In Which The Psyche Throws A Temper Tantrum

YES (nononononononono...)

I've been thinking about this post for a while. And each time I think about it, I don't do it.

It's about resistance.

We've decided that we are going to do something. We are going to change our lives. We're going to reach for our goals. We're going to go for that thing that we've always wanted but haven't been able to do and then, we say YES, now it's time for me to achieve.

And we make our goals and set up our tasks and shoot for the stars.

And then we come upon the resistance.

We choose not to sit down and write. Or we pick up that bag of cookies. Or we turn on the tv instead of making those phone calls... whatever it is.

Part of this process of changing our lives and taking action on our dreams is facing resistance.

When we make our commitments, the little angry, scaredy cat inside of us all of a sudden gets really loud and demanding. It doesn't like the idea that it is losing power. The 'no's get louder. The 'yes'es get overwhelmed. It finds its ways to be the center of our attention, to stop the forward momentum that will leave it behind, to be in control of your life.

And this is part of the process.

We all face resistance. We all back slide. We all have roadblocks of our own device. We all have fears and anxieties that flare up and take over like a toddler.

It's okay. You don't have to let the the resistance win.

When my kids have a temper tantrum, I tell them that it's okay for them to feel their upset, to be angry or afraid or hurt, I tell them that their feelings about things are valid, but it is not okay for them to take out their upset on other people, or use that upset to control the family. I send them to their room to feel their anger. I sit with them and talk to them about it.  I ask them if they're ready to move on. I talk to them about what they could be doing now if they weren't having a temper tantrum. I ask them what they'd really like to be doing. And when they are done being upset, they come out of their room and we move on with our day.

That's a child. Your own resistance is something different.

Breathe through it. Relax into it. Accept that your fears and anxieties are valid feelings, but may not reflect the reality of the situation. Acknowledge the resistance. Recognize that this is part of our defense mechanism that has served to protect us. It may not be what we need right now to move forward, so pay attention to the voices that are resisting your forward movement. Thank them for protecting you. And then tell them that you don't need them right now, you are quite safe already and are intent on moving forward with your goals.

And then do so.

Ornaments, in glitter, felt, and tinsel pipecleaners. Move over Martha.

Glitter, repurposed menus, and felt ornaments, strung on baker's string, w old buttons

I am so far behind on this project of 25 creative things in 25 days. Or maybe I'm not that behind, but I am behind on posting. So here I've decided to show a couple of the ornament bundles I've made.

I took some of the glitter stars from my wreath and glued felt to the back. I thought for a different look when they go up on the tree.
Felt stars and raindrops.... the other side is silver glitter.

Tinsel Pipe Cleaner ornaments

I also made a string of these... I made both swirlies
And hearts.

Now the truth is, I probably won't use these as garlands, although I've strung them up for display and storage purposes. But we don't have a Christmas tree yet. We meant to get it this weekend, but between my work and bad timing and snow storms and all... we haven't gotten it yet.

I've also made some ornaments with the kids. We used more tinsel pipe cleaners, but they chose what they wanted to do, and it was little christmas trees and little snowmen. Not a bad project for those 5 and under, since it's so easy to manipulate pipecleaners. I think I hid those before the kids could destroy them. I need to find them and take a picture. They actually turned out pretty cute.

This years Christmas tree will be a motley of stuff. But that's okay. Sometimes I like the motley.

I'll be back later. Who knows when. I'm turning out to be not so good on these daily posts this holiday season.

How are you doing with your Christmas projects and activities?

Are you feeling the cheer yet?

Dream. Work In Progress.

Dream Head. Work in progress.

I have been experimenting in Paperclay for a couple of weeks now.

I don't know what I am doing.

There is a place in not knowing that allows for deeper things to come through.

After practicing with the simpler shapes, the houses, the pears, the birdies, the hearts, I felt the urge to push myself. To try for something that I didn't know how to do. That I wasn't sure I was up to.

