Joy Ride

        Take a joy ride with your muse. Say, “Yes!”  Accept the invitation.  Give over complete control and no back seat driving. Let her take you to a new landscape, new diner, or new town. See it through the eyes of a stray dog or your grandmother.  You can say yes without guilt. It’s necessary for you and your art. Don’t wait until your blocked to finally pick up your head and look around for inspiration.  Make time each day, each week to enjoy this friendship with her. She’ll nourish your creativity helping you over little speed bumps before they become impassable mountain roads.  Once you’ve opened yourself up to her influence, you’ll know she’s not keeping you from working. Instead, she’s showing you that play is part of the work.   

         A little play-date with our muse can keep our inner child from being bored to frustration.  It might be a short detour into your backyard to pick some flowers to draw, writing and chanting silly mantras or making a list of five things to be grateful for. Or whether it’s a time spent at a messing around with a new medium or sketching dogs at the local shelter.   She’ll lead you right back to your easel inspired and eager to create.

Fear

Embrace your fear. Give it a big hug. Tell it you love it for making you what you are. Then leave it stunned in your wake.

The Beast

Back to a year ago:

            The Morning Pages had been doing their job. They cleared my brain and kept it swept clean.  I had thrown open the curtains and let in the sunshine. Soon I realized that my “place” wasn’t as clean or safe as I had thought. There was a sour thing living in my subconscious and until then I wasn’t even aware she existed.  The morning pages were keeping my “space” clean, but deep in the corners, a destructive Beast was lurking.  She had been fed for years by crummy criticisms and damaging doubt.  Unbeknownst to me, she had gnawed at my productivity and pooped on my selfesteem.  Her protests were beginning to drown out the barely perceptible singing of my Muse. Something had to be done. I needed to stay this Beast.  No wonder my Muse had been in hiding.

            Long long ago I had lured the Beast in with crumbs of, “Can’t I just have clear skin?” or tidbits of, “Why do I have red hair?” Over the years she grew fat munching mantras of, “I’ll never be a good artist with handwriting as horrible as mine.”   Over time I fed her choice meals too. Like, “I suck,” or “I’ll never get published,” or one of her favorite banquets, “I wish my art looked like blankity blank.”

            But now she was being deprived. I had been getting rid of the junk thoughts with my Morning Pages and the Beast had begun to starve. She was coming out of the shadows and wanting to be fed. 

            Old habits die very hard. I needed to be proactive.  So I turned to the book, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.  http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/  In it he writes about artists who think of themselves as either professional or amateur. Clearly keeping a destructive beast that feeds off my negative thoughts was an amature move.  I had been feeding her daily and without limit.  Words, never spoken, but often repeated got me into this pickle so words were going to get me out. I began and ended each day’s writing with “I Am A Pro.”  Over and over I fought off any subconscious mutterings with this saying. These words became my sword and shield.   The Beast grew in her protestations, but I had many more positive words to write and recite and begin to believe. Daily I served up inspired indulgences to my Muse.  Over the year the whining and tantrums have quieted.

            The Beast isn’t yet gone, but I will keep her at bay and allow my Muse a safe place to play. And I am the happiest I've ever been in my art making. 

Holiday Gifts

        I am glad to have gotten a few holidays gifts made this year. Each December I realize that my big plans to make a lot of gifts needed to have been started some time in August. I'm happy with these three though. Hope those on the receiving end will be too. These are 5" x 7" and 4" x 6."  I've put a hook on the back and magnets in case they'd like to place on the fridge. Maybe next year I'll make myself a bunch and decorate my Christmas tree. For that,t I'll have to start now.

The Gathering

To GATHER, is defined as the following:

to form a group,

to harvest something

to collect data,

to find inner strength,

to surmise and

to lift something up

Folks gather.  We create a little circle of energy around babies, birthday cakes and hospital beds.  We disperse common thoughts of congratulation, prayers and advice.  While these moments may be short, each participant having projected these collective thoughts and pooled them in the center of this group, takes a bit of that mixed up energy away with them.  These tiny moments of communal thought can shift the course of my day, sometimes just adding a smile to my lips or keeping me from honking at an obnoxious driver.

When artists gather together, especially on a regular basis, we pool powerful creative energy.  When I first was given the opportunity to join a fine art and an illustration group that met once a month, I worried that I wouldn’t have much to contribute. I felt guilty that I wasn’t in my studio working.  I didn’t realize that the act of coming together as a group would make me more productive than spending that time in my studio alone.  Over the last year the impact these gathering have had on my work, and me, has been enormous.

We gather.  We give.  We get.  We gather again. We give more. We get more.

This is the spiraling effect of proximity and participation with my creative community. I put myself out and I get back, inspiration, applause, empathy or suggestions to ponder. I bring home much more than I came with.

The Beginning - Baby Steps

     One year ago. I felt that my artwork sucked. Really, it  just wasn’t very good. Others kindly would have argued with me, but I knew.  I didn’t feel like I was making anything for me. I’m not sure who I was creating art for, since I wasn’t selling much.  I was left with art that no one else was clamouring for and I found no delight in.  It’s no surprise I was in a funk.

                       

     I knew I needed to change it all.

     So, I took a baby step. I pulled out my old copy of The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. I had never completed all the excercises in the book, but I felt really strongly about the “daily pages.”  Writing everyday, about my work, about anything has always been helpful. So,  I started.  I didn’t expect miracles.  I just believed I could find my inspiration, my new direction, my true direction by quietly “puking on paper” every day.  I felt like a hoarder who grabbed a shovel and had finally decided to hire a dumpster or two. I would be brave.  I was going to junk the junk and find the treasures. It was going to take awhile. But I knew I couldn’t expect to come up with a fresh approach with a head full of old, outdated crumpled up, not worth saving, really foul smelling garbage hogging the space.

     As the days went by, I faithfully excavated through old ideas and bad rules I had set up for myself.   I tumbled towers of “I want my art to look like this or that.” I swept the floor of dust ball demons that had swirled in my head since childhood. I was really feeling good.

  Writing the morning pages were like slowly tossing out a pile of crap each day. Once I began the process I stopped adding to the clutter. Immediately ridding my brain  of “junk thoughts” and cleared some more.  Fresh air was circulating.

     Where before I had been traversing a narrow path, back and forth to my studio, now I could see the horizon. And no longer muffled by walls of refuse, I could hear the tiny tune of my muse singing to me. Every day it grew clearer.  I felt that I was hearing the song of my soul. The original song I was given, that began when I began and won’t end until I do.  She’s been singing all this time and I finally listened.  I began to hear the lyrics to my song and I wrote them down.