Creative Bootcamp: Day Two - Picnic

When I was five, I would copy my grandfather (a man who is undefinable and many wonderful things) and sketch away, calling myself a nartist (misspelling intentional).   Art was simple, pleasurable, a way to connect myself with others and feel good about myself.

When I was a teenager, a woman came up to me and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  An artist, I said.  She told me that I don't become an artist, I am an artist, and to get used to saying it.  This proclamation stayed with and resonated with me.  Art had become an escape, a way to deal with angst and to get out of classes.  I briefly wore the title, carefully hiding it, hopeful that I could be someone worthy of such a statement.

In college, I took art classes, and struggled to label myself as artist.  Art became humiliating, a way to compare myself with others and fail miserably in comparison.  And so I graduated from college, searching to define myself in another way and taking a long journey to realize that my heart only wanted one thing:  to make.

I took classes, I made things, I researched.  I worked lame jobs, meeting a woman who called herself as artist and described how every night she would go home and make art.  After working all day and adding nothing to my soul, I felt empty and could not go home and make art.  For many years, I made nothing, feeling shame about my self-expression and guilt about my inability to work hard at it.   I returned to college and set a path to become an art therapist, a career that made art making acceptable without having to actually call myself an artist. 

During my graduate program, I experimented with media, had fun and tried all sorts of new techniques.  I facilitated all sorts of art making experiences for others.  I learned how to call myself art therapist, but never artist.  I learned that I love writing, I learned to not shove art into a box, I learned that art was a powerful tool to express my heart, thoughts, and dare say it, my soul.   But I did encounter my arch nemesis:  The Inner Critic.  I still need to do major battle with this evil foe, it is my sleeping dragon awakened by this bootcamp. 

Now I am an art therapist:  I find fulfillment in many ways in my job; and in many ways I do not.  The five year old inside of me wonders why we aren't just making art with others just because.  During my interview for this position, I said that art was the most powerful gift to give someone, the gift of self-expression.  But I struggle with feeling that my soul is not worthy of such profound expression while trying to convince others that theirs is.  I rarely use art in my work, and validate it for all sorts of soul-sucking reasons (paperwork, space, time).  Shame on me, because I know better.  Here I make the statement that this will change simply because it has to:   And so for my five year old self, I proclaim that I am a nartist.  I am, I am, I am!

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And my image for Picnic...I wanted to show the image of the picnic blanket flying away under the tree featured on day one's artwork.  I didn't know why until I added journaling on the page with the words "Let go" and "I forgive".  Maybe its time to let go previous ways of thinking and move forward...or let go of my worries...maybe day 3 will show more.

Creative Bootcamp: Day One - Ivory

I am not going to lie:  I really struggled with Ivory.  Ivory?  What do I do with ivory?  Of course, my inner critic was in overload, worrying about what other people would think, what everyone else was doing and how the heck I was going to throw something together in a day.  I cursed myself for not being better at photography, or sewing, or drawing.  Me, my strength is in over-thinking.  So I over-thought it all day long.  I did research.  I free associated.  And then I grabbed my book, took a deep breath and jumped in.

In my atlas/altered book, I found a page featuring a map of Africa because I wanted to include the Ivory Coast.  Congratulating my cleverness, I sketched out the image of an elephant (for the ivory tusks!) around the shape of Northeast Africa.  On a serious tip, I felt it was really important to include the elephant because it remained the first thing I thought of as I was trying to conceptualize this and I couldn't shake it.  And then I took it a step further and added an ivory tower.  Do we get bonus points for overthinking?  Because I think it took it too far...and included an amazing quote I found about distinguishing true dreams from false:

Stranger, dreams verily are baffling and unclear of meaning, and in no wise do they find fulfilment in all things for men. For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfilment. But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them. But in my case it was not from thence, methinks, that my strange dream came.  (Odyssey, book 19, lines 560-569).

