Jo Hunter: Unlocking Creativity. Insights from working with 64 million artists

The Collective Wisdom Podcast with Cat Preston

Hey there, my wise friends and welcome to another episode of Collective Wisdom, which this week is all about the importance of creativity for our health and well-being.

As human beings, we have an innate capacity for creativity. And it's an essential part of what makes us human. engaging in creative activities has been shown to have a range of benefits for our mental, emotional, and physical health. In fact, creativity has even been linked to reduce stress, increased happiness, improved cognitive function, and a stronger immune system.

One person who really understands the power of creativity is Jo Hunter, who is CEO of a social enterprise called 64 Million Artists that aims to foster creativity in everyone in the UK. Jo has long believed that being creative is the opposite of producing something brilliant or being perfect, in fact, is often perfectionism that stifles our creativity and makes us give up instead.

For Jo creativity means to transcend traditional ideas, rules, and patterns, and make new ones and that's something she believes we should be encouraging everyone to do. And just after we recorded this episode, I was sent a message about a painting class hosted by the artist Caroline Chappell. And in the class we simply got to play at mixing colours to create harmony and discord. And she talked about all the best things happening in the margins when we allowed ourselves to be free enough to make mistakes. It was a lot of fun. And I have Jo to thank for the inspiration.

Links:

64 Million Artists Website

64 Million Artists on LinkedIn

Do Schools Kill Creativity? TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson

Music :

‘You light up my life’ by Leanne Rimes

‘It’s all about you’ by McFly

Wisdom ‘Find something you can be grateful for every single day’