Art in the Service of Living

I Carry Your Heart Within My Heart (front)

upcycled menus, ink, gold paint pen, acrylic gel medium, embroidery floss

92/100 in 100 days creative challenge

2"x2"

I cut some old menus into two inch squares and then I started drawing on them. I started them while at work, and I finished them at home. Writing the text for the back....

I Carry Your Heart Within My Heart (back)

And coloring them and gluing the two pieces together, punching the hole, threading the floss, all at home.

I was inspired, not only by my small amount of nothing to do time, but also, well, because I want to work on being happy, being positive, being fulfilled.

I don't always want to feel like I have to work harder to be successful, or get something else to be happy, or fix that to be whole.

Want to live in this moment and honor this life. The one that I have right now, not the one that I'd like to have someday but don't so have to kill myself trying to get.

In fact, I think it might be time to change the focus of my blog slightly.

I really started getting involved in my blog, back when my kids were both under three and I needed something to help me rediscover my creativity. I wanted to be creative again, so I used this blog as a tool to keep up with myself, to document my journey, to push myself.

The truth is, I've achieved that goal. I am now just as creative as I was before I had kids, although it's changed some. I've even accomplished some things that I was afraid of or never managed to do before I had kids, like opening up a shop and selling art to people who didn't know me.

So what should be the new purpose of my blog, if it's no longer about rediscovering my creativity?

Here Comes The Sun (front)

upcycled menus, pen, gold paint pen, acrylic gel medium, embroidery floss

2"x2"

93/100 in 100 days creative challenge

I think that it should move forward to being about the purpose of art in my life. Or the main purpose, for me. It's not really about making pretty paintings. It's not really about commerce. It's not really about gaining facility or even exploring new artistic media.

For me art is, and has been for a long time, about the personal journey. Art is about growing as a person, exploring my self, and finding bliss.

Sometimes that means, like here, that I make myself little pieces to remind myself of things I need to remember. Sometimes it might be more about the process of creating that helps me reach this bliss. Sometimes it might be about taking stock of the beautiful things in my life. Sometimes I might use art to interpret the lovely things. I really can't get away from art and creativity, it is an indelible part of who I am, but right now, I want to put living at the forefront. I want my art to serve my life, not the other way around.

Here Comes The Sun, (back)

Is this really a transition? I mean the title Warriorgirl has never actually been about war, but about being a spiritual warrior.

It clarifies something for me though. Maybe part of being a warrior for me is that I am daring myself to enter the larger world of the creative marketplace, showing my work and becoming economically viable through what I have to share, but for the most part, right now, it's about finding bliss where I am.

So perhaps from now on, you will see a subtle shift away from just creating new stuff everyday towards creating stuff with the specific goal of being at home in myself. Just the way I am.

I'd love it if you guys would come along, share your own moments of bliss, your own creative journeys or journeys of the self. In the end, I think it's all the same journey, more or less.