Entries Tagged as: blogs
Featured Creative Every Day Challenge Participants!
March 31st, 2009, Comments (14)
I'm super excited to share with you some of the amazing things that Creative Every Day Challenge participants are up to! I'm not sure how often I'll be doing these posts yet, but they will be a regular thing. I plan to email some participants to get permission to share an image or piece of writing from their blog. And in the case of Flickr, I will use the images from flickr that automatically link back to the account of the owner. I hope this will introduce you to some new Creative Every Day people and provide you with inspiration as well! So let's start (click on the images to make them bigger):
Kathryn of Collage Diva has a beautiful blog and magical, inspiring posts. I loved her recent piece below, a character map.
Kathryn, Collage Diva
Terri of Tinker Art is someone I've known a long time through blogging and I adore her art and her sense of humor (go see her blog and you'll see what I mean!) This piece was based on a dream she had. One of those dreams where you're in your pajamas in school and forgot to do your homework. Eep!
Terri, Tinker Art
The piece below, from Creative Kismet, I spotted on the Creative Every Day Challenge Flickr group. So sweet, love it!
This fabulous piece below is from Marie Patterson and I spotted it in the Flickr group too (so much inspiration there!)
Beautiful, beautiful work! I'm endlessly inspired by all the wonderful things that Creative Every Day Challenge participants are creating. Keep on creating, sharing and connecting!
Building Your Blog
March 31st, 2009, Comments (4)
I recently did a call with a group of coaches (including the lovely Jennifer Lee, Jamie Ridler and Cynthia Morris) about blogging. I've been blogging for nearly 8 years now and I loved talking about the process and inspiration I've found through having a blog as well as the way blogging has helped support my business.
Even though I have some scattered technological knowledge, it is not my specialty. Fortunately, there are people like Mynde and Wendy who are offering great services like their 6 Week class on Creating Your Own Web Presence (and the business behind it.) The class includes 6 hours of lecture and q&a (in audio and video formats, so you can participate live or listen later), handouts, and unlimited email support. Check out all the details and sign up here. The class starts on the 1st!
If you already have an art blog up and running, but it's in desperate need of medical attention, check out Alyson Stanfield and Cynthia Morris's Blog Triage class here. (I love the name of this class!) I've taken an online workshop with Alyson before and found it helpful.
There a number of Creative Every Day Challenge participants who do not have a blog, which is totally fine! Blogging is not for everyone. However, if you're hesitating out of fear, starting a blog is fairly easy if you're just wanting to dip your toes in and try it out. Buidling my own blog has been such a slow and organic process and it continues to grow and shift as I do. Remember it doesn't have to be perfect right off the bat.
And be sure to ask for help where you need it. Ask a friend who blogs for advice, take a class like the ones above, or hire something to help you get started. There's no need to tear your hair out in the process.
Is there anything you're itching to know about blogging? Anything that you find hard or something that holds you back? Let me know in the comments or email and I may write about it in a future post.
De-Cluttering to Find Your Flow
March 20th, 2009, Comments (19)
Today is the first day of Spring. Aaaaaah! (That was me singing angelically.) Just writing that puts in a little skip in my step. Longer days, warmer weather, and soon things will start sprouting green everywhere. Hooray! One thing I can say about winter in New England, it makes you really, really appreciate when Spring comes around. Granted, it is New England, so we could get whopped with a snow storm tomorrow, but still, Spring is here.
Spring and cleaning seem to go together. It's a time to shed the winter skin, the many layers, and all the accumulated dust and clutter that built up over the colder months.
I have to admit that I'm not a fan of cleaning. Neither is the hubster. We're both messy. Years ago, instead of continuing to argue about how he never took his turn cleaning the bathroom, we decided to hire someone to come twice a month to do the hardcore cleaning for us. Best decision we ever made. O.k., that may be exaggerating a tad, but seriously, it was a great decision. I knew the woman who does the cleaning for us already because she cleaned the house of the family I used to nanny for. I knew she was trustworthy, kind, and did a great job. I also knew that she sent most of her money to her mom in Columbia. So, it works out great for all parties.
