Business Name: Whitney Ferré
Location: Nashville, TN until June 2011, then Oregon!
Website: http://www.creativelyfit.com/
What do you make and where can we get it?
I love to paint and to get YOU painting! You can buy my original art, the CREATE Change Paint Kits, my two books, The Artist Within and 33 Things to Know About Raising Creative Kids, my Painting Made Easy DVD and (COMING SOON) limited edition prints of my paintings at www.creativelyfit.com
You do so much, let's start at the beginning - how long have you been painting?
I did not start painting until 1996 when I opened my first art center, The Creative Fitness Center, in Nashville, TN. I had always WANTED to paint, but thought that I did not “inherit that gene”. I had an art teacher when I was 9 tell me and my mom that I had a “good eye for color and balance, but drawing just isn’t her thing.” So, I accepted that I would never be able to paint until after college, when I started to challenge those self-imposed limiting beliefs.
How did the transition occur, when you started to focus more on inspiring/teaching creativity?
I was reading a book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living, by Laurence G. Boldt, three years out of college while I was in a direct sales job. I knew intuitively that I was “supposed to sell until I came up with THE idea.” I was ALWAYS coming up with ideas. I knew I was destined to do something different with my life work, but had no idea it would be in the arts until the idea came to me. Boldt insisted throughout his book that we all need to adopt an “artist mentality” if we are going to be able to create the life of our dreams. I kept thinking, “Great! But where does one go to develop this artist mentality?” I had been trying to find art classes for a while, but in college I would have had to take drawing 101/102 and painting 101/102 in order to take the classes I wanted and after college, when I got up the courage to call the local art center where I was living, the woman cheerily explained that I had just missed the registration deadline and that the next session started in 13 weeks. 13 WEEKS!!! I was not even going to be living in that same state in 13 weeks. “Why is it so hard to take an art class!?” This thought, combined with Boldt’s book, inspired The Creative Fitness Center, an art center set up more like a gym so that people could make art any time. I had that classic “light bulb experience” in December 1994 and just 17 months later opened The Creative Fitness Center. Not only did I change my career, but I changed my entire mindset. I was an art center owner, so I could no longer give up on my creative projects, sending papers into the garbage with a resounding, “I just am not good at this.” I had to learn how to paint and draw, no matter what! When you remove the “I can’t’s” from your vocabulary it is amazing what CAN happen!
How did you prepare for the opening of the Art Center and what was your motivation?
The amazing thing that happened leading up to The Creative Fitness Center was that I had a tremendous increase in my sales at my sales job. This led to me accumulating all the money I needed to open the art center. I realized later that what had happened is that I had what I now call a “right brain performance”. Our right brain is the creative side. It also is responsible for learning or doing ANYTHING new. It is completely present and focused on the big picture, rather than the details and logistics. Your right brain muscle is what gets, literally, stronger as you create art. This is the heart of Creatively Fit. Since I had tapped into this bigger picture of The Creative Fitness Center and was now aware of the power of our creative, right hemisphere, I approached my sales job from a completely new perspective. I attracted sales, rather than forcing them, because I KNEW that I was going to sell enough to open the art center. I now have an online program called Meet Your Artist Within that explains this in much more detail. I can’t possibly sum it up here, and it is a theme of my Corporate Creativity Workshops that I present to sales organizations to help them increase their sales beyond their wildest imaginations! Once I had experienced the power of the creative mind and I had the money in the account to buy the house and start the business, it took on a life of its own and I felt very led by the process. I was now on a mission to empower people to CREATE the life they desired, to assume their role as the artist of their life and to embrace each day as a blank canvas. Four years out in the real world as a sales person, after graduating from the University of Michigan, had truly impressed upon me that life was A LOT more like a blank canvas than a multiple choice test! I was on a mission to help people become Creatively Fit!
When did you decide to expand into the book market?
