Ep 88 The Woods We Carry — Patrick Williams on Art, Stillness, and the Power of Remembering

Hello and welcome back to Morning Cup of Brand Spark, where we explore the moments that reflect us back to ourselves. Today's guest is Patrick Williams. He's an artist, an educator, and a TEDx speaker who has spent over four decades exploring creativity as both a practice and a way of being. We're talking about what happens when we lose our creative woods and what it takes to find our way back. So let's get started.

All right, so before we head into the woods, can you tell everyone where you're joining from today?

Sure. I am joining from Omaha, Nebraska, which is actually my hometown that I hadn't lived here for a long time. 40 plus years, I think. Yes. Yeah. It's quite the shock coming back after Chicago, Boulder, Colorado, Seattle. Yeah. The journey's been a lot of places and, and my wife and I are finally back here for a while. We don't know how long.

Oh, really?

That you were.

Aw.

But that must feel good too, to be back.

It does, yeah. Yeah, it feels there's a there's a kind of terroir that we believe that we have just like wine has. I think people have this also that the minerals, the air, the landscape, that all these undescribable parts to the area that you grew up in resonates with you in very special ways.

It stays with you forever. I come from growing up in Maryland, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, to moving here to the flat Netherlands. But I will always have this pull to the mountains. I will always have the pull to the country. I think it will just forever be in my bones for that exact reason. So you're totally right. Completely agree with you. And do you have anything in your...

It does.

Hmm.

Absolutely.

this morning, because it's morning for you.

It is morning for me and thank you for having me. My coffee is on the other side of my studio. I forgot to get it. I have a glass of water, ⁓ so.

Patrick, I would love to jump into your mirror moment, if we could. So your TEDx talk begins with a phrase that actually sort of stopped me in my tracks. And it, it just really resonated with me and it was the loss of my woods.

Hmm.

Can you take us back to that moment? What was really happening for you when you realized that something had gone missing? What was that? What did that mean?

Yeah, what does that mean? It's such an intense part of my early childhood, or I guess mid-childhood, I was about 10. And before that, I spent a tremendous amount of time alone, but also with friends in the woods. And literally it was, as A.A. Milne has written about, the Hundred Acre Woods for Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. This was...

Mm-hmm.

literally a hundred acres of woods that was just behind my house. And it was everything. It was a playground. was a solitude that I could escape to that was out of the home, which was a bit of a chaotic mess in a way, both visually

and emotionally with my father was an alcoholic and so it was my refuge and nature was really my first teacher. It's where I learned to listen. It's where I learned to see, not only look around of course, but I really learned to see because it was a there's a different kind of solitude in

in the woods, just like you grew up with too. They're not high mountain, like Colorado forest woods. These are oak trees and elm trees and cottonwoods. And there's a stream that was back there that I played in a lot, climbed tremendous amount of trees. So it was a very powerful.

Same.

connection that I had both physically and emotionally and spiritually. Of course, you know, I didn't, I didn't kind of, I didn't really comprehend that then. I just knew it. Kids just know what that connection means to them. And then, of course, I didn't get a memo at 10 years old. I wasn't reading the newspapers or, you know, I didn't, if it was on television, I, you know, didn't notice it.

Not bad.

But the city county decided to put in an interstate, not a direct. So interstate 80 goes through Omaha and interstate 680 is the loop around the city. So yeah, like a ring. And the ring happened to go basically right behind my house. literally bulldozers came in and pushed the trees over.

ring.

and put them in giant piles. These piles were like maybe 80 feet in diameter and 30 feet high. you know, in a sense they were still, you know, trees take a long time to die, even when you uproot them. so literally they were living trees in these giant piles and they just poured hundreds of gallons of gasoline on them and lit them on fire.

I remember going out and standing at the end of, there was a little road, not really road. was a path. It was a two lane tractor path that went back through the woods into an area that my dad would farm for, he'd plant seed corn or feed corn.

And we stood at the end of this path and just looked at this devastation and the hills were still there, right? It was, it's not super hilly, but it definitely hilly. And the contour was still there, but the trees were all in piles and smoldering. And I remember my mom, my sister, and she had a little one then. He was only two.

Gone.

And we stood there and cried. And then the evolution of being that young, of course, that whole area became a new kind of playground that obviously wasn't, it couldn't replace the old one, but it was, it turned into our area to mess around in and play. But that scar was,

has always been there. have all these little tiny trees in our yard that I can't bear to cut down, but I save them and give them away. I uproot them, put them in a pot and give them to people. And our yard really isn't designed to have a little forest in it, I have that because I can't bear to take down little trees.

No, of course not.

And of course, as a child we learn, everything as a child is creative, right? When you were in the woods, you were playing with sticks. I remember doing the craziest things as a kid and thinking, my gosh, creativity was just a part of your life. Especially different now, where there's technology everywhere.

I didn't have that growing up in my age. I didn't have phones. I didn't have tech. didn't have gaming to be playing with. So I was in the woods and I was with my friends and I was at the creek as well. So I know what that feels like. I can imagine as a child of that age, you have to find a different way to play and be creative, right? That's what you did.