Last night I sat with a ball of paper clay and decided I wanted to try to make a doll head. It was hard. I worked on the features, the nose, the lips. I mashed them down and started again, feeling that it wasn't right, it wasn't the feeling I wanted, it didn't look the way I wanted it to. I pushed and pulled and smoothed and pinched and used my tiny tools (bobby pin, nail, push pin, x-acto knife, fingers) to bring it into a semblance of a face. Then I tried for the ears, and they were all wrong, messing up what I had done before. Gosh darn it, I realized the entire head was too small for the face, and I would have to add on hair or more clay or something to enlarge it so it didn't look like a pin head.

And then I realized.

Why do I have to do what is expected? Why do I have to create a doll head that looked like a regular doll head, or even a person at all. And then I realized... I don't really create what is in real life. I like to draw what I see, it's fun. It's journalistic, but more than journaling my life or reality, I love exploring the internal reality much more.

So my doll head became a dream head. Something not quite right, not quite real. Something that is reminiscent of reality, but also conjures up a dream, a fairy tale, the subconscious.

Yes. I went away from reality. I went away from the expected, the routine.

I took a chance on something meaningful, something that risks failure.

I found something important.

I don't know what it is yet... but it's coming.

Have you ever reached your edge of knowing?

Do you pull back and keep yourself safe?

Or do you jump and see what happens? (Gosh, that question is the exact description for my very first Flying Girl painting, which I did right before I graduated from college.)

Baby Birds and What Grows Inside

Yesterday, Gabriel found a discarded birds nest on his nature walk. He brought it inside, I glued a felt circle to the bottom so it wouldn't fall apart, then made him an egg.

Robins egg blue felt right for the season. Then he demanded another egg and a baby bird hatching. Oh yes, and a mother robin, but I haven't managed that yet. The birdie looks a bit duckish with that bill. Maybe I'll try snipping it smaller. That's a fun thing about felt, you can do that with it.

Why am I doing soft sculpture lately? I don't know. It just feels like what needs to be done. So I do it.

This brings me to the previous mystery.
A felt house. Look through the windows and doors.
There's something inside of that house. Is that a...
tree?
Why yes it is. A tree growing out of the empty shell of a building.
and below it, is a carpet of grass, or maybe it's moss. And the insides of the building are the color of the sky. Hmmmm...

What could it all mean?

Perhaps that things grow even when you think it is all wreckage. Perhaps that life will find a way. Perhaps that creation comes out of constraint. I don't know. I felt the need to make it, so I did.

And yes, it does fit in the palm of my little hand.

I'm not sure if it should also have a box/diorama kind of setting, or if it stands on it's own. Or does it need to have something added to it? A miniature something inside? One that you can't see until you get right up close to it and look through the window? I do like that sort of intimacy with art. Maybe I should make a shadowbox frame for it. How would one go about doing that?

Or is it time to stop. That's one of the things about art, you have to figure out how far to go and when to stop.

Hungry for Color

When I saw this painting, Pole Orange, by Labokoff on the Color + Design Blog, I just about lost my breath.

I don't know why I responded so much to that color.

What do you think about the visceral reaction that we have to color sometimes?

Do you think it means we are hungering for something?

I could imagine that wanting this color might mean I craved warmth, which I do, after such a long gray winter.

Or perhaps it means I am needing the vital energy of orange, that color that looks as if there are molecules zinging around.

Speaking of zing, maybe this orange-need means I want some citrus in my system. Vitamin C and the sparkle of the orange oil that squirts out of the peel when you first stick your thumbnail in the skin.

And there's something about the contrast of the gray that I like here, too. I don't think I'd feel the same if it were more bright colors, like orange/lime green/lemon yellow.

However, I really could manage sitting in an outdoor garden with a fresh key lime margarita, lemon colored sun, and some raw oysters with hot sauce and horse radish.

