"One Complete Thought Would Be Nice"

"One Complete Thought Would Be Nice"
3/27/09
Mixed Media drawing on antique book page, 4 1/2"x 7"

I'm doing this while making hamburgers. Yes. Multi tasking. Distraction. I have so much to say, but so little time to pull my thoughts together.

In fact, while drawing this picture, my thought process-- one that was trying to do as the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women was directing and Plan to Achieve My Goals-- was interrupted by a two year old who was directing me to draw houses and "popsiple" trees. So this painting represents the difficulty of planning a cohesive thought, let alone goal, while trying to do a million and one things.

But, I'm kind of stubborn, and if I decide something is important and I can't get at it the way I want to, then I find another way, so while the kids took their nap (aka sat in their room playing and resisting nap) I went out into the garden and thought about where the last 12 weeks have led me.

Not coincidentally, I have finished my Portfolio Project-- because the project and the book were both twelve weeks long, and I started them at the beginning of January. We're 1/4 of the way through the year!

So I took stock of my 12 weeks. I've come far, opening my etsy shop , stocking it with 32 pieces so far, and selling my first artworks to people who don't already know me. I've learned new avenues in the internet and discovered new directions I would like to go with it all. I've expanded my repertoire of art techniques and even started painting a little larger, which I've been scared to do for, oh, say 15 years. I've grown my blog readership and met wonderful blog folk. I've started my second blog where I can play a bit more with lovely things. I've taken up the guitar, badly, but finally, after longing to learn to play since I was 7. I started drawing again and using some of my favorite techniques of yore that I have let slide. I even wrote a couple of poems. One thing that I did not achieve that I wanted to was to finish the second draft of my novel.

Once I realized that the shop needed to have a lot of time dedicated to it, the writing time just disappeared. I'm hoping to pick it back up, but I'm still learning the business end, so I'm not sure how I'm going to fit in the writing again.

So that brings me to the planning my goals. I've got big goals for the next five years, including living off of writing, art and teaching. I'm good with diversifying-- there are a lot of things I want to do.

But I'm going to focus on the next twelve weeks... I guess another Portfolio Project, if anyone else is continuing to do so. Here are my new goals. I'll have to give them a try and find out if they are too big for the time span, which is what I found out about the last go round:

Expand my etsy shop:
increase sales and visibility.
add new paintings, prints and drawings.
add new "other things" (I've got a few ideas currently kicking around in my brain.)

Finish my second draft of my novel
write as often as possible (figure out a schedule that works with the rest of my day/plans)
get another critical reader
write a synopsis
start researching agents

Start publishing articles
research publications
write queries

Apply to artist grants
research
write
send

Work on my nonfiction creativity work
do an outline
write some articles developing it specifically
teach an e-course or something with the work I've been doing.

and the biggest goal:

Live my life and be HAPPY instead of always stressed out
make time for me without work
journaling
practicing guitar
alone time
reading
make time for S
play with kids more.
make real live friends and keep in touch with physically distant ones.
do more with family.
eat well.


It's a lot. I don't know if it's all doable. But if I set out on this journey and don't give up, the one guarantee is that I will get farther than if I just float around without any goals at all.

How about you... what would you like to do with the next quarter of your year? Spring is a lovely time for new goals.

This Is A Flower, or Living In the State of Blooming

This Is A Flower
3/16/09
Pitt Artist Pen and roller ball pen on paper, 7"x10"

Let's talk about abundance. The 10th Secret of the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women is about Living in Abundance with Positive Priorities.

Talk about something that creates happiness, this is up there with being in the moment.

Both are things that exist within the mind. As does happiness, don't you know?

What? Abundance is within the mind?

It sure as heck is not in the wallet. You can have millions of dollars flowing in and still feel like you are lacking. You can be without a job or steady income, living in someone else's spare room and feel rich.

I think it's about accepting what you already have, accepting who you already are, and moving out from there. That doesn't mean you can't go out and get more money and more stuff, but as long as you are trying to plug that hole of lack with things, it's just not going to work. The hole is not made of things, so it cannot be filled with things.

