Welcome to Driftwood Studio

An Age Old Question

What is art? Why do we love it so much? What is it about the artistic act that inspires us to such degrees of emotion, and action?

No idea.

But one thing we do know at Driftwood is that creativity and art are central to how we experience life, who we share those experiences with and how we choose to thrive and pursue our dreams. Creativity is an impossible to define quality – is it the process, is it the art, is it something deeper, spiritual perhaps?

Creativity is unique for all of us, we all experience creativity in different ways, but one thing is certain: we are all creative.

Why is this important?

When I hear people say those terrible words “I wish I was creative,” my immediate response is to find out more about them. I want to know what makes them tick, what floats their boat, lights their candle and makes them sing. Because therein will lie their creativity. Creativity is not about painting a pretty picture or writing a heartwarming song, these are creatively orientated ‘crafts’ that result in pieces of art.

The act of creativity itself simply means ‘makings something from something else.’ Some people are creative with their words and can make sense of complexity, some people can identify what will make the best use of a space and create a beautiful front room, and some people can tell jokes and be funny without any apparent effort at all. We all have our skills and talents, and somewhere in there will be an element of creativity.

We all have it and it starts with play.

Sacred geometry art by David Nixon.

A Vision in Four Parts

Being

Play exists as a thing for learning as soon as we come into this world. Play is something we do instinctively and without prompt. It is intuitive and a completely natural part of our development as human beings. A baby clenching its fist and watching the fingers move of its own volition is playing. The same baby throwing a piece of food off the table and expressing delight when the fatigued but loving parent picks it up again is playing.

Doing

Through play, we develop functional abilities and skills. It is through acts of self directed play that we develop perceptual skills, muscular strength and cognitive abilities. These factors come together and enable more complex forms of play. We become more adept at manipulating our environments and forming relationships with those we share with.

Becoming

As we connect these facilities, functions and activities together in response to our environment and in our unique cultural contexts, identity begins to form. Perhaps the very first aspect of our identity is our sense of existence. Through being and doing, we can effect changes around us. Interactions and relationships help develop our cognitive and emotional capacities. By learning, developing and creating through play we start to understand who we are and what it means to be us.

Belonging

By establishing an identity we start to recognise that other people have identities too. Some of them are similar and some of them are different. Two arms, two legs and a body and a face is perhaps the first similarity we recognise. We also recognise differences and similarities in sex, gender, age, colour, strength, size and so on. Some people drive cars whilst some people walk. So we begin to identify where we belong, and also where we would like to belong in the future.

David Nixon

What I Do

I help individuals, groups and organisations create FLOW.I use creative process for training, coaching and speaking events. I apply creative process to complex problems to make sense of difficult situations. This work is supported by training in Occupational Therapy and experience in knowledge and Information Management.

An Interesting Thing

In 2014 I presented at the World Federation of Occupational Therapists International Congress in Yokohama, Japan. I was there to present my work on the “Kawa Poetics.” As a global developer for the Kawa Model I have continued my work on the use of this “culturally responsive model” from occupational therapy to help people achieve their goals in bespoke and meaningful ways. I am currently planning a book about the “poetic language of rivers.”

I have also been a fire-breather, puppeteer and performance poet.

My Aim

I am currently working with a group of artists I call the Directors practitioners to establish a physical base for Driftwood Studio. This will support the development of creative projects with, personal, public and professional aims.

At Driftwood we believe everyone is an artist and deserves the opportunity to explore their own creative purpose for health, happiness and prosperity.

Community

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About Driftwood Studio

Driftwood Studio has its roots in the Kawa Model, for which David Nixon was a key developer from 2007 to 2014. In this remarkable tool from the profession of Occupational Therapy, the metaphor of a river is used to describe the Life Flow.

In the language of the river, Driftwood represents the attributes that we carry with us on life’s journey.

It was in 2019 that David first had the idea for a place called Dritwood whilst living through COVID in a static caravan on a farm in East Lancashire, UK.