I won!

Whut?! Remember a couple of weeks ago when I posted this? It was my very first art challenge submission for Minted.com.

So tonight, I got an email notification that someone congratulated me. Huh?! My piece won a jury's pick award!

I can't even really talk about it, I'm so surprised. Hence, I'm reverting back to teen-speak... so, yeah... I'd like to thank The Academy (the minted academy anyway), but you probably won't read this.

For my one reader (who is not my mom), you'll know when the print is officially offered on the site. Yup, I'm officially officially Minted! :)

One Small Change

In Chapter Two, one of Julia’s “tasks” is to make one small change.

As much crazy as I’ve created in the last six years, I’ve also very deliberately and consciously created a lot of joy, personal fulfillment and true aliveness. This, I also attribute to boundaries. If you are interested in this conscious creation stuff, I highly recommend the book, The Not So Big Life by Sara Susanka. When I was blogging for My Mommy Manual I got a chance to do a skype interview with Sara. This book was pivotal in my life design. Sara is an architect and is credited for the Not So Big movement in house design. Her whole premise is that we don’t need McMansions, we need spaces that fit our lives. Of course, this requires that we know what’s important to us. She wrote the Not So Big Life in response to understanding that your inner space, ideally is reflected in our outer spaces.

I’m not going to go into that book here but just as an example, I’ll share one of Sara’s anecdotes from the book. Sara loves writing (obviously). But prior to her life overhaul she would spent 14 hours working and in the fading moments of the day, sit down to write. Her passion wasn’t getting the best Sara, but rather , the dregs.. What she did getting her best attention was the flood of emails that would come into her inbox first thing in the morning. Only when she had responded to all of the fires could she begin her work day and on and on until right before bed when she could barely squeek out a few sentences.

I can’t recall how she got to this point, whether she made a list of her priorities, passions, etc. but she made a small adjustment to her daily schedule: instead of checking her emails first thing, she checked them twice a day, at 10 and 4 and devoted the first hour or so of her day to writing instead. Doing the thing she loved first thing meant 1) it got done and 2) to her surprise, she discovered that most of the fires that came to her via email resolved themselves before she ever got to them!

Now that is an everyday miracle right there! For me, it was a tangible example for how making a small change that aligns yourself with your values can make a HUGE DIFFERENCE.

So my “small” change was cutting out television. Small is in quotes because I cannot tell you what a profound impact that had on me. 1) I didn’t have to pay for cable 2) my kids stopped fighting over what shows to watch after school 3) I found hours upon hours in my day/week and 4) without all those ads, I was clueless about the things I was supposed to want but didn’t have yet 5) I was so much less stressed out by not watching LOST and Law & Order.

Okay. Your turn. Can you think of one small adjustment you can make in your life that will align yourself with your values/passions/creative life?

Boundaries

Our first check-in and I totally overslept! So if you’re feeling guilty or something, don’t. I missed a couple of days this week but I’m still truckin! On to Chapter Two.

This chapter is called Recovering Your Identity, which was interesting to me because as I read it, it felt like it was all about boundaries! I guess that makes sense... what you want, what you don’t want. What’s okay and not okay is defining.

Continuing to protect your recovering artist is still important. Julia counsels against people who are toxic to your creativity: the Drama Queens and the Crazymakers. Ugh! I have been (in the past) a magnet for such types. You know, the people who suck you into their crazy!!!

Perhaps you can’t relate to this at all and all your friends, co-workers and family members are of the sane variety. In which case, you would have no idea about people who suck up your time and energy and expect you to be there for them every time they create a whirlwind of misplaced drama.

That’s so fabulous because if that is the case, you don’t have to look yourself in the mirror and say what no one has been honest enough to tell you: you’re crazy too! Yup! That’s what Julia says. If you are locked in a dance with a drama queen or crazy maker, you are getting something out of it. In the case of your art/creativity, it’s the convenient excuse of not dealing with your own shit/fear/resistance to being a creative being.