I'm not lucky because I have the things I have. This was not luck... or rather, it was my luck, neither good nor bad. I've worked hard to make it feel good. It seems so silly. What's not good about living in Florida with grapefruit and key lime and carambola trees surrounding your house? Oh, well, you see, that part is good, but I've never wanted to live in Florida. I cam here for family, and to help us get our feet back on the ground. I could easily see this period of life as a failure, but instead, I chose to see the abundance. The weather, the flowers, the family, the garden, the security, the time to follow my art into a place and time where it might someday allow more financial security.

THIS is abundance. Looking for flowers instead of political sewage. Looking for margaritas instead of friends who are all thousands of miles away. And it's okay. It's abundant. And it is building a future that I know will be full of even more abundance...

Because I am not waiting for luck, or for a paycheck to make my life abundant. I am creating it right here. Right now. Where I am.

I invite you to live in the state of Blooming Flowers, where ever you are, whether you live in "Florida" or not.

Flying Girl Takes Off, or Every Road Block is a Stepping Stone

Flying Girl Takes Off, or Every Road Block is a Stepping Stone
3/7/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on paper, 5"x8"

This is a departure for Flying Girl. It's far more painterly and far less cartoony. This was actually intended to be an underpainting, but there was something about it that made my heart go a pitter pat, and that is a sign that I am at a moment of YES. This is that same thing that happened when I was painting that double portrait commission and I realized I liked what was supposed to be the underneath and ended up leaving it exposed.

I questioned again and again if I should add to it, paint in the outlines, put in the banner with the title as I'd planned, add the detail of all the things she sheds on that trek up the blockade. Even fixing the smudges on her head and leg, or giving her hair or any of that.

But I like how she is disappearing into the air, almost as if she is becoming part of her true element. I think I like it just as it is. What do you think?

This painting was inspired by 9th chapter in the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women-- a chapter that I really resonated with. Transcending Rejection and Roadblocks. I haven't even finished the chapter because I just started going off in all directions that I had felt stuck in.

You see, I don't really believe in that thing called creative block or writer's block or whatever you call it. It's just a period of time where you need to focus on something else, or get over your fear or keep working even though you're confused. It's a moment that is telling you something else needs to be done. Maybe you've gone off track, maybe you've gotten to the heart of the matter and it frightens you.

It's all a mindset, you see. And in life, I am learning the same thing. All these setbacks in finances or housing or emotional stumbles or losses when you thought you'd win? Sure, they suck, but if we can get the right attitude about them, we can parlay the disappointment into the forward momentum to take us to the next step, which might just be what we really need. And will also help us to get over the disappointment. There's no need to drown ourselves in our failures, in how we can't write or we are afraid or we are so broke there's just no hope. That attitude is what gets us stuck. Instead, if we can objectively see what where we are, failures and all, what we still need, and what we need to get there.... or even just one step we can take, if we can't understand the whole journey, then we don't get stuck. Don't focus on the stuckness, focus on the possibilities.

Sometimes failing just means we take our lumps and our lessons and are stronger for the next thing. Sometimes climbing up that roadblock makes it so we are able to get the lift off to fly.

I'd like to translate this feeling about artistic and life roadblocks into dealing with rejection.

See, if I can do it with life and with writing a novel, I should really be able to handle the possible rejection of my art and my writing from the wider world. Publishing. Selling art.

Like they say, there's no way to bake a cake without cracking a few eggs. I need to crack some eggs of my safe feelings... my comfort hiding... and get out there in the world to try to fail better.

I want my goal to BE to fail. Because for most of my life, my goal has been to avoid failure, so I have avoided trying.

Can't I take my lessons that I learned from my art and put them into my career?

I say yes, yes I can.

In fact, I did. I finally opened up my etsy shop, and if you want to buy a Flying Girl, you can step right over there and snap one up. I don't have them all listed yet, but I am selling limited edition prints to the wider world. If there's one you fell in love with over here and you'd like to buy it but it's not for sale yet, just leave me a message here or convo me on etsy and I can get that one up, too.

I'm sorry. Did I just say I DID IT???

Holy Cow. No more delays, folks. No more promises. It's up and running.

Oh, and I already sold my first print! Yay me!

This calls for a key lime margarita.

Flying Girl Sends Long Distance Love, or You Have Wings to Fly

Flying Girl Sends Long Distance Love, or You Have Wings to Fly
2/018/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

This Flying Girl is not so much about my own creativity, as it is about wanting to support others in their creativity. Over the course of my life, I have been surrounded by so many creative folk, female, male, young, not so young, sure in their own creativity and insecure, experts and just starting out.

