Soup's On: A Branford-based Web site encourages creativity and connecting
Sunday, July 20, 2008
By Donna Doherty, New Haven Register

BRANFORD — Any good soup is a melange of fine ingredients, whose tastes complement each other and bring out the best in each other.

Creativesoup.org, an online collaborative gathering place for area writers, artists, photographers and other creative types, lives up to the good soup requirements, offering what it calls "a concoction of ideas, art and musings" to its visitors and a unique place for its contributors to showcase their talents.

Founded in 2006 by Branford graphic designer Jen Payne, who serves as editor, the impetus came from networking artists who were always talking about doing work that just didn't get the exposure they felt it warranted.

But, first, that name.

"I was invited to dinner with my next-door neighbor who's a calligrapher," says Payne. "She said it was a meeting of creative minds, and that there would be homemade soup," said Payne, and the name stuck in her head as she set out to develop a place for creativity to be appreciated.

"It's just a place for people to put up their work, be inspired by others and inspire them to create. It's people that I know and others get referred," she said of the site, which is mainly shoreline contributors, but has expanded to include artists and writers from other areas of the country.

The site, whose content changes quarterly, has the feel of a literary publication. The submissions are unexpectedly high quality, given the democratic and nonjudgmental policy of acceptance, which is to say, everyone gets a voice. No rejection slips here.

"There is no editing," says Payne, "because it's not about that. It's really a forum for people to do their work and have a place for their work to go. I think it's positive reinforcement for them ... It's fun and exciting to have it up online and have an audience for it."

Aside from its regular contributors, the site has a fan base, too — 150 subscribers who get the quarterly newsletter and installation announcement, one of many things stewing in the soup pot.

There's also a community collaborative, an annual Creative Soup alphabet project and recently, almost like friendships made in chat rooms that evolve into face-to-face meetings, the contributors had a "real," not virtual, get-together.

Last spring it held its first community collaborative, which Payne says, epitomized what they're all about.

It was open to anyone who's ever visited the site. Collaborators signed up for the assignment, received a packet of instructions and were off on a creative tear.

"I had one e-mail from a friend of mine in North Carolina who was having a really bad day with her 4-year-old. As she sat down to do her assignment, her son got really curious and he sat down with her and did one, too. She said it just calmed the whole day down," Payne says, noting that it was totally in keeping with the spirit of the site: using the gift of creativity to connect with others.

The second Alphabet Project will be held in the fall: "There's a theme and everyone picks a letter and they have to do a piece of art or piece of writing for that letter based on the theme," says Payne."

The first installation theme was "Creativity and Imagining the Possibilities." Since then, they've explored "Magic," "Sacred Places, Special Places," and the summer installation, which will be up through September, is about communication — "Talk to Me," and features many of what would be known as local celebrities, artists Maggie Dean and Martha Link Walsh, poet Mary O'Connor of Old Lyme, New Haven artist Suzan Shutan, who joined this spring.

"We all sort of know each other in one way or another," says Payne. "When I say kindred spirits, it's people who have found a way to each other just by their work and their connections. Some of us are neighbors, some are from business, some are social.

"Being part of that community sort of nurtures that connection. We're really a group of like-minded people who've come together to do this."

Payne is a well-known nurturer around town, someone who gives freely of her talent to various town projects.

She shrugs off the observation, saying, "I just happen to be good at what I do. There are organizations in town that have other things to worry about, like protecting open space, feeding people, so why not lend my time and talents so they can focus on what they need to be focusing on?"

When asked how the site is financed, Payne laughs. "People are asked to make nominal donations, like $10. Our contributors last year contributed enough for the hosting and business card printing, and then we have contributions that are accepted on our contact us page, but we haven't gotten anything at this point," says Payne, who designs the quarterly look.

In addition to publishing its contributors' work, the site has links to other creative sites, its contributors' sites, book suggestion, blogs and news about contributors and arts happenings around the area, a virtual literary stew.

Donna Doherty may be reached at (203) 789-5672 or ddoherty@nhregister.com.

© 2008 nhregister.com, a Journal Register Property