Totally. Yeah. And I didn't put the two together until I was asked to speak at TEDxCU. And I started to think about what am I going to talk about? I knew I wanted to talk about creativity. And I had always told people about me

as a 10 year old starting to draw really seriously, like looking at an apple and trying to recreate it three dimensionally, just on my own, not knowing any technique or anything, just figuring it out. And then when I began to think about the TEDx talk, I realized that those two events happened at the same time, that

I lost the woods and my creativity literally sparked into existence at another level. I was, I was always the kid in class who was drawing or would be asked by other kids to draw a Hot Wheels car or Snoopy or whatever, right? That I mentioned in the talk. So that was going on, but I never, I wasn't really in some ways taking it seriously. Most, you know, kids usually don't do that,

That's amazing.

I think the trauma and the shock was so big in my system and I was already living in a sort of neglectful, traumatic home situation that I think the, for some reason, it was a blessing that I picked up a pencil and just started diligently working and teaching myself.

Yeah, it saved you too.

in your talk, you describe creativity not as invention, but as remembrance. did you begin to remember about yourself in that space?

yeah, that's good question.

very deeply about it. And part of it is because it comes from, like I said earlier, my first teacher within the creative is nature. there's, I believe that we all have a remembrance when we're in nature or thinking of nature that connects us directly to

the creative. And that's basically my word for whenever any of us tune into that space of thinking, I want to be creative or I want to figure something out, then we enter this non-physical realm that I call the creative that is, we don't actually enter it. We're in it all the time, just like children.

where children are in it. That's all I know. They're creative in a millisecond,

Always,

we lose that. We start to judge ourselves. always felt that as well. You're allowed to be creative when you're a child and it's normal. You play, that's normal, you make believe. But as adults, ooh, you can't be creative or you're either an artist or you're not creative.

Good.

Mm-hmm.

that something changes later in life. And that's not right, actually.

It, yeah, it's

not right. I've been working on a treatise, so to speak, of, called the philosophy of creativity. And in it, I describe how creativity gets pushed into a closet in people's basement that they just don't open up anymore. So I call that creative colonization. Then there's creative collapse.

the creative void and creative metamorphosis. that's a whole, giant, series of podcasts. Yeah. And I talk about this in a lot of podcasts that I do but for here right now, people, they misplace their creativity. So they get so busy as eight year olds now.

Yeah, it is. That's huge.

that they literally don't have any time for being bored and doing something with sticks. Just think of all the things that you and I invented when we were children with a stick out in the woods. Yeah, it's crazy. It's all you have, you know? Yeah, so.

Crazy, right? Yeah. But you don't, but

now, now you put on a headset and you're in the woods. It's VR now. Now, it's a different environment. It's completely different. So I think your message that you bring about creativity is also so important that we, we start bringing this more into our lives and into our kids' lives actually. And making sure that we're raising people around us who understand that creativity isn't just a one-off thing. Every one of us has it.

Yeah, Yeah. Totally.

Super important.

and creativity is so more broad than just being able to paint a beautiful painting or to draw. I can't draw at all, but I'm an extremely creative person. That's my work.

Absolutely,

absolutely. And that's what's key and that's part of my passion is to assist people in understanding that there's levels creativity that we exist in. We have generalized creativity, we have specialized creativity, and in the middle we have conventional creativity.

So generalized creativity is things like me putting on this blue shirt for this interview was just a general creative moment. It's like, okay, what am I gonna wear? I wanna wear a nicer shirt. So I thought, blue would be good. And then there's conventional creativity, which is a creativity that is a little bit more focused. That when we're...

often when whatever our work situation is, we're doing conventional creativity. Then there's this space of where conventional starts to become specialized. And specialized is often the arts, but it's also in business. It's also in what you're doing. You're specialized in your focus of what you're doing. So...

The misconception that I run into, as you've described and noted, is that people, if they're not a painter, if they're not a musician, if they're not a dancer, if they're not an architect, they're not creative. And that's completely ridiculous. And another convention that is difficult to deal with is right after somebody might say, I do want to draw, they'll give up and say, I'll...

I can't draw like Michelangelo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's intense. It's intense. But with the right teacher, when you start to do something in the specialized level, which is my domain, you begin to realize that, I have a drawing that I'm working on, or I'm having a sketch.

I can't. I can't. It's not good enough. That self-judgment is the worst.

I have tons and tons of sketches of the piece behind me, little thumbnails, and they look nothing like what is there, but we have to go through these processes as, yes, and get used to letting them go. So when people are confronted with any kind of creativity, they often limit themselves because it's not perfect the first time. And you know what?

the iterations.

Nobody ever is that.

You're totally right. And that is that idea that the mastery of expertise gets in the way of everything. It gets in the way of your creative self for the creative and the quote unquote non-creative who is actually a creative as well. That requirement that I have to be so, so good at what I'm doing like right from the bat. That's not the case. You step on a golf course and the first thing you do is get a hole in one come on that doesn't happen, right? You still learn.

Hmm. yeah. Yeah.

Mmm.

No, doesn't have it.