How does this connect to this picture? I don't know.

But wouldn't it be nice?

This is Where Love Resides

This is Where Love Resides
Cotton fabric, felt, silver embroidery floss, glass beads, paper, acrylic paint, fiber fill, thread

My mind is not in posting today.

I am in a whirl of new creating. My mind is burbling with ideas.

I am behind on photo shoots, posting, listing in my etsy shop and emails.

It's kind of a fun period, but I do get the feeling sometimes as if somebody is looking down at me going, "what is she doing sitting on her arse all day sewing and painting and messing around when there is work to be done, kids to be taken outside and money to be made."

Hmph.

I was wondering what my thoughts today would have to do with this piece of artwork, which was made, really, quite a long time ago. It was the only one I had a photo of that I hadn't posted already... the only Blessing Flying Girl that I have finished so far in fabric, rather than felt. I discovered that the felt actually works better than the fabric for my purposes. I do have more things to show. The stacks of works in progress are rising, and the items that haven't had the opportunity for camera time, too.

But there it is, the connection.

"This Is Where Love Resides."

These feelings I have that I should be productive, that I should be realistic, that I should be making money and be a better housekeeper and a better mom, this is not love, this is fear and insecurity.

This internalized harangue is not where Love resides.

Where does it reside? Where I allow myself to sit and create for the duration of my cold (oh yeah, I'm sick again)? Does it reside in believing that my dreams will get me where I want to go? Sticking with it, even if the returns have not really come in yet? I have the sinking feeling that I'm going to have to give up part of my dreams to make a more concrete, realistic life choice. But then again, that doesn't mean that I have to give up the whole thing. Maybe I just have to reorganize and reorder things a bit. I do love to organize things, although you would not be able to tell if you looked in my bedroom.

(reverse) this is where Love resides

I like experimenting with art. I like trying new media and working out new solutions for my little problems.

I believe that this skill helps in real life too (and contrary to that silly idea that I see from time to time, Life is NOT Art. Life is Life. Art is how we make sense of Life). Sometimes I think I do better in Art than in Life. But, I can go about living creatively, and if I do so, perhaps I will get better at the realistic, concreteness of Life.

But remember, this is where Love resides, too. We have to temper the need for living realistically with things like Love, Beauty, Kindness and Art.

Perhaps the key to balancing the concrete aspects of living with the more ephemeral aspects is to really live in the NOW. Being present to what is there. Not putting off things that you really want, or conversely, are really afraid of. (Is that "or conversely" or should it be "and consequently"?)

Oh it all feels quite like being a juggler, dancing on a high wire, trying to keep those balls in the air... hmmm.... am I getting another idea?

The Back Alleys of Creativity

This is a picture I took this summer in Florida, out in the back alley, where it doesn't look manicured. Where the brick lined alleys are the original, from back before most streets in St Pete were even paved.

I always liked this view of Florida better than the pink flamingo and palm tree and sharp front lawn view.

I always like the undersides of places better than the stuff everyone wants you to see. I liked the roof tops of the old tenements in NYC better than Times Square. I like the layers pulled off of billboards in a collage, better than the shiny new ads. I like to watch the roadies, and imagine how musicians find their music and warm up their instruments better than watching the show. I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of the audience.

Perhaps that's why I spend so much time on my blog talking about the HOWS of creativity, the pitfalls, the alleys where the fears are taken away, the roof tops where we imagine what hasn't happened yet, the roadies working to get the creativity rolling again. What's underneath the pretty show, what made the beautiful happen.

Today, I've been traipsing around the blogosphere, and I have some new ideas bubbling up. I think creating these ideas might fill the hole left by my old routines because I am in a time of transition. I think if I follow these paths, I might have somewhere for my inspiration to go, instead of standing there and staring at the ceiling, wondering what to do next... which is what has been happening lately.

I wonder if I will have something to show tomorrow? Hmmm.