Anyhoo... so as not to point fingers at anyone but myself, let’s look closely at the case study of Ria Sharon. Like I mentioned in the brief synopsis of my life, my family was super supportive. If I have to be brutally honest with myself on this point, I could say that I created a whole lot of crazy in in the last six years. If I had chosen not to blow up my marriage, well, I could have spent a lot more time pursuing my art instead of worrying about how to feed my kids and keep the lights on.

Don’t get me wrong. I can’t imagine being where I am today creatively if not for what’s happened in the last six years, either. And yes, my kids are fed and the lights remain on. But I find it healthy to try different perspectives on just to keep my side of the street clean, so to speak.

Back to boundaries. Here’s a great exercise I learned from Julia and the armadillo (obscure animal medicine reference): Draw a circle. Inside the circle write down what you want to invite into your life and what you want to keep out. Here’s mine from a couple years back.

People who know me would probably say I am quite boundaried, actually. I’m constantly examining this in-and-out-of-the-circle dynamic. What’s okay and what’s not okay. I think it’s the J in my INTJ personality type.

Daily Experience Boundaries

Art Boundaries

Anyway... try it. For me, doing these exercises somewhat regularly gives me some guidance. As a pleaser and all that, my knee jerk is always yes. So it’s helpful to check in with my circles to remind myself when it’s really okay to say no -- and in so doing, protect my time, my energy and my creativity.

p.s. The print above was inspired by my reflection of boundaries. I decided to submit it to Minted for the West Elm Art Challenge -- since that meets all my art boundary criteria! :)

Affirmations!

Affirmations. Yes, that is what people call those things I wrote in Monday's post -- the things we use to defend against our negative beliefs. Perhaps you've used affirmations before and maybe they make you think of Stuart Smalley but there's actually something about affirmations and how our brains work that make them pretty darn powerful.

In preparation for a class I teach, I did a bunch of research on the science of storytelling. I could go into a whole long thing but I did that in the last post. Haha!

To quote the great post-modern Stephen Sondheim in Into the Woods "Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell." 

So as you write your affirmations, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
• Write them in the present tense... I am, I have, etc. rather than I want, I will etc.
• Write them in the positive... I am abundant, I am safe... no hidden negatives like I am not poor, I am not scared etc.

And if you just can't find the time, I have a little gift for you. I've written 10 affirmations that you can just adopt for yourself.

Bonus... let's have some fun with this!
1. Download the PDF of affirmations here. I left lots of blank spaces so you can fill in your own.
2. Print them out and cult along the dotted lines
3. Roll them into little scrolls and put the scrolls into a bowl.
4. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and pick one!

This will be your affirmation for the rest of the week/chapter. Say it out loud before you do your morning pages. Say it out loud before you go to bed. Put it in your wallet, tape it to your steering wheel or your mirror or your computer monitor, put it above your kitchen sink, on your refrigerator -- anywhere you will see it often throughout the day.

Creating a Safe Place

Hello, fellow creative souls! Today we begin!
How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?
Rest assured that first day jitters are totally normal.

The theme for the week is creating a safe place for the artist in you to come out and play.

I am going to ease into this process myself and stick to the very basic tasks. Of course, feel free to do more. This is go-at-your-own-pace-choose-your-own-adventure experience. Remember? You can't mess this up as long as you do it. You can do it!

The important action item for this chapter is protecting the artist you are so that your early efforts are encouraged. Julia says judging these early artistic efforts is artist abuse! So NO JUDGEY! Go gently and slowly. Find an encouraging and accepting audience, if any at all.

Chapter One Debrief
Chapter one explores safety and fear. Julia starts off sharing various stories of "shadow artists," people she knows who were too afraid to pursue their art because they did not receive the proper encouragement so instead become art collectors or art teachers or art therapists or who marry/date artists. Shadow artists go into advertising, become illustrator/photography reps etc. etc. etc.

Often, we block an aspect of ourselves because it feels safer. This is very true for me. I was one of those people. I've been in advertising and marketing for the last 20 years! ;P Conversely, that must mean that being/becoming an artist felt unsafe to me for some reason.