I enjoyed the difference between the gray-black and the yellow-white, both not quite pure.  The whole image felt very dream-like and unreal, so I let it be, adding found images to push this further.  I included my letter in an envelope on the page, because it all seemed to go together and the letter belonged there as part of the project.  And the letter I found easy-peasy to do:  it is a task I give to clients all the time, and have done before.

I feel strongly that more needs to be done, but there is another project to be completed tomorrow and so tonight I call mercy.  So take it as it is. 

Closeups:

Creative Bootcamp: the Prequel

For the Creative Bootcamp, I will be using my altered book that I started a looong time ago after this.  Like every project I start, the altered book fizzled after a promising beginning.  The thing is, I love it and want to keep adding to it.  So I am.   Images are from the altered book.

This book is simply amazing.  It has a heavy green cover, the pages take paint really well.  The book is an atlas, exactly the type of book I would flip through when I was a kid, identifying places on the maps, reading about far away places, and learning about import/export businesses like it was my job.  And as an altered book, it has lots of potential:  maps, lists and sweet cheesy illustrations from the seventies. 

I have no clue what to expect, so I started prepping some pages for journalling...

I Love, I Love

On my way home from work, I put down the car windows to breathe as I navigated the late evening traffic and tried to catch glimpses of the sunset.  The sky was shimmery pale orange, with trailing arms of the remnants of the storm that blasted its way through earlier, its fingers hanging like lace over the sun.  I was reflecting on how I told my last client about the rainbows that kept showing themselves right outside my office after these sweeping storms, and something about holding the hope, trying desperately to tell this person that they deserved more, more, more.  Another who reminded me that I too hide from others, afraid of being hurt.  We all, they all, I.  I felt quiet, flipping through my iPod to find the song that fit, finding this:

I heard love can fall so hard, it can bury a kingdom
I heard it makes the spring appear out of season
It's a storm in a shadowbox, a force to be reckoned with,
When it finds you and find you, it will.

And I'd not believed it til I loved, I love
The rivers sing and stars awaken above me
And the wind and the moon in fits of restless conspiring
Turn night to heaven for you.

But I am going to a far, far land
I know it sure as I've a past and a future
With my maps on the table, you see, I have lost many things
So many I won't turn back.

And were I a deadwood ship, my heart a compass
I would leave with inanimate grace, no love could touch me
But I live and I know that I'll burn as I grow
Though it might break my heart to walk away and so

As a moon may adore you and remain, high moon
The wind may crown your head with leaves, and keep blowing
So I'll stop and I'll watch you, for I love, I love
And then be on my way. And then be on my way.

Dar Williams, "I Love, I Love (Traveling II)" 

Two years

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our two year wedding anniversary (and eleven years together).  We marked the day by splurging on some peanut oil and finally pulling out the wok we received as a wedding present...two years ago.

Since we received it, the wok has lived in its original box at the top of our hall closet, waiting.  We had wanted it badly but we were afraid of it.  Yes, afraid of it.  It lurked on the edge of our awareness, finding it when we opened the closet door to grab laundry detergent.  We would pause to contemplate its existence, thinking "soon" and continuing on.  We almost used it once before.  But for some reason, now we were ready.  [If I were to make some loose correlations, I would say that our experience with the wok is very much like our hemming and hawing around buying a house and having babies.  Meaning, we are ready.  But that is another post.]

The directions dictated that we season the wok, which ended up with my husband yielding hot mitts and paper towels, and a smoky apartment.  Very romantic stuff.  The wok required a waltz of planning and fast-paced multi-staged cooking.  Fortunately, we cook and bake well together.  I do all the preparation, buzzing around, cleaning up, anticipating the next steps; he is precise, patient and thoughtful.  When we work together, we are successful and accomplish things that daunt us.

We spent this long weekend talking and planning as usual.  Right now we are indecisive, gathering the pieces and asking all the questions and doing all the research.  We argue, we discuss, we negotiate, we dream and then we freak out.  And then suddenly, we collectively decide and move forward.  We work very well together.