Sometimes, even though you CAN do something (of course, I'm fully capable of cleaning), that doesn't mean you shouldn't hire someone to do it for you. It's all about setting priorities and knowing how you want to spend your time and money.
So, while I'm not about cleaning right now, I am all about de-cluttering...a different sort of cleaning that may seem like a boring task, but is actually all about creating space for the things you want in your life: your business, your projects, your art, your creativity, etc...
It's perfect timing (again) that this week's chapter in The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, which I'm reading with Jamie Ridler's fabulous book group, is all about the Power of Subtraction. I loved this quote at the beginning of the chapter:
The first step in starting an enterprise is to clear the space for it, or till the ground. This clearing process is a must....We like to think just forging ahead is going to be enough to start, but when you run into gnarled old roots where your new plants need to grow, you've got problems. - Barrie Dolnick, Simple Spells for Success
Author Gail McMeekin talks about the Power of Subtraction in this way:
Here I encourage you to get rid of everything you neither need nor want in your life. This includes anything from old sneakers to outmoded dreams. To create a life of positive choices, you must let go of whatever blocks your creative zest.
This is a great continuation of the idea of positive priorities that I wrote about last week. And I think it also relates to allowing a sense of flow in your life. What blocks your creative flow? How can you remove those blocks in a way that is managable for you?
If clutter is a block for you, what one small step can you take? What teeny tiny step will give you a increased sense of ease in your life?
I like to imagine my clutter clearing is like this fence and I'm slowly opening more and more bars to uncover the river underneath.
I seem to be all about water lately. Wednesday I took a long walk and did some journaling by a river. Water seems to be such a great source of calm and inspiration for me. And today, my piece Lady of the Lake (below) is up at artist, Cathy Nichol's blog for her Found Art Friday project! I just added prints of this piece to my shop, which you can read more about and purchase here.
p.s.
- Be sure to check out Jamie's latest interview with professional organizer, author, and mentor, Sunny Schlenger.
- You can also sign up for the free book group celebration call that's happening, Friday, April 3rd, here.
Dreaming of Bears
March 11th, 2009, Comments (7)
The retreat was great. A wonderful combination of relaxing and inspiring. I got there the day before the retreat began to do a little unwinding and getting centered. I'm glad I did because all the travel exhausted me. I stayed the cutest little loft room (that I had to climb a sort of ladder to get into.) Fortunately I'm super short, so I could just stand up in it. It felt like I was tucked in a treehouse and I loved that.
I spotted Animal Speak on a bookshelf in the hall and took it up to the loft with me to look at. I'd just been talking about the book with my coach, so it was funny to see it there. And I'd been wanting to read over the part about spiders after I had that spider dream recently. I rested in bed, reading and journaling, and drifted off into a lovely nap.
I dreamed that the hubster showed up at the retreat and I had to tell him that it was an all-women retreat, so he couldn't go inside. We pitched a tent together outside the house and we were sitting in it, when I looked down the road and saw a huge bear coming down the road towards us. There was an old man under a tree near us. I turned to him and asked if we should be running into the house. But he said not to worry, that we didn't have any food, so the bear wouldn't bother us. Then a drunk man came out of the woods and started harrassing the bear. The bear was pushing him away, trying to ignore him, but the man kept coming after the bear and eventually punched the bear in the face. The bear then lost its temper and bit the man. It was a very vivid dream and I woke up remembering it fully.
Later that night, I turned to Animal Speak to read about what bears symbolize. I learned that the bear has ties to the subconscious and unconscious mind. It is associated with Diana, goddess of the moon. It teaches you to use your inner resources to find your answers within. It teaches you to make choices from a position of power. Bears are often associated with trees, an ancient symbol that is like an antenna connecting heaven and earth. Trees remind us bring what we awaken into the world and to make our marks with it.
The things I read about the bear, it's connection with trees and the moon, and the bits about what it has to teach, were so relevant to me. I did some writing about the dream, which I think I'll share later on. It's interesting how focusing on dreams this month for the Creative Every Day Challenge, has brought such powerful dreams! It just goes to show you that what you focus on expands.