New ideas are fun. Watching them come alive???

cool.

Back to School and A Little Spacey

The set of Space Toys I created for G for Christmas: Rocket, Astronaut, two robot finger puppets, Alien and Spaceship (the alien comes out) and a Laser Shooter.
Made out of felt and cotton fabric.

Last night, I dreamed I was back in college again. Yes attending college, not as a 19 year old, but as a 39 year old. S and the kids were with me, even.

All morning, I was wondering why I have these recurring dreams of being back in college, attending way after I have my bachelors and even after my masters. I have these dreams often enough that when I'm sleepy or perhaps have a little head cold (like today) sometimes I get confused and think I've actually spent an extra year or two in college, as an adult and a student.

It's bizarre.

And then after some wondering and despite the head cold that clouds my brain, I realized (there's that word again) that perhaps I have these dreams when I am embarking on a new lesson to learn. When I am engaged in learning new skills, opening up new worlds, researching new steps... basically growing.

In order to realize my dreams, I am going to need to expand my education.

Just because it won't be on a traditional campus does not mean it won't be an education.

Ah, life, the ultimate teacher.

Does this mean life is going to hand me a syllabus to follow? I wouldn't mind, it would help me to know which way to go... oh wait... that is exactly what my little Realize Journal is attempting to do.

See, now, you can take the girl out of the Federation of Teachers, but you can't take the Teacher out of the girl.

Make It Dangerous or It's Not Worth Doing

Make it Dangerous or it's Not Worth Doing
pen, Pitt Artist Pen, Paper, 8x5"

Day 6/100 in 100 days
30 minutes :( 3hours and 56 minutes totall since beginning.

So I'm behind in my revision hours. A little over 2 hours behind my goal. Ugh. It's really a struggle to make my hours of writing time.

And it's not that I don't have time. I spend time browsing on line or reading or watching tv.

It's that....

Oh goodness gracious!

I'm AFRAID.

Of course it is.

And I did not plan today's drawing because of this revelation, I just had the revelation this instant. I mean, I knew there was a connection between Fear and writing/art. I also thought it was a good hint for writing a novel... to up the stakes, to offer some danger for your characters, other wise, well, it's just boring.

And I knew that it is dangerous for me to attempt this revision, to FINISH this novel, because this is what I really want, what I have always wanted and that means the stakes are terribly high for me to make a success of it. But what if I can't do it? What if I give up and never finish. Even worse, what if I do write my novel and finish my drafts and it SUCKS. What if I am not as good in reality as I am in my head?

I don't think it is ever as good in reality as it is in our imagination, in art or in life... and that's because there is always possibility, there is always freedom, there is always the concept of perfect in our dreams, but reality puts everything on the line.

Once we put something down on paper (metaphorically or literally) we are stuck with what we've done, who we are, and the choices we make. We have to let them live their own lives, be their own thing and they are evidence of who we really are inside. Not dreams, reality. Not potential. Evidence. Not perfect... imperfect.

Oh I am afraid of finishing my novel. Of not being good enough. Of putting my money where my mouth is and having it be quite a few bucks short of the price of admission.

So I use my normal excuses to avoid writing. Too busy. Too tired. No time. My brain is not working well today. Can't focus. I must be coming down with something because my head hurts. I need to clean my desk/make dinner/pack boxes/draw an inspirational quote. My favorite show is coming down and I won't have enough time before it. Oh it's too late now I'm too tired it's bedtime forget writing tonight. It's too hard.

But in the past, when I have uprooted those excuses and sat down to work, they have almost always evaporated into the creative work and the words. I have frequently discovered, past bedtime, that if I take my laptop to bed, I can whip out an hour of work and find my mind zooming through problems I thought I was too tired to hack. Or if I commit to only 15 minutes, I end up going for one hour, two hours. Sometimes just 15 minutes, but the words come and they add up.

What's the lesson here?

Follow the fear.