Happy anniversary...I can't wait to see what comes next. 

Creative Bootcamp!

My husband and I just spent a week wandering the East Coast, gaining some clarity and hopefully reshifting priorities a bit.  I even went through my schedule book and scheduled in exercise AND creative time.  I have a hard time leaving work, usually sneaking home around 8 pm because I'm giving a minute here, an hour here, laboring over paperwork and making one last phone call.  But with each compromise, I lose that minute with myself, an hour with my husband, the chance to make a phone call to a friend or spend some time with a book.  My clients are important; but so am I.  I HAVE to take care of myself.

And then, exciting, I decided to join this creative bootcamp!  I can't begin to say how thankful I am for this ... I'm normally the one coming up with activities, guiding and helping others be creative.  I am desperate for a creative boost, and am committed to this.  Another biggie for me is that I used the opportunity to share my blog for the first time to other people.  Holy jeez, that's scary.  But I want to share what I am doing, and I want to hold myself accountable.  And my blog helps me to sum things up for myself and get excited about making.  Plus, I've been learning and reading for quite awhile now, I think its time to share.  I spent so long making judgments on myself-as-artist, and have worked hard to get to a place where its not about quality of work but quality of expression.  As long as I'm tapped in and expressing myself, that's good for me and I'm glad to share.

Today, we sat on the beach and I sketched out some ideas going forward.  The first is being in control of my time as mentioned above.  I've scheduled Tuesday nights to do creative stuff, and I have some ideas of what I would like to do including finishing all my random projects, working on our wedding and honeymoon scrapbook, making baby things (is that jinxing?).  I am planning to run several art groups next fall, and want to set up the curriculum and experiment with methods.  I plan to make one artist card a week.  Finally, I've been watching the Week in the Life work done here, but I wasn't ready to work on the project then.  I'm strongly considering completing the project during my birthday week at the end of June.  I'm a big believer in being introspective during birthdays, and love the idea of having to be fully present (no pun intended, sorry). It would be cool to do every birthday.  While I was making my plans, it struck me that I haven't even started the bootcamp yet, and already the creativity is flowing.  I am ready; and I am ready for the changes that being tapped into creativity brings.  

I have been doing crafts, I promise

My crafting has been lacking.  Thought I would do the usual and shame myself into keeping it moving by posting here.  I am so determined to finish projects, well, I just can't even say.  It is so much fun in the beginning.  And then it gets boring fast.  I have to be mindful of that while I'm conceiving of projects.  I am terrible at editing and always want to do more.  But I'm tired of leaving half completed projects. 

My California scrapbook project is painfully slow going.  Its fun to work on it when I have nothing else to do and need something mindless and crafty, but I am determined to get the darn thing done this month.  We're going on another trip and I am already hatching something scrapalicious to do for it.  As always I have no clue what I'm doing.  Its so big that I've added a hundred pages and posts, and still have like three sections to go.  I still question what the purpose of this is, but love it and ultimately don't care.  Posts below show a finished page, a page in progress, and a page with random stuff ready to be used.  I think my next challenge is coming up with a better way to document our next trip.  All I have right now is a moleskin notebook and a big fat book on England.  Hmm.

The Winter 25 Scrapbook has also been hard to complete.  I really enjoyed the Fall 25 Scrapbook, but not so much with the Winter one.  The Fall one was novel, whereas the Winter was not.  While the Fall one did the trick to ward off the Winter blues, they still showed up in small little ways.  With the Winter one, I wasn't into the to-do items in the same way, and didn't do them with the same creativity.  And so, it lacks the pizazz of the Fall one.  I completely replaced multiple items, and half did others.  But some things were lovely:  finishing my quilt, capturing Spring and taking a very cold walk along a frozen Charles River all rocked (photos below).  I'm also determined to finish this one by the end of the month because I REALLY want to get started on my Spring/Summer one!

