Hello there. I’m Marta and

I offer an inspiring place for your

creative ideas.

wanting to make it perfect or not at all

dumping projects before even starting

having too many ideas in your head

feeling like you have to learn everything

uncertainty if the end result will be good enough

frustration when you can’t see progress

Been there, done that.

I was terrified of making mistakes when I was playing the piano.

I spent years refining my research because it had to 

be perfect (spoiler alert: it’s not perfect and never can be).

Along the way, I wrote and defended a PhD thesis

on the psychological process of creative thinking, and

found out the best ways

to unlock my creative potential.

Now I want to support others on their creative quests.

So how to unlock your creative process?

it all starts with

nature

Natural world triggers curiosity and rewires our attention, so we can start achieving experiencing.

Multiple studies have shown that nature can have restorative effects on our mental functioning (e.g., Ansah et al., 2023; Kaplan, 1995; Berto, 2005; Berman et al., 2008). Researchers found benefits of a wide array of natural experiences, from spending time in nature (White et al., 2019), through taking a walk in green environments (Berman et al., 2008), to performing tasks in 3D environments (Fleury et al., 2021) or even listening to the sounds of nature (Newbold et al., 2017). These benefits include improved concentration and focus (Taylor et al., 2001; Berto, 2005), faster recovery from stress (JIan et al., 2016; PArsons et al., 1998; Hartig et al, 2003) and increased creativity (Atchley et al., 2012; Peters, 2015; Fleury et al., 2021; Ansah et al., 2023).

Nature opens
magical portals to creative imagination.

I capture these portals in my photography. I am constantly on the search for abstract shapes, imaginative backgrounds, and surreal scenes that feel like encountering creatures from fantasy worlds. My pictures are rarely literal. Every time you look, you might see something different.

Grounding in nature opens a playground for creative process.

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  • In every creative process, you need information to work with. Sometimes it seems that ideas come out of the blue, but in fact, they always feed on what you've seen, read, done, and experienced before. You can also think of it as getting inspired or collecting ingredients for a magical potion. The point is to search for as many diverse pieces of information as possible, and collect them all in one place.

  • When gathering information, you might already begin to generate ideas, without even noticing. The more exciting and inspiring information you find, the more creative ideas you can generate. Or in other words, the more fragrant, colorful, and exotic ingredients for your potion you find, the more powerful potion you can brew. Creativity feeds on positive emotions and excitement, so put on some happy music and write down as many diverse ideas as possible!

  • When you've gathered so much information and generated so many ideas that your head is swimming, it's time to make sense out of them. This is when the "aha!" moment can happen. The bad news is that we cannot completely control it, but the good news is that we can help it a little. Sleeping on it, walking in the forest, or taking a relaxing shower may help fit all the pieces of your puzzle together. I often make drawings to visually facilitate information gathering and brainstorming, because it makes it so much easier to spot connections.

  • When we start a new quest, it's tempting to follow how things are usually being done. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're aware that in reality, YOU DON'T HAVE TO follow the rules. What would happen if I mentioned stroking a pussy in a very professional and scientific publication called a PhD dissertation? Would someone arrest me? Would anyone die? Would I be rejected from the society and banished to live on a deserted island forever? No. So I did. And I encourage you to get out of the box too.

Past creative work

  • Supporting groups and creators

    I helped creators, artists, and groups define their strengths and discover their values, mind-mapped their areas of interest, brainstormed projects and products, defined first steps, encouraged risk-taking and creative self-expression, facilitated reflection and planning.

  • Visual summaries

    I created visual summaries of conference talks and events, translated complex scientifc reports into intuitive hand-drawn infographics, designed custom-made icons for an organization, prepared visual job applications.

  • Creative thinking workshops

    I ran custom-made interactive creative workshops and exercises for individuals and groups, which included developing associative thinking, analogical thinking, thinking out of the box, creating metaphors, building group climate, creative motivation, and many more.

  • Teaching creativity

    I educate about the psychological process of creative thinking as an academic teacher at University of Groningen, at conferences, in podcasts, and in my blog articles.

  • Academic research

    I published several peer-reviewed scientific articles and wrote a PhD book The Creative State of Mind: Penetrating Creativity in the Here and Now. My research showed that coming up with creative ideas can broaden the perspective quite literally, but at the same time, it can feel intimidating to some individuals.

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Kind words

  • Prof. Dr. Onne Janssen (University of Groningen, the Netherlands):

    Marta has made a valuable contribution to the Creative Problem Solving course. Through the exercises she introduced, students were able to gain deep and rich experiences in cognitive, motivational and social mechanisms underlying the creative process, such as associative thinking, divergent thinking, analogical thinking, assumption busting, assumption reversal, evaluation apprehension, and brainstorming. Due to the thorough preparation and well-organized implementation of the exercises, she was an excellent coach and enthusiastic teacher for the students.

  • Student feedback from Creative Problem Solving course at University of Groningen:

    • I like Marta’s exercises, they give time to relax.

    • I like how the exercises are interactive and make you listen to other ideas you would not have thought of.

    • I liked the exercises quite a lot, they provided interesting application of concepts.

    • The little games from Marta were also really fun.

Let’s work together.

Did you have an interesting idea while going through the website? Are you looking for a creative collaborator for your venture? Do you need a hand-drawn visual summary or a creative brain to think along? Fill in the form or send an email to marta@place forcreativity.com.

I’d love to hear from you!

Marta | Place for Creativity 💫

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