'll go blind!" He quickly learned how to tune them out.
  
  Did Claude go blind? No. Actually, he developed awesome finger skills and was the champion thumb wrestler at school every year. Did his cat, Elvis, go blind? No. He just grew really really fat.

  I love Claude's big fat curls.

I could have surfed for hours - but I wanted to take a break and share some of these highlights. I am so inspired to find such an active community of arts-related DC blogs.

An artist in DC - imagine that! (Part II)

(see Part I)

So, it turns out the main message in the Post magazine story is an inspiring one. It's about the irrepressible urge to create. This man teaches all day and then, every night, descends into his basement studio for all-night art sessions - carving, painting, drawing, using any surface he can find. As a kid, he apparently drew on the walls. This man is oozing art, and it's an inspiration for anyone who thinks you need to have a certain set of circumstances in place in order to be an artist.

The author's emphasis on the importance of "making it" in New York is still annoying, but luckily, her profile shows, wittingly or not, how for some artists, "making it" just means making the art.

Creativity Doesn't Just Mean Art

I completely agree with my friend Jaime, who runs the local blog Stop, Blog and Roll about DC's Ward 5, and who commented,

...Remember that creativity in DC isn't limited to the arts. There are also a number of us who want to infuse our creative skills into community investment, which in turn will likely feed back into, or partner with, the arts.

In the broadest sense, creativity is making something, whether it's art or after-school programs. I hope to feature a Q&A with Jaime sometime soon so she can tell us more about how she's channeling her creativity into the community.

Thank you

Wow - I can't believe my first post has gotten 4 comments, since I've done exactly zero to promote it so far. If you're one of the people who posted, I'd love to know how you found out about it! It's incredibly gratifying to see such immediate interest in what I'm trying to do here, and I will do my best to make this a valuable resource.

I'm already realizing I need to change the site's design, so I can offer more useful directories of related resources and links... right now all the links are relegated to the sidebar, with no room for annotations. I'd like people to be able to know why I'm recommending a particular shop or cafe, and to be able to display feedback from readers about each entry. So stay tuned for some improvements in the coming weeks. But for now - I'm so gratified that people have responded so positively to what I'm trying to do, and I hope to live up to your expectations.

Thanks!


An artist in DC - imagine that!

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, yesterday's Post magazine cover story is about a local DC artist named Big Al Carter. The cover asks, "What does the inexhaustible creativity of Big Al Carter say about fame, success and the meaning of art?" I haven't read the article yet, but will later today - in the meantime, this quote caught my eye:

He is a particular type of Washington artist, someone who was understood by peers to have the promise to make it in New York, but who for one reason or another -- temperament, taste, fear, arrogance or some combination -- decided to stay here and fashion a different, quieter career and life.

I understand that DC is quieter than New York, but resent the way this suggests that DC artists necessarily aspire to "make it in New York." First of all - art isn't about "making it" in the sense of fame and fortune; it's about the creative process; and second, New York doesn't have a toe-hold on this process. As Julia Cameron argues in The Artist's Way - a book that's had a tremendous impact on my life - we are all creative. Creativity is part of being human. In fact, that's a flaw in how I'm billing this blog; creative people aren't a unique breed - but people who are creatively productive, are. Hopefully, this blog can help change that.

To be continued after I've actually read the article. :)

Adams Morgan

I found this photo on Flickr and loved it. It was apparently taken in Adams Morgan. Credit goes to the artist, jsgphoto.

Here's what you get when you search Flickr for "creative dc."

Welcome

I'm here to tell you that Washington, DC is a city full of creative people.

It's a city that's home to artists, entrepreneurs, and people seeking - and embracing - unique life paths. It's a place where the famous Cake Love founder Warren Brown traded in a law career to open a bakery. Where Kimberly Wilson, founder of Tranquil Space Yoga in Dupont Circle, started a yoga studio in her living room. Where firemen and government workers alike moonlight as improvisers, where publicists and moms form writing workshops, where hair stylists are percussionists and computer programmers make short films.

I have 3 goals with this blog:

1. Help inspire DC residents who haven't yet tapped into a creative community here,
   
   
2. Help people learn about creative groups, projects and businesses, and
   
   
3. Help reshape the mainstream image of DC.
   

Far too often, I see DC painted as a town full of humorless transients, slaves to dull government jobs; a city devoid of pulse, known so much for its monuments and memorials that it too comes to seem perhaps important, perhaps beautiful, but also untouchable, and lifeless.

For a long time, I bought into these images, and others that were similarly uninspiring. I believed that if I wanted a creative life, I needed to move somewhere more stimulating, like San Francisco or New York. This was partly a product of my 20-something soul searching, and yet, it was a breed of angst that I never heard friends in other cities express. Once I finally discovered creative organizations like Washington Improv Theater, I got so excited - I felt a creative spark, inspired by the work I saw people doing, fulfilled by a sense of connection and belonging. I don't see a lot of resources in this city geared towards helping foster creative community, so I hope that in some small way, this blog can help play that role.

Are there people, groups, projects or businesses you think I should feature? Let me know.