I do of course believe people are gifted. Yes, they're 100%. I could never paint like you. I couldn't. Even if you taught me, I couldn't do it. It's just not my thing, right? But there are the rest of us. And we can learn.

absolutely. And it's all about scale to a degree of being, haven't found the source where I read this the first time, but supposedly, and whether it's true or not, it's just a great story and it sounds accurate. So when in 1512, when the Sistine Chapel was open and finished,

All kinds of people came to look and Michelangelo was standing outside and supposedly Raphael came up to him and said, how could you have done this to us?

So one of the greatest painters ever says to one of the other greatest painters ever, what, why, why did you do this? This is so incredibly beyond special and brilliant and genius. What are we gonna do now? How do I, right, right. How do I make another painting after that? So, but we all have.

No, no, yeah, we can never compare.

And that's the key, that's the beauty of being human is that, is that, the Sistine Chapel ceiling is exquisitely beautiful. Awesome Michelangelo. Great, I'm glad you did that. I'm gonna make this painting or I'm gonna make that painting or I'm gonna make this building or this sculpture or whatever it might be. So it's allowing ourselves to find our mirror moments.

Love it.

bringing it into the theme of looking at ourselves. That's what it takes. creative endeavor is a mirror of ourself that we must look at, even if it's challenging and difficult. But if we're courageous and brave enough to look and curious enough to look, which is all attributes of creativity, then we're going to see something special. And when you see that,

Thank you, awesome.

That is inside the creative. And when you see that, go for it.

Couldn't agree more. And if I can ask you two last things. One is how do you stay close to the woods now, now that the woods are gone and you've been through the trials and tribulations, the ups and the downs with your own creativity since then, how do you stay close to it now?

Hmm.

⁓ no.

Mm.

Yeah, well, like I said, I have little baby trees out in the yard. Sunday, we went to, my wife is from Iowa, right across the river, and we went to one of our favorite walks, it is a little like being in the woods, but not very woodsy. I thought,

your baby trees.

a number of times to go back to the area that was my woods, the interstate cut between it. So there's a little bit of it left on the northern part of the interstate. but I haven't, I have to find out and ask permission of the people who lived there to kind of walk back. Back in the day, like when I was 10, know, trespassing wasn't a word in my vocabulary.

⁓ And do you have any advice for anyone who might feel a little disconnected from their creativity? Where do they begin?

Yeah.

I would say we only feel like we're disconnected from our creativity. And I would suggest if you don't journal, begin journaling and journal every day with a pen and a paper. No, no digital journaling. That doesn't count. there's something about the physical action of...

pen to paper when we're connecting to that inner space of emotion and thought that is extra meaningful when we write it down. again, writing down is part of remembrance, right? And also drawing is part of remembrance. Art in itself is a kind of remembering for us.

That's why it's so, that's why nature and art are so powerful is because we have all these memories that come to us about our lives and about other people's lives and about other people's connection to, I love this connection to the woods that you have. That's totally awesome. You know, it just, it connects us in a special, that special human way.

And it's funny, you just gave me my own mirror moment, actually. The pen, the writing. ⁓ I have a very, very tactile thing with pens and writing, which is why I can only write with a fountain pen. And I have dozens and dozens, maybe even a hundred at this point, notebooks around the house. And everything I do is here, though I work in the digital. But I will never stop writing everything by hand.

Mmm.

that's awesome.

the feel of an actual fountain pen. There's something beautiful to me about this. So there you go. You just gave me a mirror moment too on the mirror moments. So that's amazing. What a Well, I want to thank you so, so much for joining me. Super inspiring. And I want everyone to go watch your TEDx talk. But before we head out and I'm almost finished with my cup, where can people find you

Absolutely.

Perfect. That's awesome.

Excellent. Thank you, Gina. I have a bunch of hats. This is one of them. One, I'm a painter. So I have a couple websites that are art related. One is PatrickWilliams.com and the other is CelebrationFlowerPaintings.com. And then I have a consulting business.

that I work with people to assist them in reconnecting with their creativity. And the name of the business is Satori Innovation, but the website is called Patrick Williams Stay Creative. So all of those are areas you can find me. You can also, I have a new sub stack called How to Make a Painting, which is...

I love it.

about the painting that is behind me that nobody can see except you right now. So I'm having a lot of fun with the sub stack. They're short. I'm working on number 15 today. So, you know, there may be a two, three minute read if that. But they give a little insight into what my process is like.

Yes,

Well.

Awesome. And one

quick question, do you ship across the world or is it just in the US? And do you also work virtually for consulting?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I do work

virtually, yes, and I ship, I've, you know, I've shipped to Jupiter and Io and Titan and Venus so far, just in the last year. So yes, but I do ship, I ship all of over.

He's awesome.

Super. Well, thank you so, so much for joining me.

been a delight, Gina. Thank you so much for having me.

Awesome, thank

Well, that was Morning Cup of Brand Spark with Patrick Williams. A reminder that creativity isn't something we master. It's something that we remember. Maybe your own woods are calling. That quiet, unhurried space where you feel most alive and awake to what's real. If this conversation helped you to exhale, please share it with someone who's been running far too long from their own stillness.

Until next time, keep your coffee warm and your curiosity close.