Life's tough right now. Finances, job security, housing, commerce-- all shaky. Things are folding left and right. It is a pretty tumultuous time, and it would be easy to lose the faith in yourself. It would be easy to fall off your own path as you get all wrapped up in the mess of it all.

But even when it's scary, we still have the power to deal with whatever comes our way. We can still create the life we are meant to life, even if it takes detours and delays to get there. Remembering that means remembering we don't have to let the tough times keep us from flying. Maybe we fly close to the safety of the ground for a while, maybe we fly alone, or slide into someone else's slipstream to ease our journey when we need help, maybe we even land for the night, to regain our strength. It's all good. It's part of our journey. And we are still flying.

As I read Jamie's post on the 7th secret, listening to our guides (in the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women) I realized something new.

At first, I thought those secrets would be my spiritual guides. I often turn to the tarot cards, the Iching, the Medicine cards and other forms of oracles. In fact, I read for others, and many times the readings focus on the creative journey.

Then as I read, I remember those people who have helped me along... mentors of sorts. My parents and grandparents, my friend's parents, my teachers.

Also it came to me that other writers and artists have served as guides, in both their lives and their writings. I don't have to actually know these people to have them serve as guides. Even fictional characters can guide, at times.

Then I thought about my friends, my peers. All the people I have talked about art, or shown my work to. All the people who have supported me and urged me on. All the people with whom I went on artist's dates, or cooked, or talked about our creative dreams, or sat in cafes writing side by side. The people who came together into creative groups, whether geared towards writing or empowerment. My online friends, too, count in this group, as I have been inspired and led by their creativity over the last year or so. In the last 20 years, it's people like you who have opened the doors to my creativity.

After reading other people's posts on guides, I have to come back to my own role in this. I'm a guide, too. Sometimes I think it is one of my most important roles in life. I used to write and paint to entertain myself. That's not why I do it anymore. I write for other people. I paint for other people, to help them along on their journeys by showing mine. I still get something out of it, but to give it purpose, I need to give it to others.

While I can't help but want to help other people, I am also cognizant of the ways in which they guide me. How we switch places as leader and follower, and that's part of why it works, just like Amy said the other day. We are guides and we are guided in return.

So while I have the faith to give, I send it to you.

Some days, I need the reminders to believe in myself, and I just might need one of you to lead.

Flying Girl and Thief of Hearts, or Fear

Flying Girl and Thief of Hearts, or Fear
2/14/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic

I like to think of this blackbird flying away with her heart as a part of Flying Girl, herself. Where is her other glove? That thing that cradled her and kept her warm and holds her scent? Oh, it flew away as a bird, taking her courage with it.

I'm thinking about secret #6 in the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, and this is is my saboteur. Myself. My own doing. Giving away my power by giving my fear power.

To tell the truth, I am doing SO much better than I used to. I am recovering from my external saboteurs, and my fears. I have been working at it a long time. The more I can identify them, the less power over me they have.

The fear of being successful and of failure. The fear of criticism. The fear of being powerful. The fear of money. I am working on all of these things so hard. Often I can't address them head on, but have to go around the other side, sneaky like.

If I focus on doing my business cards, which I have been struggling with, and I go back to it 4 times, will I fool my fears into thinking each baby step is smaller than it is and I am not going to have to actually work my way up to owning my creativity, my business, my power?

If I stop revising my novel where I am stuck, and instead print it all out and go over it again, maybe with some coffee out in the garden while the kids are playing and the meatballs are on the crockpot (my first attempt at this, I'll tell you how it works out) will my gremlins get caught unawares?

If I keep painting every night, and build up a body of work, will my fears get pooh poohed away when I finally do get the shop opened, and all of a sudden have dozens of pieces for sale and I will actually be in business, instead of just thinking about it?

When Flying Girl catches that rogue blackbird and dons the power again... will she be able to use that power of fear to help her fly?

You know what? I just realized I am farther along in my process than I thought I was. I thought I was just being lazy, wasting my day and not working on my novel. But I've been doing work behind my own back.

Take that you mean old gremlin/blackbirds!