The fear tells you where there is danger. The danger tells you where there is something to lose. When there is something to lose, there is also something to gain.

When I'm scared of something lately, when I realize that it is FEAR holding me back, that is when I have to make the commitment to tackle it.

Because I want those dreams. These high stakes are the fulfillment of everything I have been working towards my whole life. This is dangerous because this is really, really

Important.

everything is made of light and shadow

everything is made of light and shadow
87/100 in 100 days creative challenge, 8/26/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8" moleskine

Can it be that it is simultaneous? This light and shadow?

I'm pretty sure it is.

There is no light without shadow, is there? It's the same Earth, whether it is night or day. The same coin, whether heads or tails.

So why are we grasping so hard to every little bit of light and pushing away the dark? Why are we afraid of the dark?

Are we convinced that light is the only good, that dark is somehow evil?

I think I'm afraid of the dark. Afraid I won't be strong enough or that it will never end or that there really are monsters roaming in the night, ready to eat me.

What if I never come out of the dark?

But I've already proven that I can withstand the dark. I've already proven that in the darkness when my eyes are closed, I see true visions.

Maybe it's the embracing of the dark that helps us not only survive, but thrive. Maybe if we accept our own darkness (grief, sadness, loss, fear, poverty, constraint, hunger, anger, dissappointment, loneliness, exhaustion, ______ insert dark here) then we won't feel the need to hang on so tightly to the inevitable dying (and rebirth) of the light.

Maybe if we don't hang on to the light so tightly, then the natural cycle of day and night can continue. And in the dark, we can do what we need to do, unafraid. And in the light, we can enjoy it and not run from the deepest shadows in fear, even as the sun is still shining brightly.

Flying Girl After Many Revisionings, or I am made of dreaming

Flying Girl After Many Revisionings, or I am made of dreaming
66/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Pitt Artist pens on Paper, 5.5x8.5"

I have been working on this painting for quite some me. If I had finished it when I started it, it would probably be # 45 or something like that. I started out thinking of Klimt. Then I turned it pink. I added squares. I added pink and white dots. Then I turned it pink and sky blue. Then it sat around for days (weeks?) as an unfulfilled idea.

Then yesterday I looked at it and said... well this is not right.

I added gold dots ontop of the pink and white dots. I added purple dots on top of the gold. I outlined everything in purple. I outlined everything in gold. I added teal dots on top of the purple, like peacock feather eyes. I painted the pink dress purple. I painted the sky blue sky into twilight. Blech. I painted the pink and white hair purple. I painted the dress white. I painted the sky storm gray. I added the white thought ribbon. I painted some words in. I painted some blue in the dress ontop of the still wet white. I painted in some black birds flying. I outlined the thought ribbon. I painted out the words in the thought ribbon. I drew in some swirls. I drew in some raindrops. I painted out the birds. I added more swirls. I decided I liked the rough unplanned look of it. I liked the weird color combos. The empty spaces and the random additions.

I have always had a problem with pretty. I think my first urge is to always paint pretty.

And yet I am drawn to rough and slightly ugly. I am drawn to powerful, and primal. Stuff from the gut.

I have a hard time painting ugly though. It almost always feels wrong unless it is pretty. But pretty is shallow to me.

I have been working on finding the balance between pretty and from the gut.

It's very hard.

Maybe the difficulty is within myself. Maybe it's my definition of "pretty" that has made the limits. Maybe I'm showing my neurosis. As a pretty girl, I have always run from being the "pretty girl."

Where do you find your long held ideas are getting in the way of your art? How are you limiting your own creativity and holding yourself back?

Are you afraid to write that novel because someone told you it was a waste of time? That you weren't good enough? That you can't succeed? Are you afraid to push yourself with your paintings because you're "not an artist, you're just messing around"? Are you not getting up on that stage because you aren't the kind of person to be in the center of attention? Are you only painting landscapes because portraits are too hard? Are you only doing acrylics because oils are too intimidating?

