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The Benefits of Personality Testing

by Filed Under: Art, Art & Design, Inspiration & Education, Organize, Organizing Projects, Photography, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources, Uncategorized, Wellness & Mindset 1 Comment

We are all born unique and with different personalities. Are you curious to know more about your personality and how it can affect your day-to-day life? If so, the benefits of Personality testing include giving insight into how we think, handle stress, how we process information and make decisions.

Personality tests are very popular, with many employers requesting a candidate take a personality assessment during the job application process. If you were to Google ‘Personality Test’ you would be flooded with many claiming to be the best. I will showcase a few here that I believe are the most accurate and helpful when we want to learn more about ourselves. No personality test is the same, just as no person is the same.

Myers Briggs

The most popular and well-known Personality Test is Myers Briggs. It gives you insight into many different personality traits and identifies the 16 most distinctive personality types. It is a 15-20 minute assessment that asks you about the way that you think, how you process information, how you make decisions, how extroverted (or introverted) you are, and how you perceive information.

Once you have taken the assessment and receive your result you will also be given information on your personality type and how understandings your type can benefit you in your daily life. You can further research your personality type to help you connect you with like-minded individuals or understand those with strikingly different personalities.

Predictive Index – PI Learning Indicator

The Predictive Index, better known as the PI Learning Indicator is the go-to personality test for employers. It gives a fairly accurate insight into your personality and working style focusing on four main elements; dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality.

The PI takes anywhere from 5-25 minutes depending on how thorough you are with the test. The results might look a bit confusing at first but there are always professionals for you to speak with and a detailed breakdown on their website.

While the PI is very accurate, it is also important to take it every 6 months to a year, depending on the personal changes you are experiencing in your life. Everyone’s personality changes throughout their lifetime and it is good to recognize these changes and adapt to them.

Kolbe

Kolbe offers a variety of different tests for their users including a youth test, finance test, and a relationship test. Kolbe is also unique as they don’t measure your intelligence or your personality but more how you naturally do things in your life.

Kolbe focuses more on your motive, goals and what drives you to achieve these goals. It is a great test to help you recognize what motivates you, and how to achieve your goals.

This test is also very beneficial for business owner’s outer managers who have lost motivation, direction or are looking for ways to keep their success going. The test dives into your creative instincts and showcases how best to utilize your personality.

These tests take 20 minutes and it gives you an in-depth look at your personality and driving factors to your success. Kolbe offers a lot of information and a clear breakdown of their methods and results on their website.

Different Personalities

There are often misconceptions among people that take personality tests. On the surface, it may seem that if we don’t have the correct personality for a job, relationship or friendship that it will never work. On the contrary, personality tests can be taken to learn more about yourself, your strengths and challenges and how to better relate to others in work and personal life. They should never be considered negative. After all, it’s better to know best to have these helpful insights into future challenges before you begin new relationships or ventures!

There are many criteria that personality tests don’t measure specifically including; work ethic, kindness, interests, and ability to learning style (more on this soon!).

I recommend that everyone take at least one personality test in their lifetime. The Benefits of Personality Testing include not only knowing more about your personality but to learning how you can use it to create success in your life. It takes so little time, less time than a favorite TV show, yet can supply both new and reinforced information about yourself. Please share what personality tests you have tried over in our Facebook group.

What we learned In the Studio in 2017

by Filed Under: Art, Art & Design, In the Studio, Inspiration & Education, Organize, Textiles & Pattern, Tips & Resources 1 Comment

I always love to recap and share what we learned In the Studio from all the wonderful artists interviewed. Here’s a short highlight and some of my favorite tips, insights and ideas.

We began the year with Chambers Austelle in her small home based studio. She shared a wonderful piece from her collection of vintage family heirlooms, below. Collections can inspire us or become overwhelming, so just keep in mind how surrounding yourself and your work space with collections influences your work.

Cambers also offers the following storage and organizing tips:

I use a filing cabinet, old dental cart, and jars in which I store my materials, supplies, and tools. I use Apple Calendar, a blank notebook, and scrap pieces of paper to organize my schedule. I use envelopes, folders, and binders to organize the business side of my work (see below).

We RE-visited quilt artist Sam Hunter in a newly created home studio. Sam converted her Living Room/Dining Room space into her studio, who says you need to use space conventionally! She has maximized her space by adding a lot of storage drawers and going vertical. Sam offer’s the following great tips:

In this studio, the things around the edges don’t move, but everything in the middle can shift. This allows me to manage different sized of projects and different numbers of people.

I also pay attention if I always look in a specific place for something… If I do that a couple of times and it’s not there then perhaps that’s where I should move it.

In local Painter Michael Hayes studio (converted garage) we got to see a lot of work in a very tight spot!

Michael’s great tip is he keeps a running list …of materials that he need as he runs out of them so that he can run down to the local Artist & Craftsmen and knows what he need to get (rather than getting distracted and buying impulse items:).

Next we visited the Studio of Lisa Shimko, which was fun because her whole home feels kind of like her studio!

Since Lisa’s home overlaps with her studio I love how she’s incorporated her art collection and supplies. She offers this tip:

My decor is definitely mix and match. Mainly books, artwork by others and gifted or found objects. Overall move stuff around to have my sense of homey feeling without feeling cluttered (might look cluttered to others though).

It was a pleasure to take a trip to Richmond, VA to visit the studio of fiber artist and weaver, Andrea Donnelly.

Her studio is rather large, in an old industrial building with other artists and includes 3 rooms for wet (dyeing) and dry (weaving and finishing) process.