Flying Girl Where the Wild Things Bloom, or Nature Deep

Flying Girl Where the Wild Things Bloom, or Nature Deep
2/9/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, White Gel pen

Movement never stops, in life. I think we're like sharks. Swim or die. However, sometimes life seems to be flowing by so fast, we don't really get to go deep into the places we need to go.

I've been thinking about the Fifth secret in the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. This week in the book club, it's "Committing to Self Focus." As I was reading the chapter, I was thinking how this really wasn't my struggle... the feeling that art was selfish (or if it was once, I've gotten over it). The feeling that I need to take care of my duties as a woman and a social being first before I turn to my art. Maybe it's because I'm kind of a hermit. Maybe it's the luck of being born into a family of artists who always supported my artistic leaning (not always other things, but art was always supported). I have made peace (mostly) with sacrificing my housekeeping and using PBS as a babysitter when need be. I have let go of being that perfect super mom so that I could be the best me, the best artist I can be.

But then, as I got farther in to the book, I began see some resonance. McMeekin mentions "the need for mothers to find blocks of time to create," espoused in another book, and I can see that is true for me. Unfortunately the other book (A Question of Balance: Artists and Writers on Motherhood, by Judith Pierce Rosenberg) also "advises young women to establish their careers before they embark on having children," which really doesn't help me now, does it? If I could go back in time, I might have put more pressure on myself to get my career going, not realizing the struggle it would be when I had less freedom as a mother. But I can't, and here I am now. So I need to make now as productive as I can. I need to make it work for me.

Yes, I am working a lot. I paint and I write and I take photographs and blog and cook and raise my children and all of that, but I don't really work that deep. I don't have those blocks of time to really sculpt my work. I go on instinct and my subconscious and the many years of practice I have put into writing and art. It's those years that allow me to sit down and whip out 1200 words of new writing in an hour, or a painting while watching tv. Years of just diving in and being there. If I was unable to work so fast, I don't know if I would be working at all, to tell the truth.

I'm finding a difficulty now as I start revising parts of my novel that are already written. I don't have the space in my mind to be able to get the larger picture. I can do little bits at a time, but I don't feel like I am getting myself deep into the work.

Maybe that's where my anxiety is coming from right now. I could say, "oh this is just the ebb and flow of creativity." I could allow myself to not write, but I know what happens when I do that. I stop writing. It is the practice of showing up for the work that keeps the work going. I need to keep writing.

Maybe the anxiety is necessary. Maybe in order to get to where I want to go with my novel, I need to feel uncomfortable. Maybe I need to ask for support from those around me. (Yes, they have always supported me, but as an adult, I have to ask for that support for them to give it to me. And I hate asking for help.) Maybe I need to ask for my mom and/or step dad to take the kids one or two days a week so I can really get going.

You know, I think being uncomfortable is often necessary to art. It doesn't mean that you have to create work that is "cutting edge" or uncomfortable or shocking, but it does mean that you have to push the edge in yourself. Push the comfort. Get out of the ease and steady every day patterns of thinking. Open doors that you are afraid of. Stand up when you'd rather sit down and hide. Stop and face the things that you have been running away from all your life.

Just like this Flying Girl, I feel like I am right on the outside of that forest of deep work. It looks scary and weird, and it looks like I might never get out if I get caught up in those dark brambles, but I am convinced that inside of that darkness is the true place. I am trying to figure out what I need to do to get where I belong. I may need to go at it in an oblique way, because I have been resisting this push.

And it is also interesting that this painting was inspired by the Sweet Treat Thursday prompt, and yet it dovetailed right into the 12 Secrets chapter for me. Maybe I wouldn't gone away with the meaning that I did if I did not have the two different ideas swimming in my head. I think it was Orson Scott Card who said all of his novels started not with one idea, but with two unrelated ideas that then set up a resonance. Interesting.

And just so you know, folks, this deepness I am talking about, isn't really about the content of the work for me. I'm okay with that depth. It's more about taking things to the end and bringing them out again. This is my darkness, my fear. Finishing. Showing. Selling. Publishing.

What is your fear? When you think about deep work, what are you afraid of facing? What stops you in your tracks? How do you think you can get past those brambles?

Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective

Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective
2/2/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen.

This is the image that came to my mind while reading chapter four for the book club in the 12 secrets of creative women. This chapter is Surrendering to Creative Cycles.

