Australia-based Anna-Maria Sviatko contributed a while back about an article in issue 8 about the grown-up appeal of dollhouses. She recently emailed to share a photo of the mini pennant that I had included in her copy of the current issue of UPPERCASE (though the 4" x 9" size of the 'mini' pennant is gigantic compared to the usual small scale she uses for her miniatures.) The pennant made is way onto the wall of her work cubicle: "I have a completely non-creative day job so was pleased to add it to the Shrine of Inspirational Things." Anna-Maria mentioned a workplace creativity group that she is part of and I asked her more about it:

During the warmer months we visit the galleries that are within walking distance from the office (we’re lucky: there are three or four, including The National Gallery of Australia if we want a slightly longer walk than usual).

Now it’s colder we’ve taken over the office of one of our more senior members and take turns to chose a challenge or activity. I created an “Iron Artist” Challenge which involved envelopes of random papery and game piece goodness from my stash which we had to create pieces from. We also used the packs for a postcard/ATC (Artist Trading Card) challenge, we’ve created a collaborative painted piece, made a variety of works on the theme of swans (we’ve also close to Lake Burley Griffin) and played with badge and button makers and fabrics. This week one of our group is stepping up through printing, using foam sheets for the beginners and lino cutting for the adventurous.

Our Department used to include the arts portfolio and we have a number of empty display cases which we plan to use to mount an exhibition of work by our group and other interested colleagues.

It’s a great way to refresh and meet similarly artistic types who we might not meet during our day-to-day work lives. We’re currently contemplating renaming the group to “Art@TheDepartment” and suggesting it to friends in other departments as something they might like to start.

Thank you for sharing your idea for creativity at work, Anna-Maria. I lot of our readers are going to be inspired to start something similar!