Entries from: January 2010

Let Others In

January 30th, 2010, Comments (33)

let-others-in

Yesterday I finished this art for a project that's due shortly, but I thought it made a fitting image for the end of the body theme and beginning of the home theme. The theme for this piece is: "Let others in."

I think in many cases we use our body, either through body language or weight or attitude to keep others out. It's a safety mechanism meant to protect us from getting hurt. But these same safety mechanisms can also hurt us by not allowing us to get close to or get support from others. Have you ever experienced that? I know I have.

Doing this image has had me musing on the idea of letting others in, whether through an open embrace, sharing what's in our hearts, or welcoming others into our homes.

What are some of the ways you practice letting others in?

Update: A bit last minute, but this morning at 10am CST I'm going to be on Liv Lane's radio program, Get Real, in St. Paul/Minneapolis for about 15 minutes. The station is 107.1

*You can now listen to the podcast of the radio show here! I'm at the very beginning of hour 2. Enjoy!

Other places to find my art

January 28th, 2010, Comments (12)

lantern

Over at Liv Lane's blog, Choosing Beauty, Liv is having a giveaway for a print of my mixed-media piece, Lantern. You can enter to win by leaving a comment on her blog by Friday 1/29 at midnight!

I also love the question Liv asks with the giveaway, "What lights your way on your darkest days?" I answered the question in the comments and have been enjoying reading the answers from others! Liv is a fellow Creative Every Day Challenge participant, who also co-hosts a fabulous weekly radio show in Minnesota called Get Real, which I got to be a guest on last month!

You can also be entered to win one of my prints every month by subscribing to my Blue Tree Art Gallery newsletter. The sign-up form for that is in the lower left corner of the site, where I offer original art, prints, greeting cards, and calendars featuring my work.

This month and next, you can also see my work on the beautiful online zine, All Things Girl. The theme this month is Through the Looking Glass and my pieces, Leap and Listening are featured.

A big, heartfelt thank you to everyone here for supporting my growth as an artist. It means the world to me!

Creative Every Day Theme for February: Home

January 26th, 2010, Comments (35)

At the end of each month I will announce the totally optional theme for the following month. February 2010's theme will be: Home.

As always, the themes for the Creative Every Day Challenge are totally optional. Use it if it sparks you, continue being creative every day in your own way if it doesn't, or do something in between.

I think this theme may be less emotionally charged than the theme of body, but I also think it's an excellent transition from January's theme, as the body is our home too. I'm also thinking of this theme in terms of clearing clutter, creating in a space that inspires you, making art about the home, making art to decorate your home, and exploring what the concept of home means to you. There are endless ways you can play with the theme and I'm open to any interpretation.

I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month on the blog to help keep you inspired. You can use the posts here for jumping off points or interpret the theme in your own creative way. If you need some suggestions, here are a few ideas to get you started. You could:

  • *Write freely about what the idea of home means to you.
  • *Make a vision board of your ideal home.
  • *Focus on clearing a little bit of clutter each day.
  • *Shift things in your space and see how it impacts your creativity.
  • *Make art about the homes you've lived in.
  • *Find your favorite nook in your home and draw it.
  • *Sculpt houses out of clay, play-dough, or paper pulp.
  • *Create a sacred space in your home.

How to use the CED themes:

If you're feeling creatively stuck or blocked at any point during the month, use the theme as a source of inspiration to get you moving. Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.

Using the theme is entirely optional for CED participants. Use it if it inspires you, ignore it if it doesn't. I'll be sharing posts throughout the month around the theme (among other things) to get you thinking about how to incorporate it into your life. I'd love to hear how you use the theme in your creative world.

And have fun with it!

p.s. The art I adapted for this post is from my mixed-media piece titled, A Crowd of Sorrows, which is available as a print here.

Home is the nicest word there is. ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

Creative Every Day Check-In: January 25 – 31

January 25th, 2010, Comments (32)

This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities.