Andrea keeps her space clutter free with the following tip:

I try to keep from having too much “extra” stuff around in the first place, buying what I use and using what I have. I do keep an inventory of my basic materials, but those are continually cycled through and replaced by new things, so clutter doesn’t really build up.

Andrea also shares:

I would say that as a visual artist my organizational processes and systems are intuitive, tactile, and informed by my need for beauty. So my shelves are open for things I use a lot, and those things are organized in a way I find aesthetically pleasing. This works great for pretty things like cloth, my weaving tools, and cones of thread. Things that are more utilitarian, like tape and paper, pliers, hammers, etc, are organized in nice chests and toolboxes within easy reach.

Finally I stopped to visit the studio of Susan Irish, also here in Charleston, who has a bright, functional and spacious studio she converted over the garage in her home.

Susan use to be challenged by finding things…

This was once the bane of my studio practice and greatly cut into the inspirational flow. So now I try to have all that stuff near me, semi organized and contained but still visible so that I feel like it is there waiting to be incorporated.

I adore that she has incorporated many found objects into both her storage and art. And if it’s metal, think Magnetic!

What were some of your favorite tips or lessons from the artist we visited this year? I’d love to hear from you with your own suggestions and tips for studio organizing and storage as well! Happy creating in 2018, I’ll return soon with new In the Studio interviews!

The Greatest Gift of the Season

by Filed Under: Art & Design, Inspiration & Education, Photography, Wellness & Mindset 2 Comments

Whether you have finished all your gift shopping or not I want to take a moment to recognize the greatest gift of the season.

Self acceptance is the greatest gift of the season and any season!

Wherever we are, whatever we have accomplished, the changes we have made, the relationships we have worked to improve, or let go of…the projects we have started, the lesson’s we have learned…THESE are our greatest gifts!

I struggle with self acceptance, with perfectionism, with not feeling I’ve done enough, am good enough etc. For just the next few minutes, hours, days or weeks can you give yourself the Greatest Gift of Self Acceptance?

I hope this little reminder will encourage you to take a moment or more to pause, reflect and accept yourself and all your wonderful gifts, with Gratitude for all you do and who you are!

Wishing you a peaceful holiday, whether you celebrate the darkness of solstice, the Advent and Christmas season, Hanukkah or just a taking quite time to reflect. Celebrate your greatest gifts, celebrate the greatest gifts of those you love.

I leave you with these images of the beautiful Brookgr een Gardens, 2017 Night of A Thousand Candles…enjoy the greatest magic of self acceptance!

Happy Holidays with deep appreciation to you for who you are!

The Sacred Space of Home

by Filed Under: Art & Design, Home, Inspiration & Education, Organize, Wellness & Mindset 1 Comment

This is the time of year that I find myself craving the sacred space of home. How about you? More than any other time of year, I’d be just as happy to stay inside, wrapped up with a blanket and a book, knitting and a movie or cooking in my kitchen.

Lets dive into cultivate the practice of creating the sacred space of home.

Each of us needs to define what makes a place home. I invite you to explore all of your senses.

How does home feel? Cool, warm, dry, soft, cozy, clear, cluttered, bohemian, calm, energetic, loving, nurturing etc…

What does home look like? Is it colorful, minimalist, bright and sunny, eclectic, sentimental?

What are the smells of home? Fresh, like baking or cooking, do you use aromatherapy, candles, what scents do you love?

What do you hear? Children playing, birds singing, trains, pets talking, traffic, sirens, the school nearby, filled with music, stop and notice.

What do you taste? Does home mean homecooked meals and nurturing food or are you happy to have coffee and grab something elsewhere.

Each of our senses invite us to explore what makes home meaningful for us.

Through the journey of our senses we come to notice the things, the light, the people, the smells, the memories that we create and evoke when we cultivate home as a sacred space.

When our homes are overly cluttered, overflowing with so much stimulation that we begin to feel crowded out and confused, we need to re-connect with how we want our homes to feel. I invite you to take some time before the holiday season to get clear about what defines the sacred space of home for you. Spend some time clearing out or at least packing away what no longer feels sacred. We can become so busy and overwhelmed with feelings of obligation and guilt that we keep things that no longer serve our lives.

The popular books The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy by Marie Kondo have become quite popular over the last several years. I personally think it is because Marie hit on this idea of sacred space and sacred objects in our home. She invites us to hold and gather our objects to determine if they “Spark Joy”. At the root of what she is cultivating is the process of reconnecting with our life as sacred!

The things we invite into our home and our lives should express who we truly want to be but so often we settle for less.

How sad is that? Perhaps having recently celebrated a birthday I am noticing and being more intentional about how I dress, what I look at in my home, the objects I surround myself with. These objects have meaning, they carry energy and I certainly want to be cultivating a practice of surrounding myself with what “Sparks Joy”, feels sacred, meaningful, has the least impact on our planet…things that are well designed and function beautifully!

What does Creating Sacred Space of Home mean for you?

Take some time to envision and intentionally edit out and create this space for yourself and your family to nurture you in everything you do.

In The Studio with Don Marlowe Part II

by Filed Under: Art, Art & Design, In the Studio, Organize, Tips & Resources Leave a Comment

In today’s artist interview & sneak peek we return to In the Studio with Don Marlowe. Don was my boss and mentor in my career as a textile and carpet designer. The world is small and I discovered that he lived in the same town as a client I had traveled to work with, and so Don agreed to my request to come see his art and working studio in his home! I’m so grateful for the artists who invite us to visit their studios! We can each learn from these visits as we see how others have created systems and set up their creative spaces to support their creative cycles. Don was gracious to let me visit him totally spur of the moment and these photos are not styled so this is typical of what his studio space looks like on an average day.