The next day, I had an amazing massage in a cute little boathouse (above) with an incredibly talented, nurturing therapist. While my face was down and looking through the head-rest, I opened my eyes and laughed to myself because within the rug pattern below, the shapes looked like a bear standing in a river with a crescent moon and birds flying by. That's where the image I painted above came from. After the massage, I drew a little sketch of what I saw and knew that I wanted to paint the bear in this way. I painted it today in acrylic and ink on watercolor paper.
I have more to share on the weekend later, but in the meantime, some fun links to check out:
- Spark, art from writing: writing from art is now online sharing the paired up artists and writers and what they created in response to eachother's work. Mine is here!
- Rainn Wilson (Dwight on The Office) has a new website called SoulPancake that is all about creativity and spirituality. Very cool!
- Need a pat on the back? A boost? A job well done? Check out my pal Jim Doran's new website, Hey Good Job. Love it.
Dream Board
March 10th, 2009, Comments (19)
Hello, lovely, creative readers. I've just returned from a refreshing and inspiring retreat with Christine Kane. I'm still processing a bit and trying to re-ground myself after the shuffling process that happens when I travel, but I'm sure I'll share more about the retreat soon.
One of the things we did during the weekend was to create a Vision Board. I create Vision Boards every so often, so the process wasn't new to me, but each time I create one, I get a little more insight into what it is that I want in my life. And for all you visual people out there, this is a great way to see your visions brought to life. Christine has a great ebook on Vision Boards which you can get for free (see her sidebar for the info) by signing up for her newsletter.
It's funny that in this month of the dream theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge, I've already created 3 different Dream Boards (I call them dream or vision boards interchangeably.)
There are lots of different ways to approach the process of creating a Dream Board. I've created some with a particular theme, but usually I just tear through magazines, letting my intuition guide me to rip out images that are calling to me in the moment. When I've got a pile of images to work with, I lay them all out on a big piece of paper or posterboard, re-arrange the imagery til the board is filled with images that resonate strongly with me, and then glue them down.
Jennifer Lee, has a wonderfully creative and unique way of creating a vision board that I tried out recently. She calls it the Unfolding Your Life Vision Kit, which you can learn more about and order here. The kit comes with a visualization on cd, the materials needed to create a portable vision board, and an instruction manual. You can see the folded up version of the one I created above. And the open version in all it's origami-type-coolness is below. I love how you can pop this vision board in your purse and pull it out whenever you need a hit of inspiration.
Today is the Full Worm Moon and on each full moon, the lovely, Jamie hosts a dreamboard challenge. What a lovely process to renew your Vision Board with each full moon!
Have you created a Vision Board before? Many people who do them experience the imagery they include on their Vision Boards coming true with great speed. And even if that seems a bit woo-woo or farfetched to you, it's still a fun process to explore and get creative with.
Interview with Robert Moss
March 3rd, 2009, Comments (21)
When I imagined doing the theme of "dreams" for the Creative Every Day Challenge, author, Robert Moss immediately came to mind. I'm so thrilled to be able to share this interview about dreaming and creativity with you!
My interest in dream imagery stems from the fact that my dreaming is quite vivid and I often get a lot of ideas for art there, but the typical dream interpretation books never made much sense to me. Robert Moss's book, Conscious Dreaming was recommended to me by CED participant, Kelly, who found me through a bit of synchronicity and my post about a lynx dream. I deeply resonated with Moss's discussion of dreams and finding the meaning in your own symbology.
Since deciding to contact Moss, his work has been turning up everywhere! An article by Moss was in a free magazine I just happened to pick up at the beginning of the month and then this week an acquaintance emailed me a link to a podcast interview with Moss that she thought I would enjoy. Synchronicities are an important topic in Moss's work and I love his discussions about them. I hope you enjoy this interview with Moss. Be sure to check out his website, his online dreaming courses, and his latest book, The Secret History of Dreaming.
LPK: Have you always been a vivid dreamer?
RM: In my early boyhood in my native Australia, my dreams got me through crises of illness and I had indelible dream visions of traveling to worlds beyond ordinary reality. I learned from Aboriginal friends that our personal dreams can be portals into the Dreamtime, the source of ancestral wisdom, creativity and healing. I did well in exams at school, in part because I used to dream exam questions ahead of time. I started keeping a dream journal in my teens and often turned my dreams into poems, drawings and paintings.