I've been working for the last few years on what I call, "riding the wave." Life goes up, life goes down, but you can ride that force and get far. Sometimes it feels like you've been overwhelmed by the tsunami, sometimes it feels like you have been pulled under and you don't know which way is up.

I've had occasional depression a few times in my life, and finally found my way out of it. A lot of it had to do with being productive, getting out and spending time with people, taking slow and steady steps to go where I want to go and writing and painting. but when I had my kids, I was hit with something that made it impossible to do my old routines for getting out of the funk.

I was in Post Partum Depression, feeling like somebody foreign to myself, someone who couldn't even write in her journal, and I couldn't get out. That made me feel even worse about myself. When I stopped nursing at a year, the PPD lifted and all of a sudden I could see that it had been there.

And in the year since then, I have worked slowly to ride that wave of my life, embracing the lows where the riptide pulls at my ankles, learning that those are the times when you need to swim parallel to shore and not struggle to make the strides you long for. And also, I have struggled with understanding that the highs, with their light and speed and joy are also only temporary. All is transitory and all gets you in the direction your life is going, if you don't struggle against it.

Another realization I made, while I painted this picture was a surprise, but fit right along with my riding the wave concept.

As I painted it, I realized that if you simply turn the painting over, she is no longer being overwhelmed by that wave and tossed about in the sea, but in fact, taking flight.

Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective (reversed)
2/2/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen.

And that too has been a lesson I have learned in the last year and more. Those lows can be really low, but if you focus on the lessons to be learned, or the small joys to be had, or the faith that there will be a dawn, instead of how hard it all is, then you can see that the very life that was drowning you a moment ago is in fact propelling you to your own fulfillment.

Pardon me for saying, but my painting blew me away.

Flying Girl Writes Her Fire in the Sky, or Keep the Flame Burning

Flying Girl Writes Her Fire in the Sky, or Keep the Flame Burning
1/30/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils, White Gel Pen, Graphite on Paper 5x8"

Here Flying Girl is, made of flame. I wonder... does she recognize that she is made of the same stuff as the sun?

Why do we not acknowledge what is wonderful about ourselves? Why do we devalue our talents, think they aren't worthy of attention, love or pay? Why do we look at our stories and only see what is lacking, what is imperfect?

Today at naptime, I sat down in front of the computer, and felt guilt. I was going to be wasting my time, I thought, I was going to be doing nothing... when the truth is I am building something, I am saying something, I am making something. I find I do the same thing when I am parenting, wondering what's wrong with me when I am tired, when I've really done "nothing" all day. I don't recognize what I am giving, just what isn't done. Even if I'm writing a novel and painting everyday and raising kids and trying to build a business and just going about my regular business of living.

I see this too when I think about my friends' insecurities or in some of the projects going on around blogland, like in the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women book club.

It's funny also that the Illustration Friday Prompt for this week is "Flawed," because it so fits into the meaning of this painting. Yet, I don't want to submit this for that theme because I feel like it doesn't fit quite right, because it's forcing the theme, but the truth is, this is the issue. Our feelings of being "flawed" of not being good enough, or not being real artists or worth being paid, they are false. We are perfect just the way we are.

Here Flying Girl is, as perfect as the sun, and I don't know if she recognizes it.

When I was painting it, I kept singing that Bonnie Raitt song, Luck of the Draw, with the lyrics that go
These things we do to keep the flame burning
and write our fires in the sky.

I used to sing that song as I bartended, thinking only about how far I had to go and how much I was sacrificing. I never thought that I was perfect just the way I was. I never thought that I was already there.

(If anyone is wondering about my first representation of a black FG and how I overcame my struggles with making one... I just thought about one of my dear friends and made this FG represent her. She's a thousand miles away from me right now, but still one of those people who act as a touchstone for me.)

Flying Girl is Not There, or Wishes

Flying Girl is Not Quite There, or Wishes
1/22/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen, on paper, 5x8"

Here, I imagine FG trying to reach that city over there on the horizon... maybe the calmer island connected with the bridge. But the point is, she's still trying to get there, and unable to put down her load of good things. She sends ahead her good wishes, her dreams, hopes, intentions.

This is how I am feeling lately. Feeling the heavy load and the light hope, the distant objective, within sight finally, and the swirling seas, the swirling air.

