Flying Girl Like a Child, or Yes to Life

Flying Girl Like a Child, or Yes to Life
015/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 6/15/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on moleskine watercolor paper, 5x8"

Did I paint like a child? Probably not. But my intention was to do so. I was thinking about the way my son draws, but trying to combine it with the flying girl. It's an approximation. S says it reminds him of Francis Bacon, and I can see the similarities, but I would like to think that mine is not so nightmarish. I think I was influenced still by TST I saw red prompt. But also by Inspire Me Thursday Child Draw prompt. I don't know if it matters, but there is also gold in this painting, that you can't see in this picture.

It can be quite interesting to see what happens when you put two prompts together.

In fact, that can be the what makes creativity take off. I remember reading Orson Scott Card's website... probably his writing workshop... and in it, he said that his novels always start out with at least TWO instigating inspirations. Two separate and possibly clashing ideas that allow all sorts of tensions and connotations to grow within them.

What do you do to get that inspiration pop? Do you have any tricks or treats to turn your ideas into works of art?

How have you managed to keep your ideas flowing?

Flying Girl Through the Trees, or Red Knows the Way

Flying Girl Through the Trees, or Red Knows the Way
014/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/14/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic

I like the Little Red Riding Hood Story.

Inspired by Thursday Sweet Treats prompt, "then I saw red," I saw red riding hood.

I thought about how she takes the trek and goes through the woods, facing danger... and yet, she is never afraid. Here's the wolf, and she is never afraid. Fine, she was a little naive, "my what big teeth you have..." but she was never afraid.

What strength does she have? Does she own the wildness? Does she own the wild woods inside of her?

And then there's the red riding hood, made just so that other people can keep track of her in her wanderings, her element. They don't want to lose her. But they don't stop her.

Maybe if we can learn to properly be aware of the dangers and arm ourselves against them, we won't be at the mercy of them... and truly will be the mistresses of our wilderness.

Flying Girl and the Soul Moving, or He Says It's Ten Mile River

Flying Girl and the Soul Moving, or He Says It's Ten Mile River
4/23/09
Mixed Media, acrylic and collage on paper, 7"x10"

When you do the things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
-Rumi

I've been seeing Rumi quotes all over the internet. This one just happens to match this picture.

I did this for a Thursday Sweet Treat Prompt-- the landscape of the soul. Really, that's what all the Flying Girls are. They are a dream moving through that landscape. Sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's light, sometimes it's urban, sometimes rural. Sometimes it's completely make believe or sometimes it's a place I clearly remember.

This one was kind of based on some dreams that I have sometimes, of floating down the river. This river here is made of words, if you can see them. Cut out of a book that I altered many years ago. In my dream, the river is usually the Hudson, but when S saw this painting, he said it was Ten Mile River, which I think is in California. It's a place I've never been, but he insisted I put Ten Mile River into the title.

I don't know. Is the landscape of the soul a place I've never seen? Maybe there are connections all throughout life that we don't understand. Maybe important things resonate.

Sometimes I think about places I've never been that someday I'll call home. They are strange now, but when I look back, they will feel very right. Journeys are like that. They change who you are.

(I don't know what I'm saying here, but I know it's right.)

Goddess Inspire, or Flicker of Imagination

Goddess Inspire, or Flicker of Imagination
3/23/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils on Paper, 7"x10"

Goddess Inspire came out of nowhere, and yet she is all around.

In fact, don't you think you know her? Wasn't she that girl down the block? Didn't you see her in that place the other day?

She's so familiar.

Say hi.

The flicker of this painting came when I realized the next Thursday Sweet Treat prompt was "Flicker of Imagination" although, I think I thought it was Flicker of Inspiration. Either way, I imagined a girl looking out at us. Maybe also seeing a couple of portraits in and around blogland had a portrait happening in my mind.

But what was really interesting was what happened when the drawing (with watercolor pencils) was covered with paint. Things happened I did not expect and her face changed as I painted. When I added the hair/shadows even more happened. And I left the edges bare mostly because it seemed to want to be unfinished.

This girl really did come out of nowhere, and I really do feel like I know her, but she doesn't match anyone I know. Do you know her? Can you place that face?

I think she is a goddess. When you let your inspiration take over, do you see a face of the goddess, too?

To purchase a print, go here.

Flying Girl Lets Go, or Trust That The Seeds You Plant Will Grow

Flying Girl Lets Go, or Trust That The Seeds You Plant Will Grow
2/20/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic

When I was a student teacher learning how to teach, my teaching team was working on a poem with our 9th grade inner city students. Somehow, the lesson turned into racism pouring out of the kids from all directions and I left that lesson feeling terrible, hopeless, unhappy, defeated.

My partner teacher leaned over to me and said, "Shhh. Trust the process."

And I shut my mouth and shut my fears and agreed to hold on until we could work through it all.

When next we met with that class, something had happened. And I don't know if we did anything other than encourage their interpretation and discussion. The anger and fear that the poem had brought up had transformed into thought and understanding.

They had simply come out of the other end of the process.

So when I get all worked up that something in my life is not coming out the way I had expected it to, I remind myself to "trust the process." It give me some breathing room. It eases my panic. I releases the tight hold that I have on whatever it is I am trying to control.

