The creative process
10/20/20262 min read
Short version:
Trust your heart and follow the call of the creative spirit.
Listen to your children and honor the creative spirit that calls to them.
💜
Longer version:
When I was 16-17 years old, well before the age of computers and graphic design software, I used to draw and design little handmade notecards.
One of my most popular designs was a cute pig face which eventually was placed on the back of every card as my "logo", along with my fake company name P.I.G. inc. What did it stand for? "Porrata Is Greetings"
I know, I know. It's absolutely ridiculous. But in my defense, I got the idea from a local corporation, "American Greetings" (lol)-- so there was a method to my madness.
Many years later, when I was a young mom and in graduate school, that sweet creative spirit visited me once again. This time, I decided to involve the girls, evolve/mature the concept of P.I.G. inc and we created Caribela Designs.
The name Caribela was derived from "Caridad and Isabela"-- my daughters' middle names. Caribela Designs specialized in custom and special order notecards -- some hand drawn, some photographed, but all scanned and produced with Microsoft Publisher and my trusty printer.
The other thing we did was design and make custom jewelry and other trinkets for the home. And we made and gave away lots of pieces. And I taught my neighbor and friends how to make their own jewelry, too. And then a major life plot-twist knocked us off our life orbit, which meant Caribela Designs had to take a giant pause.
Put a pin on that, because I need to back up just a tiny bit. Prior to Caribela Designs and prior to my daughter's diagnosis for cystic fibrosis, the creative spirit had already made a visit to our home.
When Serena was five or so, she walked around the house for weeks lamenting that "she wanted her artwork in a museum." I finally had to tell her: "Sweetheart, that's not how museums work!"
That's when the Spirit of Implausible Things visited me (lol) and showed me a creative work-around. The next day I informed Serena that if she "really, really" wanted her art in a museum, we could create one online and invite other kids to send us their art to display too.
I purchased a crazy URL -- something like "sschmuart" [Serena Silvestro Children's Museum of Art] and off we went with print-making, jewelry-making, card-making and creating from our hearts, inviting others to join us .....and then, the diagnosis.
But you know what? Two years later Serena's artwork did end up in a museum (shown below) as one of the featured pieces in the Explorers Science Art exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Clearly, her creative spirit was a powerful force of nature-- so much so, that it still lives and breathes in and out of my own heart.
But that's not all. There's a deeper insight that looking back at all this has illuminated and it is this: the creative spirit lives and breathes through e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e ... and through e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
By Mayra Porrata ©2026 Solara Publishing, LLC
Print by Serena Silvestro, 2006, Explorers, Science Exhibit, Cleveland, Ohio