I argue with myself about this feeling.

It isn't just about the destination, it's about the journey. I keep trying to remember this. At every moment we are trying to get somewhere else we have already arrived at our present location.

I took yesterday off... no blogging, no writing, no painting even. I read Twilight instead. Even with Twilight, I tried to keep my head from wanting to fix what is wrong with the book (oy, the perfect this and the perfect that-- like Disney for vampires) and instead just enjoy what is right(I prefer rash Jacob to perfect Edward). I also was not feeling well, and I chose to relax and enjoy instead of work and/or feel sorry for myself.

Today, I'm trying to get back on track. Today, I am hoping my novel will be gotten to (please stay asleep, chil'ren) and I will be able to focus on things I've been avoiding.

It helped to look at Jamie's interpretation of the next chapter of 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. She's about Bolstering Your Staying Power... something I am always struggling with. It's so easy to get distracted... especially when you are already afraid of whatever it is you're supposed to be going after.

She asked the question "What helps you to be brave?" So thinking about the answer, I have realized the things that help me to be brave are also the things that help center me, ground me.

1. To Do lists! You wanna know how I pulled myself out of PPD? To Do lists... or atleast, they kept me from disappearing all together. To Do lists and Did Done lists. And when I was at my worst, I made lists of all the things, no matter how tiny and seemingly trivial that I had accomplished that day, from taking a shower to making a meal to writing 5 thousand words in my novel. Set my goals, break them down into steps, and then honor what I have done, even those things I didn't think to put on my list. If I am really down, I tend to lose my lists, which means i need them even more. When I am accomplishing things, I feel better. Productivity makes me feel good. I'm trying to figure out why... and how I can stop the reverse from happening (low productivity= low self esteem), but until then, here's where it is.

2. A creative community and the people saying "YES YOU CAN!" Sometimes that is a community in real life, sometimes its on line. A dialog between creatives. Feedback from people who believe in you. I could wish that I had more real life friends like this in my immediate neighborhood, but I am glad I still have my long distance friends and my internet friends so that I can keep up the conversation even when I am alone.

3. Other people's art/words/paths. Reading how other people reach their goals buoys my belief that it is possible... especially if they are not too far from where I am, if i feel like I can be like them. Not superstars, just regular artists. Also looking at art, finding art I love, it makes me want to be a part of that, be a part of that conversation. Or reading my favorite authors, whether fiction or non fiction. Oh yeah, and listening to music. I don't do that enough, but it really helps.

4. Somethings I have not been doing lately, also... journaling, both written and visual. Writing or visualizing my goals. Pinning down the amorphous ideas into something I can tangibly understand. Very Valuable. Knowing what you want specifically is the first battle.

As I think about these ideas that keep me going and help me be brave, I think about the students I used to teach. I see that I need the same things I needed to give them.

In order to feel up to challenges, they had to feel like they were CAPABLE of doing them. They had to have a solid understanding of where they were, and then they had to have the steps outlined for them so they could climb to the next level. They had to be given the scaffolding of skills that would get them there. Not a ten page essay on Hamlet the first day in tenth grade. An understanding of outlining, a discussion on soliloquy, a journal full of ruminations on motivation, short essays that they learn to critique themselves, and so on.

If you want to get to the top of a 100 foot monolith, and you see no way up, and you don't have the ability to fly like Flying Girl, or the skills of rock climbing (which you could conceivably learn) then you need to see that there is a path. What if instead of expecting ourselves to fly to that monolith, we laid ourselves a nice little scaffolding. What if we planted our beams, set our bracings, laid down our platforms, raised our ladders, and continued to do this until we got to the top.

That may be hard work, but it's not a miraculous task achieved only by the privileged and unearthly.

Inspiration: My House

Inspiration: My House
1/17/09
Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils, Golden Fluid Acrylics, Pitt Artist Pens

This is a continuation of my exploration and honoring of my Inspiration, for my book group of 12 secrets.

This weekend was a tough one for me, as I felt I was coming down with something and I was fighting against creating at every opportunity. But there it is. I've decided that I am not going to kick myself when the inspiration and motivation isn't there. I'm going to try to keep working, but if I don't, if I need to sleep instead, or if I need to read the book that just came from Amazon, or if the kids wake up from nap early and my writing time disappears (all of which happened this weekend) then I am not going to beat myself up over it.

