The year started triumphantly, with the first in-person event since before the pandemic. It was also the debut of our new host, Irina Konova, who kicked off 2022 in enthusiastic style. We saw the return of the much-missed coffee period, when friendly and animated guests chatted in anticipation of the main event. The mood was celebratory.

The global theme this month was ‘Free’. Here in Lisbon, Liz Melchor shared her inspiring journey of learning to be playful in her work. Liz is an artist as well as founder of Creative Monkey, the venue in which the event took place. It’s intended as “a playful place to explore creativity”, and as such was the perfect location for this talk.

Liz started by recounting an experience which reignited her urge to play and be free with art. She was drinking hot chocolate in Austria when, on a whim, she decided to draw a monkey using the melted chocolate. It was a freeing experiment, and while it only lasted around 15 minutes, it was in fact the result of 10 years working at reconceiving notions of talent and creativity. She began painting monkeys regularly throughout the pandemic, experimenting with materials and embracing the freedom of play.

A long time ago, Liz gave up on creating art when preconceived notions led her to believe she wasn’t talented enough. Her new perspective developed when, living in San Francisco, she started a course in which the students were told not to look at the paper (for several months!) Various activities encouraged the artists to detach from their egos and aim instead for what the teacher referred to as “the honest mark.” Liz found it hard, especially at first, but it ultimately kick-started her creativity.

During this time, Liz discovered the importance of embracing failure, which helped her to learn and grow in various areas of life. In terms of her art, it had the powerful result of giving her access to her talents. It was refreshing to hear someone speak openly about this process, and to show us images of her work that she was both happy and unhappy with. She’s now much more satisfied with the images she creates than when she began the process all those years ago.

At the end of this incredibly motivating talk, Liz summarised that every single person is creative, and there’s a way to work at finding your own creative voice. We were left with her galvanising words: “I encourage everyone out there to go out and play!”

Text by Alexis Somerville

Photos by Eglė Duleckytė and Nia Carvalho