LPK: How does dreaming impact your creativity?
RM: My seven nonfiction books on dreaming and imagination have flowed almost seemlessly from my dreams. My dreams also give me scenes, plot ideas, characters and dialogue for my novels and sometimes the whole of a short story. Sometimes I wake (as Charles Dickens told a doctor he used to wake) with the sense of wave upon wave of words moving through me, and I write with these rhythms rather than from specific dream content. Even more than from sleep dreams, I find my creativity is released in in-between states of reverie, daydream and hypnagogia (between sleep and waking, or vice versa). These liminal states, as I suggest in The Secret History of Dreaming, have been the "solution state" in which creative breakthroughs have been made in many field - in science and invention as well as in literature and the arts.
LPK: Do you think there's a certain amount of playfulness involved in interpreting your dreams and experiences with synchronicity?
RM: At one of my first public lectures on these themes, a very earnest fellow asked, "Bottom line it for me - what is all this about?" I said, very distictly, "Remember to PLAY." And he wrote it down. I'm not sure he really got the point. We do our best work in a spirit of play, and my work as a teacher and writer is essentially to encourage people to play better games.
To harvest messages from dreams and coincidence, you need to develop a talent for resemblances - for noticing what looks like or sounds like something else. If you have an ear for puns, you'll pick up messages in a dream that others may miss. If you have a playful sense that the universe is alive, and that unseen forces may be at play around you and with you - giving you a secret handshake, or mussing your hair, or sometimes pushing you back - then you'll come alive to the great art of navigating by synchronicity.
LPK: I know people who say they do not dream or at least they don't remember their dreams. What suggestions do you have for people wanting to tap into their dreams?
RM: The new science of dreaming confirms that everyone dreams every night, in four to six cycles of REM sleep (when the eyes are moving under the lids) and in other sleep phases too. Anyone who says "I don't dream" is just saying "I don't remember".
If you want to break a dream drought, here's how to begin:
- Before you go to bed, write down an intention for the night. You might ask for guidance on something or simply say, “I want to have fun in my dreams and remember.” Make sure your intention has some juice. Don’t make dream recall one more chore to fit in with all the others.
- Having set your intention, make sure you have the means to honor it. Keep pen and paper (or a tape recorder) next to your bed so you are ready to record something when you wake up.
- Record something whenever you wake up, even if it’s at 3 a.m. Sometimes the dreams we most need to hear come visiting at rather anti-social hours, from the viewpoint of the little everyday mind.
- If you don’t remember a dream when you first wake up, laze in bed for a few minutes and see if something comes back. Wiggle around in the bed. Sometimes returning to the body posture we were in earlier in the night helps to bring back what we were dreaming when our bodies were arranged that way.
-If you still don’t have a dream, write something down anyway: whatever is in your awareness, including feelings and physical sensations. You are catching the residue of a dream even if the dream itself is gone. And as you do this, you are saying to the source of your dreams, “I’m listening. Talk to me.”
LPK: I love how you use synchronicity as guidance in your life. For those wanting to experience more of this kind of guidance, what would you recommend?
RM: You'll find lots of coincidence games, and Moss's Laws for Navigating by Synchronicity, in my book The Three "Only" Things. I'll just mention just one everyday game for now. Think about an issue in your life on which you need guidance. Get this clear and simple ("I would like guidance on......") and write it down. Then as you go about your day, be open to the idea that the first unusual or striking that enters your field of perception is a direct answer to you from the world. It may be the vanity plate on the car in front of you, or a snatch of conversation, or a deer on the road.
LPK: I dream paintings sometimes, but I often have trouble remembering them fully when I wake up. Do you have any tools for remembering dream images?
RM: I find that often dreams come back later in the day, especially under the shower or when an incident in waking life starts to call up a forgotten dream incident.
Remember you don't need to go to sleep in order to dream. You can enter dreaming from a quiet place of meditation, from the twilight zone between sleep and waking, or through shamanic drumming. You may want to check out my drumming CD, Wings for the Journey. You can take a favorite picture and use it as a personal dreamgate. Imagine yourself stepping behind that line of trees in the landscape painting, for example, and having an adventure on the other side. Or take a favorite piece of music and let yourself flow with it into a series of dreamlike scenes.