I'm a mom who is an artist. I'm discovering what a journey this is in its own right. It's not like it was when I was a single gal who searched out jobs where I had my days free, or my summers free, or ones that would feed my creativity. It's not like I can sit on my couch all weekend with a journal and a paint set, or go to cafes and write for two days straight. This is a new situation and it takes delicate balancing. Time with the kids, time for the house, time for the guy, time for making money, time for my physical health and well being, time to relax... and time for the creating, time for the exploring, time for the finalizing.

I am working on not struggling with my own pace, my necessarily slow pace at moving to the next step. Maybe that's why I am having problems with inspiration right now, because I am about to make some sort of leap. I hope so. I'd like it.

But, onto the painting. I have been trying to paint in whites and pales, which is how this painting began. Every time I try, I get it wrong and am unsatisfied. I manage to fix the pictures, more or less, but they don't end up being whites/pales. That's okay, I think. I realized I haven't spent much time on those shades. This kind of thing takes work and concentration and practice. You have to discover your techniques... at least I do.

So I covered over my pales and made my house. This is my house of creativity. This is my comfy couch, where I write and sketch and watch tv, and sit with my coffee and cake while I ruminate, where I enjoy company that supports my creativity. This is my studio, with computer and easel and supplies, with space to move and to think. This is my gallery of work, the body of my creative existence, collected to inspire and remember. This is my library of resources, my books, my stories, my loves, my histories, my journals. This is my rooftop view, that allows me access to sky and perspective. These are my fire escapes, my alternate way out, way up, my silent spot for rumination. My sky is alive, my ground is fertile, my roots go deep and deeper still, my tree... well, she can be many things.

My house is not real. Or it is real, but it is not physical. My physical life has very little of this. A corner with a borrowed computer. A bedroom with a typing table and an old chair. An old couch in a shared tv room, a bag of paints and carry along supplies. This is my reality.

And you know what????

It works.

Hey, I want the dream studios that I've been seeing around the web. But that's not my life right now. Right now, I do what I have to. I find my dream in the corners. I make my art on a tv table while watching the kids play. I write in snatched moments between action and action.

It doesn't matter what your creative space looks like. It doesn't matter if it's not perfect. What matters is what you do.

What spaces/times/activities find you creative, despite their imperfection? What corners of the day do you manage to snatch a few moments for your art? I'd love to know. I'm always looking for new ways to get it done.

Luna Moth Flying Girl, or Inspiration

Luna Moth Flying Girl, or Inspiration
reads: She flies by night, into the pale
1/17/09
Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils, Golden Fluid Acrylics, Pitt Artist Pens on Paper

How ironic that on the day I wanted to write a post about Honoring my Inspiration for this book group, I was stymied by not having any.

No inspiration. No energy. No paintings. No blogging. Nothing to say.

Eventually, I worked something out struggling for a couple of days, but finishing too late to get good photo session light.

Maybe my psyche is trying to say something about the way inspiration and I go together.

That traditional view of inspiration that comes out of the blue and takes artists over is as delicate and elusive as the beautiful Luna Moth. They fly only at night, only a couple of times a year.

And did you know that Luna Moths have no mouths? That's right. No mouths. They do not exist to live. They exist only to reproduce and then they die. Fine, they leave their offspring to continue on, but I can not wait for my Luna Moth of inspiration.

I think inspiration for me is a lot harder work that catching a moth.

I think it's about showing up and practicing my craft. I think it's about following through with ideas and constantly revising as I go. This is not to say that I don't sometimes get taken over by the muse and get to float around in the deep night of inspiration, creating and making art and often forgetting to eat. No, that happens, but I can't depend upon it.

For instance, my novel. I've been working on it for about three years now. It started with a small idea... an inspiration, if you will, that fired me up. But I will tell you now, that if I had jumped on that inspiration, it would have died out. Instead, I held on to it. I wrote it down and let it sit there. I waited for more inspiration to join it. And slowly, the world in my head began to grow. I asked questions, like 'why' and 'how' and 'where' and 'who?' I kept searching for keys that would unlock the doors of this story, of the creativity. And then I started writing, very slowly.