Now this doesn't actually mean we shouldn't take care of our projects or developments. It does take attention, work and effort to get through the process, but we don't have to go through it in fear. All we have to do is trust the process.

It will all come out okay, and even if it doesn't, we are strong enough do deal and move on to the next process.

Oh yeah, and this post counts for the Thursday Sweet Treat prompt, Let Beauty Rain Down Upon, even though I couldn't add the prompt to the title because that would make it way too long.

Flying Girl Gets A Gift, or I Am Enough

Flying Girl Gets A Gift, or I Am Enough
2/16/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils on paper. 5x8"

This one makes me happy. Mostly because I had no inspiration when I started, not a bloomin' idea in my head, and then, once I started, I was sure this one would be a loss. It was hideous. My ideas were falling flat. The colors were not working. It was, to borrow a phrase, a hot mess.

But I didn't give up. I painted over messes. I added another layer. or two or three. I removed certain elements, changed colors, or tinted them another shade. I just kept on keeping on and then I ended up with something that made me smile when I looked at it.

So after all that, let me tell you where the inspiration finally came from. I should have learned by now to sketch down ideas in my journal as they come to me during the day, but I didn't. Instead, I turned to the internet or inspiration.

First there was the idea on Pecannoot, a new blog about abundance by Jess Gonacha. She suggests we should be using the ideas of abundance in our art work, because in this world of panic and fear, we could all use abundance. Then there was CED, where Leah has suggested "words" as a theme for the month of February. Lastly, but not least, there was the theme for thursday sweet treats, run by Natasha. Let me tell you, I was stumped by that one. The theme is "colors" and colors are so integral to my work that I couldn't narrow down an idea.

So in the end, I let the colors do the deciding. I reached in my bag of paints and pulled out a color, two, three, four, and a white. It gave me a fright when I got cobalt teal and sap green hue, but then I pulled iridescent bronze and burnt umber light and I began to get an inkling of an idea. The white was my favorite titan buff. As the colors started making sense, the painting came together. I followed the colors, mixed and layered them

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 On the Ocean Deep, or Poetry

Flying Girl On the Ocean Deep, or Poetry
2/1/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen on paper

This flying girl was done in layers. I started with a wash of transparent spring green, and then a deep turquoise and everything went kelly on me Kelly green, I mean. That was the first thing that went wrong with my painting. But then, what I've been learning is that there is no "wrong" in painting. There is only something that needs to be worked on.

I had an image in my head, but it wasn't long before that image went cockeyed. I could have fought with my kelly green sea to get it back to my vision, or I could have given up on it completely. The first would have been an unhappy place to be, for me anyway, especially since it is almost impossible to paint what is in your head exactly, and the second would make me feel bad about myself. I don't like giving up... although there is a place for letting go of your attachment to a piece. In the end, I went with the kelly green and the piece ended up being far more complex than I had planned. While it is true that the more facility you have with the medium the more control you have... there are also fewer happy accidents to follow and discover something new. Unless of course, you seek out the unexpected and allow them to take you where they will.

Writing is the same way. That novel, that poem, that essay is rarely exactly the same as the impulse that got you started. Maybe it's because art, in all its forms, is the way we interpret and make sense of the wide world. And the world is so much wider and deeper than we can comprehend. As mysterious and powerful as the sea, is our experience in the world. And whatever we put on paper or canvas or into movement or music is never going to equal the world around it. It can be moving and transformative, deep or enlightening, but it's not life. Although the more we let our subconscious take the lead, the more we follow the unexpected, the more passes we make with our tools at hand, the more depth our work will take on.

But here's another thing. The journey of art, of poetry or music or writing or whatever, is also the journey of life. Yes, I said art is not life, but the journey is the same.

As I struggle to understand my own creative process, as I struggle to learn my media, as I struggle with my inner demons that try to keep me from creating, as I struggle to be a better and deeper artist, I am also learning about who I am, how I get along in the world, how I can be happier, how I can appreciate life more and more fully.

I think different media have served to help me grow in different ways. Poetry helped me let go of my past and my sadness. Writing helped me gain self confidence and focus. Now art is helping me to live in the moment and gain spiritual strength.

For instance, I keep wanting this post to be cohesive and I want to be able to go deep for my connections. I want to be able to go over it and revise. I want to be able to search my twisty brain for just the right word (which is out of reach right now) but a little girl keeps coming up to me and-- oops! she got a boo boo. Oops! Now the boy got a boo boo.

My life right now is not the way I would write it if i had the opportunity. But it is what it is. And I need to go with the medium of my days, rather than fight against it, wishing I hadn't added that green, or wishing I had uninterrupted days to focus on work. Or giving up on my goal of being a writer and an artist.

Paying attention to my process helps me pay attention to my life, in all its boo boos and its sunny days. Watching what comes out of it, the pictures I paint, in particular, helps me understand the messages that come from my subconscious about my life.

What is that Flying Girl doing in that little boat? Looking for her words? Fishing for poetry? It's all around her, isn't it, some deeper than she can see? All she has to do is reach out to find it, even if what she catches is not what she thought she would find.