My first book, The Artist Within, A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit, was a result of the tremendous impact my “creativity workouts” were having on my clients at The Creative Fitness Center in Nashville. I got asked a lot if I was going to franchise or open more locations after several national television appearances on HGTV, but my knee jerk response was, “No, but there is definitely a book in the future.” My students would walk through the door, bright eyed and smiling, and say to me, “Whitney, guess what I DID!? I have been meaning to do _____ for YEARS!” As they became more comfortable CREATING CHANGE on the canvas or the drawing paper, they started to flex those same mental muscles within the art that was their life. Before The Creative Fitness Center, their left brain voice always won out with its perspective that sounded something like, “You probably should not try that,” or “It will probably never work,” or “You are not qualified enough, smart enough, tall enough, talented enough….” We all know this voice. But once they got “Creatively Fit” their right brain voice also had the platform, that mental muscle was limbered up and ready to lend its strengths, and it now chimed in, “Let’s just take a step in the direction we want to go.” They made one small step after another, and sure enough, they created change in their lives. There are great stories in my book! I thought, “This is too great to be kept hidden in this little side street in Nashville. Surely, everyone should be able to benefit from this work!” So I started writing the book in 1998. It was published in 2008! I was single with no kids when I started and married with 3 kids who could READ the book by the time it was published! It did not happen as quickly as I desired and there were plenty of obstacles, but none of that mattered. It became “the ONE THING I know FOR SURE” and nothing could dissuade me. The most rewarding part of the book experience is that it is TRULY making the same kind of impact on readers as The Creative Fitness Center made on its clients. Readers are experiencing breakthroughs at work, in their personal lives, coming up with new ideas, new ways of living their lives that is on their own terms because they are now the artist of their own lives!
And a wine bar (how fun)?
The wine bar was another unexpected twist in the evolution of Creatively Fit. In 2004 I merged my adult art classes from The Creative Fitness Center with another woman who owned a gallery around the corner. I closed The Creative Fitness Center and, together, we re-opened as tHE aRT hOUSE, gallery & studio. Next door we opened a wine bar! I had never anticipated this move, but one thing led to another AND I felt that the wine bar would help me to create a larger platform to attract a publisher. It also became an amazing story and led to all kinds of fabulous learning experiences, interesting people and a new appreciation for the art of food and wine. Now I lead my Artist Within the Wine Tastings for events and corporate groups and have connected with Michael Gelb, author of How to Think Like Leonardo daVinci, who just wrote Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking!
How do you EVER find a balance with everything you have going on, as a mother, wife, and business woman?
I love this question because this is why I love when people read my book, especially women! My book provides exactly the tools and techniques anyone needs to learn how to balance everything we ALL have going on in this hyper-complicated, over-scheduled, never-ending to-do list world! The secret for me (which I am hoping will not be such a secret for long!) is that I can access an entirely new well of energy, inspiration, and wisdom simply by accessing my right brain voice—my Artist Within! Life is now, more than ever, a MENTAL GAME. Believe me, on any given day I could succumb to feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, or stressed out with all that I have going on, but I have created a new way of thinking by getting my right brain muscle Creatively Fit. When I get overwhelmed I think of the one thing I can do RIGHT NOW that will take me one step closer to my goal. When I am “exhausted” I reconnect with colors, images, painting, collage for even just 5-10 minutes until I feel the shift inside. I can tell the shift because I start getting excited about something, a thought pops to mind…. I bypass stress by remembering one of my favorite “right brain mantras”: EVERYTHING IS WORKING OUT PERFECTLY. I do believe my work has a higher mission than even I can comprehend. I take great comfort there. It is NOT all up to me. I expect miracles. I expect the people to email or call JUST when I need them. I choose to focus on the good things. It is work. I don’t want to make it sound easy, but it DOES work.
What has been your biggest challenge?