Explore what you are scared of. Explore what you are afraid of having people think.

Hey, paint a picture (or write a poem or do a dance) about it.... it couldn't hurt.

49-54 and Thinking About Art

The Sign Says Yes
49/100
pen and ink, Pitt Artist Pen, gold paint pen, 5x8"
This and all following pictures are from my copy of Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith


This is what my sign says. What I need to hear. What I need to think. No comes too easily to me.

For instance, I keep wanting to not count these Wreck This Journal pages as art. I don't want to count them in my creative challenge because I think I am cheating, but I am not. I keep thinking that all of my creative challenge pieces should be something to sell, but you know what? That's not good for my creativity. It's stifling. Which does not help the YES that I need.Ivy Likes to Paint, Just Not With Her Tongue.
50/100
tongue, crayola marker, pitt artist pen

My "no" wants to say that this is not art.

Lollipop Trees Directed by Ivy
51/100
Pitt Artist Pen

That this is not good enough or finished enough to be considered part of my creative challenge.

YOU SUCK
52/100
Pitt Artist Pen, hilighter, rollerball pen, diptych

My NO likes to say this a lot. This is one of my NO's favorite phrases. The other being, "I can't."
Time Passes in Moments
53/100
Pitt artist pen, diptych

My NO wants to say that this is just hatch marks so it couldn't possible be art, but then my YES (see first picture) reminds me that some of my favorite artists do not use figurative art. Or they use materials that will deteriorate. Or they write with chalk on public sidewalks. Or they factor graphic lines and casual marks into their work on a regular basis. Or repetition functions as a poetic metaphor.

The truth is, that this Wreck This Journal is about breaking out of the boundaries that we all set for ourselves. It is about taking chances and trying new things that we are not comfortable with. It is about experimenting and failing and making messes that we would never make if we were trying to make Art with a capital "A". Art for commerce. Art that other people will look at and say, now that's Art.
Night and Day
54/100
Pitt Artist Pen, Pen, Watercolor, Gel Pen, shower scrubbie. Diptych

Take a look at how I have squooshed all these pieces into one post, although there is something to say about each and every one. There is something to use in my "real" art. This is the mind working, the subconscious, happenstance, experimentations.

This is what art is about, not always about creating a perfect picture or something on canvas or something with masterful technique and craft.

Where is it going? That is the question, here. What path would this piece take me down? What can I utilize here in the next piece I do. Also, it serves as a survey, almost.

What is here in me? What are my thoughts? What are the marks I keep coming back to? What are the colors? What images, what themes, pull me again and again, and why do they?

This is about the exploration of the self, I believe, at least for me.

I don't know if I will ever do anything again with any of these pieces. they could stay stuck in my Wreck This Journal forever, mouldering away, for all I know, after visiting the book club.

But then again, they could lead to my next breakthrough. They could become the new connection. They could tell me what I should be doing with my life.

They've already gotten me thinking.

What about you? What is your current work saying to you about you? How can you break out of your comfort zone and travel to somewhere new?

Flying Girl is Many People, or Sketch Faces Pattern

Flying Girl is Many People, or Sketch Faces Pattern
012/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/12/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils on Moleskine Watercolor Paper, 5x8"

This is only two colors of paint and a sienna pencil. I like the interplay between paint and pencil, how it changes the color of the paint. I painted outside of the face sketches first, and then the inside, because I didn't want them to blend too much. I didn't want to paint over the drawing, I wanted to incorporate the drawing. So there are still edges. Still places where there is only pencil or only paper or only paint.

Is this creepy? The ghosty little half formed faces? I still like it.

Sometimes I feel like we are all made up of a million different people. A million different choices. A million different personalities. A million different answers.

Then we do something like paint pictures or write stories and those people show up. Made out of nothing but imagination and some paper.