And then I stopped. I was busy with a baby, you see. But when I remembered that nanowrimo was coming, I dusted it off... I didn't write anymore... no I worked at the ideas. I paid attention to characters, I wrote an outline, I researched things, I continued the work of gathering inspiration that would build into an idea which was sustainable.

Then in the furious weeks of nanowrimo, I wrote it all out. One might look at nano and say that it couldn't produce a good novel, but that would just be looking at the one session of "inspired" writing, and not all the work and commitment that went into building it.

Two years later, I'm still working on that book. On revisions and the second in the series. Two years later and inspiration is lovely when it hits, and that flow of inspiration might be what keeps me going on those days when nothing is coming, but it's the work that wrote the book. It's the work that makes one an artist.

If I keep showing up at my desk or my sketchbook, the inspiration will come. Like a moth to a flame, perhaps? But we have to keep that flame burning, even when we feel like it's our blood we're using as fuel.

Tee hee.

Just a little bit dramatic there.

But this is about honoring my inspiration, and I think in order to do that, I have to honor my process... truly what I think this blog is about... and I have to honor the hard work that goes into it. And I have to honor when there is no inspiration and my head is empty or too heavy or too tired to continue on.

I still don't have the key. I don't know how to make myself inspired all the time and constantly creative and productive without end. I think that's not possible. I think we have to honor ourselves for when we DON'T create. I think we have to not give up, even when it feels like there is no other way to go on.

Keep going.

That's honoring my inspiration, my faith in myself. Keep going. Don't give up. Even if I don't write a poem for five years, that poet is still there. Honor the silence, too.

Treehouses, Unfinished

Treehouses, unfinished.

My tree houses, play houses, dream houses, art shacks, writing rooms, creativity cottages. Yes. Unfinished. So many little projects with so little free time. But plenty of dreams.

I'm looking forward to finishing it tonight. Not that I have much brain power, right now. I've been sitting in front of my computer for an hour trying to figure out how to write this post. Uhm, make that two hours.

But it all just seems so momentous again. So many things to do, so many projects to take on. So much work so much work. So hard to pull my brain away from taking care of kids and the tv playing in the background and finding something to eat and worries about how the money situation will ever make sense again.

I'm getting lost in the list. The list of things to do and desires and musts.

So.

Take it all back to the core.

Art to center myself. To understand. To breathe and to be.

Why do I have to keep reminding myself of these things? Why do I get overwhelmed with the task of making it something REAL. (which in my psyche means, paid for. Silly psyche.)

Why do I ask why and struggle against the process of beginning, or overwhelm? Why do I forget that it's all the way it's supposed to be.

Gosh darn it,
because that's the way it's supposed to be.

Okay. Here's where I am:
After 38-- fine, 33 years (since kindergarten) of being an artist, and 23 years of trying to be a novelist, and 20 years of being a poet, and 10 years of being a teacher, and 3 years of PPD where I lost it all, and one year more of getting it back... I'm ready to take it global.

No. I'm not ready to take it global, but I'm ready to GET ready to take it to the rest of the world and make it a career, not just a calling.

And it means I get frustrated and confused at the immensity of it all. And I get scared about not being good enough to be a professional, and the echoes of my poetry advisor saying I couldn't do it get louder and the panic sets in. And that's all normal, a normal part of the process. And it means I have to take it back to the scaffolding of the thing to remember why I've been doing it all in the first place.

It's about me, and understanding myself, and it's about the world, and helping others to understand themselves. It's about saying yes instead of no.

I just joined another group. Yes, another. Now on top of The Portfolio Project, and on top of Creative Everyday, I am doing a book blog based on the book The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative People. Not to mention the third draft of my novel (this is the one I'm going to show people) and trying to get an etsy shop up. It's another 12 week project and I'm getting a little overwhelmed, but I know my motivation here. My motivation is to....

What's my motivation again? Am I trying to whip my creativity into shape? Harness her up to my goat cart? Prod her down the road of commerce? Yipes.

Maybe. And that might be why I joined this new group. To focus on my creativity for myself, not for making a living so I don't have to go back to teaching when the kids start school. To make paintings based on my insides, not some market. To open up the skin and get deep.

Oh yeah, and to have some fun, to do some playing, to center and breathe, to get messy with paints. And write about those people who have been living in my head for three years. And to take care of myself. And to have fun with the kids. And to live. Oh yeah.

Live.