Join in the Challenge: You can sign up for the  2010 Creative Every Day Challenge anytime! Find out more and fill out the sign-up form here to join in!

Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/25/10 - 1/31/10.

The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.)

You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, there's a growing Twitter list of CED participants and you can use the hashtag #CED2010 to help others find your Creative Every Day tweets!

Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is Body. I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month and you can feel free to use it to inspire your creations, follow your own muse, or do some combination. You can find out more about this month's theme and some prompts to get you started with it here.

Happy Creating!

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. -line from Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese."

Update: It's Thursday evening and the Mr. Linky widget is down. In the meantime, you can leave links in the comments section. I'm sure it will be up and running again soon!

Tree Bodies

January 23rd, 2010, Comments (30)

Trees always strike me as figure-like, especially in winter when they're stripped of their leaves. Perhaps that's why I love drawing and painting them so much!

I've been super sick over the past few days. I felt it coming on early in the week and tried my best to listen to my body and take it easy, but this cold/flu-thing still hit me like a ton of bricks and knocked me out for a few days. I'm still in recovery mode, living in pajamas and surviving on soup and tissues, but I started to get itchy to draw something this afternoon (a good sign!) and drew this tree image I've had in my head for awhile. I kept it simple, playing with watercolor pencils in my sketchbook. I like it though. Perhaps I'll do something else with the idea when I'm feeling better. Or this may be enough.

Being sick is so boring sometimes. I have no energy, but I'm restless from being still for so long. But I appreciate being doted on by the hubster who made me yummy soup and picked up medicine for me at the pharmacy. What a guy. :-)

I hope you're all staying healthy! Stay tuned, early this week, I'll be announcing February's totally optional theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge!

Featuring Creations by Amazing CED Participants

January 21st, 2010, Comments (20)

Every so often, I love to feature some of the fabulous work that Creative Every Day Challenge participants are up to. I could seriously fill every day with this sort of post, as you all are up to such amazing work and I'm utterly blown away by your talent, creativity, and deep-down beauty. You all inspire me!

I've been head over heels with your responses to the body theme. It's been a really juicy topic to explore and I've laughed, cried, and been inspired along with many of your posts. Here are just a few of the amazing, creative works I've seen this month with some more to come:

Aimee from artsyville recently created a super cute drawing of her outfit (love her style!) and I was going to share that, but I was so tickled by her ode to her addled brain in this piece below that I had to share that one instead.

I was so touched with this poem by Patty of Waking Up that I asked her if I could share it here.

The Body Principle
What if I looked at my body in a different way?

What if I appreciated it for what it can do, not for what it can’t?
Instead of grumbling about my dyed-over-gray hair,
what if I thanked my hair for keeping my head warm,
and for smelling like coconuts when it is freshly washed?

What if I thanked my brain for imagining stories and poems,
for coming up with clever puns and figuring the tip for lunch,
instead of berating it for not remembering some actor’s name
at the instant I wanted it to remember?

What if I walked more, and danced and hugged more, and
Used more expressive hand gestures when I talked,
instead of holding myself so tightly within myself
that sometimes I can hardly breathe?

Wouldn’t my body and I smile with sheer joy?
Wouldn’t that be something to see?

Evelyn from Enjoying the Good Life created this gorgeous drawing of a yoga twist. Love it!

Christy from Sweet Tidings joined the challenge with adorable spool and peg dolls like this one. Too cute!

Melissa aka Dandelionlady of Dandelion Seed on the Updraft created the beautiful sketch of hands that I'm just loving.

Hege of Cloudberry made this fantabulous body flip book with her kids. So cool!

Susan of of The Nest created this lovely torso tile. Love the colors!

Lastly, new CED participant, Angie Fletchall of Thalo Blue Sky, shared this book she created about loving your body with me.  While not created for this month, it fits so well with this month's theme and is such a lovely story, that I had to share it with you here. You can preview the book and its sweet illustrations here.