Sometimes I am amazed that paintings I do today weren't there yesterday. They weren't just unformed, they didn't exist. It's not like they grew out of something else. They weren't anything.

Afterwards, sometimes, it feels like they have always been there. Like they are significant or familiar. Some gain in importance, some fade. My first flying girl was way back in 1992 in college. I did not know that she wasn't just an expression of my anxiety and excitement over my upcoming graduation from college. I did not know that she would reappear in various forms over the next 17 years. I didn't know that she would become significant again almost two decades later.

Where do these mysteries come from? Who are these mysterious selves we hold inside of us, and in what form will they show up next?

"remember" says the Girl in the Wings

"remember" says the Girl in the Wings
ACEO, acrylic on paper 2.5"x3.5"

This painting comes from the Illustration Friday prompt "theater".

Actually, there's more to it. I have a much larger work... or two not so much larger works... that really give the frame for this piece. (Not sure how much my life supports larger works. I may have to go a little smaller. Not enough time or focus to detail the bigger things.)

The image that you can't see shows a couple in formal dress dancing a waltz on stage. It looks like the perfect image of love, but beneath the stage, are shadowy figures who are doing all the work that makes the performers look effortless.

That's my idea here of theater. The appearance, the show, what everybody sees on the outside, and how it is supported by creatures dressed in black, scuttling around, doing the dirty work, getting angry and anxious and finding the words to say, and keeping the energy going. Who prompts the beautiful lovers when they have lost their words of love?

This girl does. She likes the shadows and she can't dance, but she will remind you where you are going next... because she knows where you came from.

and if you have any inspiration for my next works, leave a comment on this post, and you might win a print of the painting you inspire.

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.)

Flying Girl Follows Her Fear, or The Wolf and Red

Flying Girl Follows Her Fear, or The Wolf and Red
2/17/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on paper, 5x7

Sometimes, fear is a signal that we are getting close to our dreams. We are afraid to reach that potential and then be responsible for our own success and failures. We are afraid to have people depend upon us, because we are afraid we might disappoint them. We are afraid we really aren't good enough for our dreams. We are afraid we will be revealed as a fraud.

We are afraid that if we have something, it can then be taken away from us, or leave us of its own free will. We are afraid that what we want was not what we really wanted at all. We are afraid that we are not who we thought we were.

We are afraid of the mysterious and the unknown, and we'd rather stay safe holed up in our little cottage. We are afraid of taking a wrong turn and getting lost in the brambles. We are afraid we are not strong enough, quick enough, smart enough, talented enough, nice enough, tough enough, good enough to live up to the challenges on our road.

That way goes through the deep woods. That way is haunted by dangers and ghosts and wild animals.

Stay to the path, they say.

But perhaps, those of us who hear the howl of the wolf leading us into the shadows, are hearing the wildness of our own souls calling to us.

What power might we find if we fly to meet that untamed part of ourselves?

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 and the Heart, or Hide and Seek

Flying Girl and the Heart, or Hide and Seek
2/13/09
Golden Fluid Acrylics on paper 5x8"

I believe in synchronicity. I believe that we are all connected to the universe and to eachother, and things actually happen for a reason. It may not be a reason that is nice and happy for us little people scurrying about, but it's a reason, all the same. Sometimes, if you can tap into that synchronicity, those rhythms and patterns and intuitions and alignments and coincidences, then you can make something from them. Maybe you can make some sense. Maybe you can just make a painting.

That's what happened with this one. I get the feeling there's some deeper meaning here, but really, it just came about through coincidence.

First, Ivy was hiding in her room behind the curtains, which are wine colored. She was wearing a lavender nightgown, the wall was white/shadowed, and the trim was black. The color combination struck me, and I wanted to paint it. Then, I realized it was valentines day, and I should try to make some tiny effort to incorporate that into something, despite the fact that I don't celebrate the hearts and flowers holiday. (hey, yo! you wanna buy some long stem red roses? Only a hunnerd bucks a dozen!) So I thought she should be carrying a heart.