My morning pages and reflecting on this really helped me to identify the negative ideas/beliefs I have had about artists. It was a mystery to me since I was one of the fortunate ones. I had a family that actually celebrated my art! My grandmother enrolled me in art classes all summer long all through my childhood. I had a great art teacher at my elementary school. My family really wanted me to get my MFA and were kinda disappointed (I think) that I decided to go into advertising instead. My aunt was the one who gave me The Artist's Way all those years ago. So in my case, the problem was not my family and friends.

I discovered that my negative beliefs about artists came from art school! Here's what I "learned" in art school:
artists are weird
artists don't have ordinary lives
artists have to suffer to make art worth making
artists are poor

Let me paint the picture for you (pun intended). My painting instructor was Ed Paschke. One of my T.A.'s was Audrey Niffeneger. They are both totally weird! And I say that with the deepest respect, considering that Ed was the first living artist to have a retrospective at The Art Institute of Chicago. And Audrey... she did write a NYT bestseller that was made into a movie. Also, I'm pretty sure that they both would wear "weird" like a badge of honor!

There was that. And then there was the graduate student in my program who was so brilliant and amazing and I wanted to be just like him until I found out he was homeless and bathed himself in the sink in his studio.

So it was a math problem:
A = artists are weird/crazy/unstable
B = i don't want to be weird and/or unstable
A + B = i am NOT an artist

Considering I had organized my entire life around becoming as normal as possible and around the avoidance of suffering (I know, crazy me), becoming an artist did not feel good to me.

So. Advertising.

What's happened? What changed since then?
Time.
I aged... I grew up, might be a kinder way to say it.
20 years happened.
And marriage, kids, divorce.
People I loved died.
You know, life!

But seriously, I spent up until my mid-30's doing the "normal" thing and that didn't really work out so well. I've spent the last six or so years licking my wounds and reclaiming all the weird things about myself that, as it turns out, makes me who I am. I started hanging out with amazing artists like Jen and Sharon and Janet. I did a lot of soul searching, meditating, etc. etc. and I discovered that just as we are our own worst enemies, we can also be our own best allies.

All those negative beliefs have corresponding positive beliefs that I could just as easily adopt...
artists are weird artists are unique and magical
artists don't have ordinary lives artists have extraordinary lives
artists have to suffer to make art worth making life will have suffering. artists transmute suffering into expressions of humanity.
artists are poor artists are rich in everything that makes it possible for my soul to breathe.

Sorry that this debriefing became the brief synopsis of my life. But I thought it might help if I shared my process through the chapter. Perhaps it will help you ponder similarly...

What am I afraid of? Why?
Where did I get these negative ideas/beliefs about art?
Can I hold a different possibility, even if only for today?

Here are the prompts for this week. Feel free to share your discoveries in the comments below for the rest of the week... or not.

So happy you're reading this right now.
Happy MLK Jr. Day and...
Til next time, stay wild and and weird,
:)
R

Rare Books

For my artist's date I made an appointment at the Rare Books Collection at Wash. U. Incredible! If you have such a thing near you, I highly recommend a visit. If you're in St. Louis, call Kelly.

I spent a lovely lunch hour getting to hold in Chaucer's Tales in my grubby little hands. I took 45 pictures! Sorry these aren't the best quality but I was much more focused being there than on documenting appropriately.

These are just a few of the treasures we got to see. The lower collage is a hand-lettered, hand-painted  Book of Hours from the 16th Century. The last image are the notes, possibly written by it's owner.

Talk about inspiration!

To beginnings...

In a few days, I’ll be kicking off a 12-week exploration of The Artists’ Way by Julia Cameron. This book is often referred to as “the seminal work on the subject of creativity.” I would love your company, if you’re up for a journey.

So if “seminal work on the subject of creativity” sounds a little intimidating to you, no worries. I’m doing The Artist’s Way, light. Book optional.

I firmly believe that on the matter of creativity (and art), our path is our own, which can be a comfort in that there’s no wrong way to do this. BUT, I’ve also found it extremely supportive to find a group of like-minded souls who can hold hands along the way and help me to feel safe during the dips and and turns into dark corners. Your presence would be such a gift.

Just bookmark this blog or subcribe to the posts. I’ll publish a prompt or activity every couple of days beginning on Monday to help keep us on track.

