Meet Ruby Shanahan

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ruby Shanahan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ruby, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

I don’t think creativity ever really burns out, more that it just sometimes takes a backseat to other things happening in life. Ridding yourself of the pressure to create something as much as you can is really helpful for me. Creating the way I did as a child, for the process and not for a product or to have something to show, maintains excitement for me, as does exploring every creative field I have interest in without trying to get anything out of it but enjoyment and inspiration. Just creating as often as possible, whatever it may be, even if you do nothing with what you make; making as much and as often as possible helps keep me from overthinking and trying to create inside a box.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am an English student, with a focus in creative writing, but I enjoy playing around with photography, videography, graphic design, collage, and writing in my free time. I like to float around in any creative field that interests me, but I work most with photography. I am far from professional in any of these areas, and I enjoy that aspect as of now, as it allows me total freedom in what I can create and flexibility in trying new things. The most special thing about photography for me has been working with people I love to create something we like on both sides of the camera.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The most important things I have learned from other artists, teachers, and friends in creative fields is to welcome constructive criticism, know that there is always more to learn and ways to improve, no work is ever really finished. Create as often as possible and as much as possible, and get out of your own way and to prevent creative paralysis. My Freshman year of college in a creative writing class, one of my classmates asked the professor, where do we start in telling our stories? She told us to start where it hurts, and that is something that has stuck with me. I don’t think the point is for all work to come from a place of hurt or sadness, but I think it can help us find the tender spots that are ready to be expressed and bring authenticity and catharsis. I would say to trust your instincts and create for yourself, even if you plan to share your work, feel that what you make is for you and not for an audience.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I have read numerous books that I could deem as life changing, but The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and Patti Smith’s books, specifically Just Kids, have influenced me greatly. I have yet to read a book that captures grief as poignantly as Didion did. Grief is such an isolating experience despite its universality, and The Year of Magic Thinking provided an insight into a grief outside my own. Grief for me stunted creativity, despite how cathartic art was and is. “If we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go.” Didion provided for me grief as an experience and not state of being. I love everything Patti Smith has written but the intimacy, exploration of identity, and what it means to be an artist in Just Kids resonated with me deeply, as did it with anyone who has read it. It introduced to me a new type of artist and a new way of living.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Rubyshanahannn