LPK: What are some of your favorite dream resources?
RM: The most important book on dreams you'll ever read is your own dream journal. I offer workshops and classes in dreaming and navigating by coincidence all over the map, and my events calendar is at my website www.mossdreams.com. I also have a lively blog, www.mossdreams.blogspot.com. I have published seven nonfiction books on Active Dreaming - my original approach to dream exploration and healing - starting with Conscious Dreaming and including, most recently, The Secret History of Dreaming, which describes how dreaming has been the secret engine in great lives and great events across all of human history. I have also produced a video workshop, The Way of the Dreamer (Psyche Productions) and an audio series Dream Gates: A Journey into Active Dreaming (Sounds True).
:::
Thank you, Robert for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share your dream wisdom with us! I hope that this interview has inspired you to get playful with your own dream imagery. Sweet dreams!
Creating Your Dream Team
March 1st, 2009, Comments (3)
This week's chapter in The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, which I'm reading with Jamie's book group, talks about creative alliances and partnerships. I liked how A Feminist Wife called it her "dream team." It fits perfectly with the (totally optional) dream theme this month for the Creative Every Day Challenge.
I have used the idea of an imagined dream team before (people living and dead that I could consider personal allies), but it's been awhile since I thought about who I would put on my team. Among those I don't know, I'd love to have SARK as an ally as well as Martha Beck. Both of these women are intelligent, funny, creative, down-to-earth go-getters, and totally inspiring. I admire their honesty and integrity in the telling of their stories, their energy, and their wild success!
Fortunately, I'm lucky to have some wonderful creative alliances with people I already know. I have an awesome coach, a sort of Mastermind group that I meet with regularly, and I enjoy taking classes where I meet other like-minded, creative souls. One of my greatest alliances is with the hubster who is a wonderful champion for me and my bff has always been incredibly supportive.
I've made many creative alliances online (one of the wonderful things about blogging!) and I'm extremely grateful for that. It's been so helpful for a super introverted person like myself, as I can feel connected and respond in a way that feels good to me, without feeling the energy drain that happens for me in crowds of people.
I've been working on asking for help lately and it's definitely been interesting. The act of asking makes me feel a bit vulnerable, but it also gives others the opportunity to help (and people generally love to help others, particularly when it's something they're passionate about.)
Along those lines, I've approached some people I admire about doing interviews for Creative Every Day this year and the response has been wonderful. I'll be posting one of these interviews this week! In the meantime, check out this fabulous interview that Jamie Ridler did with the lovely Goddess Leonie.
Weekend Update and Some Final Word Links
February 28th, 2009, Comments (2)
I've had such a fun weekend! The hubster and I went to the MGM Casino, where we had a complementary room. The hubster played in a poker tournament while I went to their fancy, shmancy gym to do a workout. They asked for my shoe size in the locker room and gave me a locker with a spa sandals in my size and a soft bathrobe (the gym is connected to a spa) and the shower had a heated towel rack. I had the hot tub entirely to myself (and I was totally giggling in there because it all felt so luxurious.) After the gym, I headed back to our room where I ordered room service and watched a movie (Vicky Christina Barcelona.) I felt totally pampered and exhausted by the end of the night. The hubster won big that night too (I'm not a gambler, but he enjoys poker and blackjack.) In the morning we got breakfast, took a long walk, played a little roulette, and did some window shopping before having a lovely drive home.
Today is the last day of February. I know it's only a couple days shorter, but this month is has just flown by. Swoosh!
Theme Transition:
I enjoyed the words theme and I know a lot of CED participants had fun with it as well. As we move into the Creative Every Day Challenge's (totally optional) dreams theme for March, you certainly don't need to abandon the themes of the previous months. Play can be incoporated into everything (in my humble opinion.) And there are endless ways to play with words.
Here are some more ways to have fun with and get inspired by words:
* Write for your life: Productivity tips for writers.
* Amano Books: Bridgette Guerzon Mills makes gorgeous journals and she now has a blog focusing on art journaling tips too.