Listening to the Body

January 20th, 2010, Comments (19)

Normally I'll interview just one, maybe two folks per month, but I hope you've enjoyed my chats with creative folks on the topic of body this month!

It's so funny, usually I'm this ultra introverted girl who gets nervous on the phone, but this topic of body has had me wanting to talk to loads of people for the blog! There were many more people I thought about talking to as well, but there's only so much time in the day. Certainly a different kind of creativity than I usually partake in, but it's been so fun!

One thing that's been coming up in my conversations with these fabulous, creative women has been the concept of listening to your body. I think this is a big key to developing a healthy, happy relationship with body and yourself.

How do you tune in to your body and hear what it has to say? And when you do hear it, do you listen?

This is something that can be a challenge for me. At times my body is easy to hear. And sometimes I'm not a good listener. But I think so much of life is about practicing, not beating yourself up when things don't go the way we plan, and continuing to grow.

Some of the ways I listen to my body is through:

  • *Movement: Yoga, dance, long walks, and such are one of my favorite ways to connect with my body. Noticing where and how my body wants to move as I move, is a great way to connect and tune in to my individual body parts and my body as a whole. Plus, when I take good care of my body by moving it regularly, it's more likely to share information with me.
  • *Fabulous body-centered self-care: Getting a massage or taking a long soak in a tub is a wonderful way to connect to my body. Sometimes when I take a bath, I bring books or magazines to read, but I rarely touch them. Once I'm in the water, I just let go and feel so peaceful.
  • *Deep breath: One of the simplest ways to connect to your body is to breathe. We do it all day without thinking about it, but if we stop and notice one breath in and one breath out, something relaxes.
  • *Body Scan: When I was little, my mom taught me a simple way of relaxing, a visualization where, starting with your toes and going up to your head, you notice each part of your body, notice it relaxing, notice it tingling. And then you imagine yourself in a peaceful place, hearing, smelling, and feeling the space around you. There are all sorts of visualizations I've learned in the meantime, much like this one, and they're all a great way to let go of the inner chatter and get re-connected.

What about you? What are your favorite ways of tuning in to your body?

p.s. The little figure above is something I did up in a program called Illustrator. A lot of my creative output lately has been on some behind the scenes projects, including a project in Illustrator, so I was inspired to create this quick drawing with it. But more on that later!

Creative Every Day Check-In: January 18 – 24

January 18th, 2010, Comments (29)

This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities.

Join in the Challenge: You can sign up for the  2010 Creative Every Day Challenge anytime! Find out more and fill out the sign-up form here to join in!

Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/18/10 - 1/24/10.

The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.)

You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, there's a growing Twitter list of CED participants and you can use the hashtag #CED2010 to help others find your Creative Every Day tweets!

Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is Body. I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month and you can feel free to use it to inspire your creations, follow your own muse, or do some combination. You can find out more about this month's theme and some prompts to get you started with it here.

Happy Creating!

...I rarely draw what I see. I draw what I feel in my body. -Barbara Hepworth

Connecting to Your Body with Briana Aldrich

January 17th, 2010, Comments (7)

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with the brilliant Blisscovery expert, Briana Aldrich. Briana is a coach who helps folks find their thing and also with helps people heal their relationship with their bodies. I loved talking with Briana about her work and ways to creatively connect with the body. You can listen to it here by clicking the link below or right-click (ctrl-click on a Mac) to download and listen to later. Enjoy!

Click here to listen.

You can find Briana's at Blisscovery and Blisscovery Wellness. Briana has a (diet-free) weight loss teleclass starting up on Tuesday the 19th, which you can find out more about here. You can also find Briana on twitter: @brianaaldrich.

Thank you for the great chat, Briana!

How to Be Gentle with Your Body and Your Art

January 15th, 2010, Comments (25)

This piece is coming along verrrry slowly, but it's been an interesting process using body shadows as the starting point for a piece of art. One thing I'm loving is the little heart that showed up in the bird's body. And within the piece, in the soaring bird, the blue hand and the layers below, I think there's a message from my body. What is this message exactly? I'm not sure yet, but I feel like it has something to do with gentleness.

