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Creative Compulsive Disorder: Remembering Zina Nicole Lahr

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With goggles resting on her head and peacock feathers folded into hair, Zina Lahr viewed herself as a canvas. Self-diagnosed with “creative compulsive disorder”, Zina filmed a video to share her passion for mechanics and animatronics. She reveals some of her jaw-dropping artwork: a giant puppet spider she helped create for a movie, and a wired paper crane for stop-motion animation. Zina’s artwork reflects the power of her imagination brought to life. Her products were a tangible demonstration of the passion and creativity that flowed from her talent to create robotics. This video was an audition for a chance to compete on a reality show as a creature creator. Although she got a spot, Zina turned it down to return home and care for her grandmother, who was battling lung cancer. Several weeks after filming this video, Zina Lahr passed away in a hiking accident at the age of 23.
Be The Change
1
Click here to visit Zina’s website, and see examples of her work.
2
Explore the show Zina wanted to showcase her dream: Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge.
3
Take time to explore and develop your personal passion. Keep yourself motivated and your creativity in motion by setting small, obtainable goals. Join a local community group or an online forum to exchange ideas and support others with similar interests.
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Reflections (35)

Christine Von Lossberg
I am a artist too and this girl really has inspired me so much..she helped me become unstuck..her beautiful energy fills our hearts with beauty and magic of pure inspiration. She brought so much to the world in such a little bit of time..I am sure she is blowing them all away in her magical piece of Heaven. Love her!!!
warren
Wow! That was very inspirational! As an artist and engineer I see that the world needs more people like Zina to bring creativity and passion to design. She left us far too soon to allow the world to fully benefit from her love, passion and creativity. I will keep these thoughts with me for a long time.
laura
you will be missed al ways un til you re turn my friend. I love you ! Hug and Kiss, mwaw !
Susan
The unlimited creative nature of the human spirit is so inspiring! WOW!
Bob
That someone could have a daughter like Zina is a blessing. Too bad her life was so short. My issue is I feel very creative at times and then other times people or things can get me down and then I am totally lacking of creativity until the cycle starts all over again. But even when I am down I know there is creativity lurking somewhere within my brain. I wonder if all the weed I smoked in the 70's caused this cycling sometimes, but then I go back to when I was a child and I realize I felt the same. My father always called me Walter Mitty. Although that is very critical and demeaning, I kind of agree with him. Sometimes my creativity and ideas and desires and wishes take over my mind and some people (Psychiatrists in particular) call it mania when I am overly creative and depression when I am down. it's never real extreme one way or another but it can and has affected my life on many levels, especially work. What inspires me most about Zina is she knew who she was at 23 and maintained her momentum, never seeming to cycle. I wonder if she was always like she was in the video. I wish she was part of my life and I could have had the pleasure of her working on creative activities with me. Why do people like her have to die so young....what an immense loss for anyone with whom she came into contact.....a most encouraging young woman who instills in me the urge to let my creativity take over and not let ANYONE or THING bring me down. Oh, let me just expand my DSM classification diagnosis, I truly have Creative Cyclothymia Disorder.
Nancy
I, too, have felt the Make urge from just about anything, but when I was a kid, we didn't have a lot (or any, sometimes) of the technology available to young folks today. Even our library would probably have had, maybe, books on Watch Repair for dealing with tiny, intricate machinery. Young people now have so much access to learning how to do things like this, so much tech to make it possible! The trick is encouraging this kind of creativity in people of any age nowadays. :) Good for her for living her dreams!
Carly Alyssa Thorne
Beautiful, awesome, inspirational human being....
kiko
Tinkerbell in the flesh! The way that she lived, breathed, created art is truly inspirational. Thank you for sharing this video.
carl
So talented and so young, she will be missed
Juan Pablo Bettancourt
How can it be that you mail me to jpbs70gmail.com and afterwords when I ask for help yopu say that my mail is unknown for you?
So I don´t know how to get in your system.
Please help me but in a serious way
Thanks
Erin
What a BEAUTIFUL girl!!!! SO inspiring, in so many ways. And now that she's in spirit, she can be close to all of us... all the time...
Cindy
Her time here was far too brief, and I will never be able to understand it. A creative force of nature from whom we all need to learn.
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