Just Chattin’ with Robin Hamman, Creator of 100 Cups of Compassion

Watch Robin Hamman be interviewed by Molly Ovenden.

Visit Robin Hamman’s blog https://www.100cupsofcompassion.com/ where her book, 100 Cups of Compassion is available for purchase.

In this video, Robin shares experience from her faith and fine art backgrounds and wisdom of how together these have brought hope and healing to her life and the lives of others.

Robin loves journaling because of how it’s brought her comfort. Her “little Art Book, Journal, Devotional with a big heart” started as a doodle and transformed into a collection of paintings, Bible verses, and encouraging quotes.

Join Robin on an inspirational journey around the world through countless cups of tea and coffee with heartwarming, hope-filled conversation. The world feels smaller when we share our lives with each other.

• Cracked Cups
  Robin began the practice of painting cups to get looser in her style and help her with commissioned artwork. A coffee and tea lover, Robin found herself painting universal symbols of comfort. She felt inspired by God to paint cups more and more and then share her process and her art with people in need of encouragement.
  
  When she went through a painful season of divorce, cancer, and hurricanes, she found she couldn’t paint. When she got back to art, the cups she painted had cracks. She began adding embellishments to the cracks in her paintings to symbolize how she’d come out of brokenness. Later she discovered the Japanese art of restoring pottery with gold, kintsugi.
  
• Cups of Compassion
  After awhile she had collected quite a few cup paintings and wondered what to do with them. So, she started a blog, began photographing her process, her paintings, and giving them away. Upon discovering her blog, strangers began contacting her to paint cups for their situation or loved ones who needed a boost.
  
  As she heard from all these different people around the world, her heart continued to soften with compassion.
  
• Cross Creativity
  “Go do something in a different art form,” Robin says. While she’d taken a break from painting and drawing, she began journaling and pursuing photography more. She found that any form of creativity can help a person get unstuck and bring new life into their primary discipline. Exploring a new creative hobby can be really freeing.
  
  Allowing time for reflection and contemplation can bring perspective. Taking a break from staring at your art can also give you the necessary distance to discover whether your painting is actually finished.
  
  Robin says, “Everybody is creative. You have to nurture it…Creativity is problem solving and thinking outside of the box.”
  
• Final advice on creativity…
  1) Just do it. “Nothing is permanent,” Robin says. She says that the best paintings are those which are painted on top of other paintings because the mistakes will make them so rich.
  
  2) Stick with it. Sometimes people find starting easier than persevering through the messy middle of their creativity. Robin encourages her students and the listeners to push through the “ugly phase” of creativity to get through to the other side.

Links Robin mentions:
Robin’s Pet Portraits
Robin’s Art & Courses
Stories of the Hymns
Life is Messy by Matthew Kelly
University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine
Robin’s Publisher

Molly Ovenden is a creative writing coach, author, teacher, and visual artist. Visit here to find out more.

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