The inner drill sergeant

I have an inner drill sergeant that barks orders in my ears about everything from my body to my artwork. Thankfully, it's so much quieter than it used to be.

In my early 20's, I became obsessed with my body. Like many in their first years in college, with the larger than normal consumption of pizza and mac & cheese, I gained a few pounds. And along with the pressures of being in school and trying to figure out what my future held, I became unhealthily obsessed with exercise and food and fat. Oh, it was not a fun time. I worked out 6 days a week, weighed my food, was crazy restrictive, and very cranky. I dreamed about the foods I longed to eat, but I did not eat them.. After a couple years of this madness, I was thin, yes, (people thought I was ill), but I was also miserable. And worse, I still felt "fat."

It's so easy to get sucked into the image of what women look like in the movies and television and think you're supposed to look like that. So much misery stems from trying to be some unattainable image. And then if you add in a strict drill sergeant voice, ouch.

Eventually, an inner rebellion began to build and warred against my inner sergeant and won. It was bound to happen eventually, but eating endless forbidden foods was not making me happy either. I had to find a balance again, I had to re-learn how to listen to my body, what it needed, and trust that it knew what was best. And that was hard.

A Gentle Approach

Over time, I've developed a relationship that is infinitely kinder and works a million times better for me. What does gentle look like? For me, it's about adding movement to my day because it makes me feel good (instead of out of fear of what will happen if I don't) and about allowing myself to eat what I want, while also noticing when I'm full and stopping. It's about adding self-care and noticing what my body is craving.

Have I banished that inner drill sergeant and healed my relationship with my body completely? No. It's a path I'm on. It's a path so many people are on. Sometimes, I still struggle with feeling like if I'm not beating myself up or guilting myself into action, I won't do anything at all. Just last spring, I signed up for a bootcamp exercise class. (What was I thinking?) And after the trial class, I quit. I remembered that route doesn't work for me. For me, the drill sergeant approach always leads to an eventual rebellion and that's a cycle I don't want to be caught up in anymore.

The Creativity Police

And what does this all have to do with creativity? Well, you know that drill sergeant? She doesn't just have things to say about our bodies. She also has input about the rest of our lives, including our art. With art, she might say things like, "That's not good enough! Why haven't you done more? You're lazy! Get to work and make good art, on the double!" Ouchie!

What's your art sergeant yelling in your ear?

Gentle Creativity

As I've learned to be more gentle with my approach to my body, I have also learned to be gentler with my approach to my art and creativity. And in both cases, I've found the gentle approach to be far more loving and sustainable. Part of the gentle outlook is what led me to start Creative Every Day. I loved the challenge of creating and posting daily for Art Every Day Month in November, but it wasn't something I could keep up for every day of the year. So I found a way to make creativity a part of my everyday life and it's been such a joyful (guilt-free) process!

Regular risk-taking and bravery are great for stretching yourself and growth. There's room for that kind of leaping too! But for day-to-day life, having space to be gentle, permission to do things smaller, and making things doable, works beautifully for me. I think it's so much easier to build upon our successes. It makes for a lasting relationship, one I can maintain without falling into a strict regimen or a rebellious outburst.

So how can you take a more gentle approach to your art, your body and life in general?

  • Give yourself permission to do it imperfectly
  • Check in with yourself, notice what you your spirit is craving.
  • Have a dialogue with your inner drill sergeant (aka your inner critic)
  • Take your to-do list down a notch and simplify what you plan to do. Make it doable.
  • Celebrate your accomplishments. Make an already done list!
  • List the things you're grateful for.
  • Treat yourself.
  • Notice what delights you and add more of those experiences to your life.
  • Play with being gentle as an experiment, see what happens.

The list goes on. What would you add to it?

Stay tuned for more discussion about the body. In a couple days, I'll have an interview posted with the super smart Blisscovery expert, Briana Aldrich!