Sometimes love seems like that, to me. Hide and seek. Pull away, go into shadows, open up in joy. Really love of anything. The up and down in and out of love. Can it just go calmly and smoothly in one line? Can it stay the same and never change? I don't think so. It's always peekaboo. Sometimes we have to go hunting. Sometimes we have to call olly olly oxenfree. Sometimes we have to end the game and say, "here I am."

Looking at other incidences of synchronicity, Karen at Beelieve points out

Forty years ago, the intuitive words of a song called Aquarius, brought the dawning of the new age into our collective awareness:

When the Moon is in the seventh house

and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Then love will rule the planets

and peace will steer the stars

At dawn on 14^th February the Cosmos actually embodies this perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Yes. It is finally the age of Aquarius, a time for enlightenment and inclusiveness, not the polarity of us vs them, but the holistic WE.

The thought makes me sing, "let the sun shine, let the sun shine, the sun shine in...." which leads me back to yesterday's post.

Sing it with me folks.

Flying Girl and the Stormy Skies, or Here Comes the Sun, It's All Right

Flying Girl and the Stormy Skies, or Here Comes the Sun, It's All Right
2/12/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper 5x7"

It's hard to know where inspiration comes from. Yesterday, I was glancing through my photo files and saw a picture of cloudy skies over roofs and immediately got an idea. I thought a Flying Girl in a yellow sundress, looking like she was lit up by the sun would be just right.

Maybe the idea of a muse has its place. Leah was talking about muses and daemons over here.
And I can see the attraction to the concept, but I'm not really sure I buy it. It kind of takes away our own agency to say, "twasn't me, twas my muse." Do we have power over our own creativity? I think we do. I think by showing up to the work, we open the door to whatever inspiration, or, fine, muse might come.

But I also like to think that the higher power that is a muse is actually inside of us. It doesn't mean we're better than anyone else, because we are all part of that power, everyone of us. But it might mean that we're better at listening to that higher voice than other folks. By "us" I mean artists and other creative folk. And anyone can learn to listen. Yay, human nature and creative spirit!

I like to think that maybe we set up hospitable circumstances within us that allow the muse/higher spirit/inspiration to come together and become something new. Just like the birth of a baby our insides are the home to our art until we labor to get it out. To say it in a less romantic metaphor, the same could be said about poop.

Oh. Have I said too much? Just think about it, though. We put things into our bodies, like food and drink and drugs and really whatever we take in, good or ill, and then those things are processed within us, and come out the other end. Sometimes easily and regularly, sometimes uncontrollably, sometimes painfully and with difficulty, and sometimes we get completely backed up. The same could be said of art, but it wouldn't be food and drink we take in, but ideas, visuals, literature, music, conversations, walks through the woods, sunsets, or anything, really, any experience. And then, according to our own personal process and personal creation/expulsion, well... out comes the product. ta dah!

This is not where I was planning to take this post. Oops.

Anyway, this particular piece, I think it was influenced by a collective consciousness, a zeitgeist, as well as my own personal experiences lately. We, all of us, it seems, have been through some difficult times, a long hard winter, financial duress... but I truly believe Spring will come, in fact, is already coming even when it is the coldest. Just take a look at the swelling buds on the branches... proof that indeed, we do not need to be afraid that winter will last forever. Spring always comes.

Me myself, I've managed to stay positive even when things are difficult. It helps that I don't really want much, (except, you know, the world) and that I have my creativity to draw on for strength. Since I decided yesterday that I needed to stop asking such big things of myself when I was in a small place, I have felt a lightening of my tension. The whole world seems softer now. I still have a bit of agita, but it is nowhere near the spinning round in circles of before.

And while I was painting this picture, I kept singing to myself, "here comes the sun, la di dah dah, here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right..."

I like this mantra.

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.