* Beautiful book sculptures from artist, Georgia Russell.
* Awesome typographical assemblage from Lou Dorfsman.
* Listen to classic poetry out loud.
* Journal writing prompts.
* Read Write Poem: for those who love poetry
* Tomorrow, Connie of Dirty Footprints Studio Blogtalk Radio program will be interviewing Elena Rego at 12 pm EST. Elena creates absolutely stunning journey manuscripts.
Thank you for playing along with me this month, I look forward to all the wonderful creativity we'll share in March!
More Wondrous Words
February 25th, 2009, Comments (11)
I've been thinking of doing inspiration cards like this for awhile and the word theme this month got me moving on it. I cut up pretty paper and art-print mishaps and wrote words on each strip. I like the idea of pulling a random word each day to serve as a guide.
I went to a spontaneous dance class once where the teacher had us each pull a card like this to help us set an intention for the class. The word I chose always seemed to resonate with me so perfectly. She used some kind of "angel card" set for this, but I figured I could easily make up my own and add words as they occur to me. For now, I've chosen words like flow, leap, stretch, stillness, gratitude, receive, love, and trust. What words would you add if you were creating your own stack of cards?
More wordy fun:
* I'm loving the beautiful combinations of art and words from Vineeta, an artist from Mumbai, whose work was featured on Jess Gonacha's beautiful new site, Pecanoot.
* In the comments on my graffiti art post, nniiccoollee left a comment with a link to Written on the City, an awesome site filled with images of graffiti art/written messages from all over the world.
Word goodness from CED participants:
* I loved Kathryn's post this week about how she consults her inner guides. Be sure to check out the end of the post where she has offered up a gorgeous gift, an affirmation poster you can download and print for free!
* Rebecca has written a beautiful poem in response to a photo from Christine at Abbey of the Arts, who is hosting a Poetry Party. Christine has invited anyone to respond to her photograph with a poem by Friday, when a winner will be chosen to win a free copy of her newest zine, Illuminating Mystery: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice (which will have some of my art in it!)
* Hanna is doing a year-long project, this one is daily poetry!
* Check eautiful calligraphy work from Gunner Girl in the CED Flickr group.
* See Shannan's work with words and art in an art journal page from at Original Bliss.
Lots of beauty to inspire you, now go play!
Writing on the Wall
February 24th, 2009, Comments (9)
CED participant, Tammy Vitale, took a picture of the graffiti above and shared it on her blog earlier in the month. It totally cracked me up, the way it joins the first two themes for the Creative Every Day Challenge this year, play and words. Perfection!
If you've ever been to Manhattan or any big city, you've surely seen some gorgeous graffiti art on walls, doors, trains, and dumpsters. I saw the image below in Montreal a few years ago.
Explore graffiti art:
*Lots of inspiring graffiti art can be seen here.
*You can create your own graffiti online at this awesome site.
*Do you look for words while you're out and about in the world? Kelly Rae Roberts has a great post about seeing words in the world and the way they inspire her.
*I love the idea of writing words in chalk on sidewalks for people to find.
*Here's a great article from Keri Smith about how to be a guerilla artist.
Write on your own walls:
I also love the idea of words on interior walls. Bohemian Single Mom, posted a picture of her wall all painted up with a quote, which I thought was just fabulous.
*Make your own chalkboard paint to paint on your wall.
*I love these Typography Walls, painted and/or assemblage-style typography displays, from Whip Up.
*Another great way to decorate your walls with words is through using letter decals or one of these fabulous chalkboard decals from Velocity (the alligator ones crack me up!)
So many ways to play with words. I sometimes want to write quotes and poems that have inspired me on the walls in tall letters or scribble them on my clothes. Do you ever feel that way?
I've never been tempted to write on bathroom stalls, but that's another place you often see words scratched and scribbled. Usually fairly dull statements, but sometimes filled with humor. Quick look into the wild world of google led me to The Writing on the Stall, a website dedicated to these stall scribblings. Too funny. Ever seen anything funny or inspirational written in a bathroom stall?
Well, I'd say that's enough writing on this wall for one day.
