A new book by Keith Vest
The ache to make isn't a hobby. It's a homing instinct.
The quiet pull of the Maker and your part in a world being made new. A workshop-floor conversation about what creating actually is, why we flinch at calling ourselves creative, and what becomes possible when we stop performing and start abiding.
The premise
You know the feeling. The idea you've been carrying for months. The thing you keep telling yourself you'll start. You are not uncreative. You are out of practice.
But what if the ache to make is coming from somewhere outside of you — and it is exactly what you were made to do? In The Call to Create, agency founder Keith Vest argues that the persistent inner pull to make things is not a hobby. It is a homing instinct, pointing back toward whose image you carry and whose work you join every time you build, write, paint, or code.
The author
Thirty years of making things for a living.
Keith is a designer and creative leader who co-founded The Variable, a creative agency in Winston-Salem. At fifty-five he took up the upright bass. He is still not very good at it, and he keeps going back to jam camps in the Carolina mountains anyway.
The book
the Call to Create
The Quiet Pull of the Maker and Your Part in a World Being Made New
You know the feeling. The idea you've been carrying for months. The thing you keep telling yourself you'll start. We blame it on restlessness, on time we can't find. We open the app instead.
But what if the ache to make is coming from somewhere outside of you — and it is exactly what you were made to do? Keith Vest argues that the persistent inner pull to make is not a hobby. It is a homing instinct, pointing back toward whose image you carry and whose work you join every time you build, write, paint, or code.
With the candor of a workshop floor, Vest explores what creating actually is, why we flinch at calling ourselves creative, and what becomes possible when we stop performing and start abiding. Drawing from studios and boardrooms — from Bonhoeffer's prison letters to a bluegrass jam camp in the Carolina mountains — he invites you into the work that has been waiting for you all along.
What's inside
01
The ache, named
Why the pull to make keeps returning even after you have talked yourself out of it, and where it comes from.
02
The flinch
What happens in a room when you ask who is creative — and why the word, not the work, is the problem.
03
Performing vs. abiding
The difference between making to be seen and making because you belong to the work.
04
The assignment
Your part in a world being made new: ordinary, specific, and already in your hands.
Speaking
Thirty years of making things, said out loud.
Keith speaks to teams and organizations about creative work as vocation rather than performance. Rooms tend to leave with fewer excuses and more permission. If your team or organization would like to work with Keith, the details are below — come, call, write.
45–60 minutes
The Call to Create
A talk for conferences, staff gatherings, and church or campus events. The ache to make, named out loud, and what it asks of an ordinary week.
Half day, up to 30 people
Stop Performing, Start Abiding
A working session for creative teams. We take apart the flinch, look at how review culture shapes the work, and rebuild a way of making that survives Monday.
Two half-day sessions
The Middle Part Nobody Sees
For leaders of creative organizations: protecting the space between the financial plan nobody sees and the work out in the world everybody judges.
Sandbox
Other created things.
More writing, song projects, maybe a short film. Newest entries sit at the top; everything older slides down and stays.
The sandbox is a running collection of Keith Vest's side work — essays and notes, song projects, the occasional short film, and other created things that don't fit neatly under the book or the speaking page. New entries appear at the top of the list on the live page, and everything older slides down and stays.
Browse the latest entries on the live sandbox page, where each piece opens to its full text, images, and links.
About
Keith Vest
Keith is a designer and creative leader who has spent more than thirty years making things for a living — and a good many of those years learning to stop managing his creative instincts and start letting them lead.
He co-founded The Variable, a creative agency in Winston-Salem, where his best work fits between the financial plan nobody sees and the work out in the world everybody judges.
At fifty-five he took up the upright bass. He is still not very good at it, and he keeps going back to jam camps in the Carolina mountains anyway. He and his wife and their three kids live in North Carolina.
- Based in
- Winston-Salem, NC
- Co-founder
- The Variable
- Currently learning
- Upright bass
In the studio, next to the bass he is still not very good at.
Contact
Come, call, write.
Get in touch with Keith about speaking, a workshop, leadership training, or The Call to Create. Send a note with the details and you'll hear back to confirm a time.
What you can write about: Speaking, a workshop, leadership training, about the book, or something else.
Booking a time: Keith is available Tuesday through Thursday, 10 am – 4 pm ET. Pick a preferred date and time, and a backup, and he'll confirm.
Use the contact form on the live page to send your note and choose a time, or reach out directly from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.