Toni Davenport: Born Into Creativity

By Toni Davenport

I've always been a creative type. My parents grew up being creative out of necessity. They both grew up as farmers and if they wanted something, they'd often have to create it or fix a broken version of it.  As they raised a family, their creativity continued. My mother sewed a lot of our clothes growing up and my dad always had scraps of wood, metal, and miscellaneous supplies around. Any time I had a school project he'd say, "Let's go out to the shed and see what we've got. I bet we can figure something out." Consequently, I was never afraid to take a look at what supplies I had available and simply try to see what I could come up with, either to solve a problem or to create something that brought a little beauty and joy to myself or someone else. I think being raised by people who instinctively create has helped me be open to exploring creative outlets in all areas of my life. 


Me prepping for a pasta making class at the New Braunfels Public Library.


What are those outlets you ask?  Well, I grew up playing multiple instruments, and I love creating music.  I never took up the art of sewing like my mother, but I have taken to knitting and crochet work.



I also enjoy hand dying fabrics and other general craft projects for home decor.



I teach a lot of those sorts of classes at the New Braunfels Public Library as their Adult Services Librarian. I haven't had much time to explore painting, but the occasions that I do, I really enjoy it.

I also cook and bake. I cook for our family most nights of the week, but I also bake desserts for friends and family.




So, all of that is to say that I like creating a variety of things and particularly enjoy exploring color in my creative outlets. With baking, it's not just the flavors, although those are the most important part of what I make. But, I like to make the cakes beautiful too, sometimes with color, sometimes with monotone.



With knitting and crochet, it's how the colors and stitches create the look I want that is important to me.



With fabric dying, it's creating a color combination that is pleasing to me and letting go of the precision while the colors bleed into one another in ways that I didn't quite predict. When I play instruments, I hear not only the musical notes, but I hear the sounds in colors. This synesthesia helps me experience the world in very different ways that I only recently realized was not how many others experience the world.

Since one of the things I love about my creative outlets is color, the art of coloring is also something I enjoy.


The first "adult" coloring material someone gave me was a calendar with very detailed drawings. The images stressed me out, so I gifted the calendar to someone who loved it. It took me a while to realize that I, too, enjoy coloring if the image is not too detailed. While I enjoy coloring when I'm doing it, I have to be very conscious about setting aside the time to do it. Coloring is relaxing, and it is fun to explore different mediums and color combinations. The result is typically something that I like to look at and think is lovely. My struggle with coloring is that I'm not creating something that I can use like a hand dyed scarf, or something that others could use like the crochet lovies I make for babies. It is for these reasons that I find setting the time aside to explore coloring challenging even though I get a great deal of enjoyment from it. When Michelle did her blog post and class at our library about what to do with your coloring pages that helped me a lot.

I have a lot of crochet orders right now during the holiday season as I write this bio, so coloring has taken a back seat. But, during meetings at work or during programs with my memory care seniors at the library, I've taken time to color during them and with them, and I really enjoy it. So, I think that for myself coloring with other people is more enjoyable than it is alone; it gives me a project to work on while talking with others. To me, coloring during conversations seems to facilitate talking about more serious things because you have something to work on. I had a one-on-one meeting recently where the two of us worked on a puzzle. This meeting was one of the easiest I've ever had because I was able to do something active with my hands and did not have to have eye contact for the whole conversation. Coloring with people works like this for me also: I'm creating something and I'm able to communicate easier with another person because I'm not solely visually focused on that other person every second of the conversation. At the same time, coloring is not a distraction that takes up any brain bandwidth needed for the conversation to be productive. It's a perfect communication and creativity tool, in my opinion.

So there you have it. I create. I create a lot. I love exploring colors, seeing how shades interact with each other, and reflecting on how my eyes see the world. I find it fascinating how other people see the world as well, and I think it is especially interesting to see how their art reflects their world and color view.

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