One of the skills we learn when we become Creatively Fit is to “work backwards”. This touches on the Law of Attraction and Quantum Physics. It is about creating such a clear vision of the future, of what we want our future to look like, that it might as well have already happened. That is what it was like with my first book. I KNEW it was going to be published, there was not a doubt in my mind, but that did not excuse me from the rejection letters and setbacks. So when those setbacks come it can be challenging to keep moving forward. When it feels like, “Who am I to think that this is ever going to REALLY happen??” I have to wrap my mind back around the vision. It is a vision of a world that is JUST AS motivated by personal gain as what will serve the greater good, a world that celebrated beauty as much as monetary value, a world where the feminine voice is just as respected and heard as the masculine, when creativity is placed on the pedestal right alongside academic achievement and the “bottom line”. Right brain thinking is love-based, rather than fear based, infinite & inclusive, rather than ego-centered & exclusive. When my clients become Creatively Fit obstacles become opportunities and instead of thinking, “It’s never going to work,” they think, “Everything is working out perfectly.” Instead of a to-do list, their life becomes a work of art. With such lofty visions, the day-to-day reality is often challenging. What do I do then? I go paint!
What are you most proud of (so far)?
I AM proud to be teaching a workshop at ESALEN (!!!) in April 2011. I am co-teaching “Ignite The Creative Genius Within, Expand Your Role as the Artist of Your Life” with an incredible woman Christine Ranck. I am also on the faculty at the World Conference for Innovation & Leadership in Costa Rica in January 2011. I have so much admiration for Esalen and the people with whom I will be teaching in Costa Rica. I am thrilled to be a part of each of these distinguished organizations. I am also really proud of the Creatively Fit Marathon. This is one of our online programs. Instead of running 26 miles to get physically fit, we PAINT 26 paintings (on 1 canvas!) to get Creatively Fit. There are way over 500 paintings on our community site that people around the country have painted in their “race”.
Describe your average day?
It is a balance of getting kids ready, loving on my family, mucho computer time, painting or art journaling, running around, connecting with amazing people, celebrating the miracles, reading, yoga, homeschooling my 5th grader (!!!-just started this year), and deep breathing!
Who or what inspires you?
I am so inspired by this time that we live in. We have such potential alongside such challenge and hardship! I believe we each, both individually and collectively, have a transformational opportunity right now. Change is now a constant and we are having to catch up much of our educational, political, economic and organizational structures to accommodate this new paradigm. I get so fired up when I think of all the potential we have within our own minds, potential that we have yet to access. I get inspired by progress being made in the field of Quantum Physics. QP basically confirms that we are the artists, the creators of our entire reality!!! I want to help people get better at creating the reality they truly desire. I am fired up right now just typing about it! Thanks for asking this question
Are you interested in offering my readers any discounts?
I would LOVE to offer your readers a discount. I so appreciate your voice! The first 10 people who comment on this interview will receive a FREE Meet Your Artist Within Online Program and for one month from the date this interview is published, we will offer 2 for 1 Meet Your Artist Within Program (just include the email of your friend in your order form). This 4-week online program is chock full of gorgeous imagery, inspiring information, research and stories, and links to talks by some of my favorite “change agents”. This program provides life-changing insight and techniques anyone can use.
Favorite Artists?
J. Todd Greene’s art is all over my house!
I also am a HUGE fan of Emily Leonard. I did a studio tour video of her space that can be seen here.
Becca Durnin “interned” at The Creative Fitness Center all through her high school career and then worked with me for a couple of years after she graduated from college! Here work is amazing!
April Street lived in Nashville and is now in L.A. I hope to own one of her pieces one day.
Favorite Websites?
Remodelista - this site always gets me excited about the possibilities inherent within any space and Line Juhl Hansen.
Currently Reading?
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking by Michael Gelb
Between Two Worlds by Zainab Salbi
Five Fun Facts?
- My favorite “Wednesday Wine” is Apaltagua Carmenere from Chile.
- I am currently obsessed with painting owls.
- I was a competitive swimmer growing up, not an artist.
- I am a “circle” girl. I think we all have our own shape. What’s yours? Look around your house, in your closet…it is there already.
- I am moving to a ranch in “remote gorgeousness” in NE Oregon in June!
Describe your average day?
It is a balance of getting kids ready, loving on my family, mucho computer time, painting or art journaling, running around, connecting with amazing people, celebrating the miracles, reading, yoga, homeschooling my 5th grader (!!!-just started this year), and deep breathing!