This is all I have for the Spring/Summer album so far.  Its a different size (5.8 X 8) and has a binder inside.  I have a list of to-dos (mostly things to explore in New England - a total road trip all summer!) but don't want to follow them in the same way, if at all.  For the Fall and Winter, I documented according to the items, but for the Spring/Summer, I want to make dividers for each month and document chronologically.  For example, for the month of April, I have a date night, the Boston Marathon, and pictures of the spring.  I want to put together a narrative and somehow document it all together.  And for May, I already have our water adventure that I'd like to put together with a story.  I've been gathering and taking photos, so we'll see.  I have no idea how this is going to work out, just that it needs to be different from the Fall and Winter ones.  Hopefully it will keep me invested and exploring and doing things.

So I promise, I am doing things.  Just very very slowly.

Changes to come...

I have been feeling for awhile that something is about to change.  I could guess as to what it might be, as several things are in the works, big monumental things.  A house, a family, maybe a job change.  Even my horoscope agrees.  Today I saw a rainbow that solidified my belief, and gave me a great deal of peace over things that have been confusing and scary. 

These past few days have been especially difficult.  Our entire area was under a boil water order due to a broken water main.  It continues to come as a surprise at how many things we needed that water for.  Laundry was completed during visits to open houses outside of the zone, and dishes piled up, and piled up and piled up.  For some reason this whole thing made us very agitated, but the truth is, the agitation has been growing anyway.  Every weekend we've been going to open houses, finding scary basements and even scarier mortgage payments; struggling with the concept of "home" and not finding it anywhere.  We've both been frustrated at work, wanting more and working hard, but mainly just holding steady.  We are faced with having to make it work, all by our little selves.  Yikes.  Something had to give, right? 

I've noticed that when things need to give, they tend to give way via water.  For me, water brings change.  A water main break asks us to consider our daily tasks and challenges us to do them in a different way.  Big sweeping storms clear the air in fireworks and bangs, and leave us to breathe more deeply and think more clearly.  Something is about to shift, I am hopeful and watchful. 

Another completion

World, meet Squarey.

Squarey is not my creation - the recipe is from this book.  I started Squarey shortly after the completion of his sister, Spherey....two years ago.  Poor Squarey sat in a ziploc baggie for years, a backing, a leg, and two arms.  A friend gave me eyes.  And finally I started the final push, completing the stripes and working my way up the back.

At the same time I decided it was time to take the test for my license.  Over the past month and a half, I've been studying like crazy.  And today I passed.  Let me restate that:  Today I PASSED.  So, in a year of bringing things to completion:  done and done.

A seven year quilt

I did it!  On this President's Day, I finally finished this crazy quilt.  I sewed up the edges on the binding, laid it out over my bed, and stared at it in something like amazement.  My husband smiled over the quilt and said, "too bad it doesn't have a story," and I said, "but it does!"  In fact, this quilt was subject of my first blog entry...a year and a half ago.  Started during a major snowstorm that shut down all of Maryland precisely seven years ago, it felt timely to finish it while Maryland dug itself out again.  I feel far away from Maryland up here in the north, and needed a way to feel connected again, while also re-examining the separation. 

This quilt really represents our journey from Maryland to Massachusetts, the beginning of a large endeavor set aside until I could figure out my new life here.  Just finding a way to focus on an art activity, much less find space to do work, took effort.  Tackling the quilting took a herculean feat of strength, similar to the intensity of figuring out a big city, going to school, finding a job, being away from home.  After all that work, today I concentrated on the detailing, the binding, the edging, the clean up:  and that is representative of where we are now.  Similarly, today I registered for my licensure test, the culmination of three years of graduate school and two years before that, two internships, over 60 credits, one and half years of work and almost 2,000 hours with clients.  I'm coming to the end of a long cycle.  This quilt says that we live here now, the ending of this seven year journey.  And the truth is, I am still homesick, and I am glad to be coming to the end of all this work.  This has been a tough seven years.  But I did it, and its beautiful.