Til soon...
R

Go with the flow.

Be. Here. Now.

My word for 2015 is CRAFT. I made a commitment to make art on a regular basis and Suzanne pushed me for weekly. Yikes!

Here's my first piece for the year, which I also submitted to Minted.com's Work of Art Challenge. Wish me luck! ;P

Finding the Warmth

My first artist's date per The Artist's Way: the climatron at the Botanical Gardens.
Why? Well, it's freezing here!!!
Loved all the patterns. Really looking forward to drawing some of these.

photo credit: Henry

Baby Announcement: Class of 2033

Not my baby!

Just baby announcements.

My achilles heel is stopping short. I can have a solid concept but I have a tendency to say, Good enough! long before it really is great. So I decided to submit to Minted.com's baby announcement challenge to see if "social design" would push me past my natural stopping point.

Step-by-step as follows...

mood board

sketches

drawing

inking

color palette

first submission

So... this is the point where I would stick a fork in it! :)

But I got lots of great feedback from the Minted community. Obviously, I'm a little enamored by my hand-lettering and was jumping at the chance to do this vintage collegiate thing but considering that the point of a baby announcement is to feature the baby... I gradually toned down the graphic elements.

revision 2

revision 3

revision 4

Final

Vintage hand-lettered 1-photo birth announcement riffs off of your 2015 new arrival being a future 2033 grad. Works well for your retro boy or girl!

I must admit, I LOVED doing the challenge! It was incredibly helpful to get input but it was also a great feeling being part of a community working on something together, so to speak. It was equally fulfilling providing constructive feedback to other. So yeah... I'm Minted! :)

There are so many amazing designs so who knows if I'll place but regardless, I think the process really helped my end product. Voting begins on Jan. 12, I think.

The Artist's Way: Permission to be a Beginner

Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant defensive hostility: "But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?"

Yes... the same age you will be if you don't.
So let's start.
~ Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

At a New Year's Eve party last night, a friend of mine casually mentioned that she had picked up The Artist's Way and thought of me! This is the third time that the book has entered my awareness in the last six weeks—a sure sign that I'm supposed to do something with it.

The Artist's Way has been around for years. I received it as a graduation gift 20 years ago but at the time, my artist was in deep hibernation. Like, really deep! Like, the book may as well have been written in a foreign language! And, I have to admit that I've never finished it all the way through but realize now that many of my own practices as well as those that I've prescribed for others who I've coached were inspired by this book.

If the book intimidates you, I'm thinking of boiling it down to it's essentials here and see if that works better for you.

What a perfect way to kick off 2015! 12 weeks of nurturing creativity! Who's in? If this feels like just the right thing for you and you want a little accountability, join me. This is my accountability!!! ;P

I'll do weekly check-in's on Mondays—for Chapter 1 on January 26 (...to give you time to decide/get book/get acclimated etc. to join the fun.)

Bare Essentials for Chapter 1:
1. Morning Pages: This used to be killer for me. Now, it's not. For a) I use my Moleskin journals which are 3.5 x 5.5! :)

If all you do is fill 3 pages every day with all the reasons why you feel wobbly and inadequate as an artist, it has served it's purpose. For reals. This a great place to contain your Inner Critic.

2. Artist's Date: If you need ideas, click the link. But simply and most importantly, spend at least 2-3 hours 1x weekly doing something you absolutely love, that brings you joy, that fills up your creative well.

3. If you have the book, pick any one of the tasks Julia describes for Chapter 1. If you don't have the book, do this one that has worked really well for me and my artist friends:

A Day in Your Dream Life
If you could do/be anything, what would it be and what does a regular day of that life look like. Paint the picture for yourself, use descriptive words! ;) What time do you wake up? And what time do you go to bed? What's the first thing you do? Where are you? What do you do for most of the day? Describe how it feels to live this way. Describe how you are in this life.

You can add a comment below—what you did for your artist's date. If you feel like sharing your dream life you can or simply write "done" if you've completed your tasks or "2" for number of hours you spent nurturing your artist child.

Happy New Year!
Until soon....