Entries Tagged as: linkage
Flowing out of 2009 and into 2010
December 31st, 2009, Comments (26)
What a magical day. It's a Full Blue Moon, it's New Year's Eve, we're on the cusp of another beautiful year of being Creative Every Day, and I feel like I'm inside a snow globe with these teeny, tiny flakes falling outside. I'm especially loving that it's a Blue Moon, since I'm such a moon girl and as you might imagine, my favorite color is blue (plus, I say that "once in a blue moon" expression quite a bit.)
I've just finished my full moon dreamboard for Jamie Ridler's dreamboard group and I'm using it to reflect what I want for myself in 2010: mainly more ease and flow. I have this image of a river in my mind. There's an ease to the movement of a river, but there is also motion, action, and continuous, steady flow. Perhaps the river is also in my mind because I find sitting near moving water incredibly soothing. I think I sometimes associate stillness with stagnation, but ease and movement are not so separate. I see that in the way that getting regular exercise helps me feel more calm, and how de-cluttering helps me feel more spacious and open. It's a funny little paradox that I'd like to have in my life in 2010: ease, flow, and movement. While I've been thinking I'd use the words "ease and flow" as my theme for 2010, I think I may use the image of a river as it captures more of what I'm going for. Why not?
The dreamboard above was based on a sketch from my sketchbook that I drew onto a larger sheet of watercolor paper. I created the river with gesso and bits of snowflake tissue paper to create texture. Once that dried, I painted over it with ink and acrylics. (By the way, this is a great way to recycle holiday tissue paper and make cool textures in your art!) I then drew in the figure and wrote in some words, such as: ease, flow, resonance, calm, and movement. When I mentioned wanting more ease and flow in my life earlier this month, Terri (@TerriFisher on Twitter) let me know that Rhea is the goddess of Ease and Flow. How cool! I'm sure I'll paint her at some point this year too.
The last few years, I've loved choosing a theme word for the year. I think I may have read about it first on Christine Kane's blog (by the way she's offering a free download about choosing a theme word for the year.) Last year, I chose the word "Leap" and it served me well. I made some huge leaps in my career and my life in general. I'm especially proud of having art on the cover and an article in Artful Blogging Magazine, being on the radio, creating my first online teleclass, in-person workshop with the fabulous Jennifer Lee, first e-course, growing my online challenges, buying our first home, and selling more art than ever before. I'm so very grateful for my wonderful family, friends, loving hubster, and our four fuzzy cats. I'm also thrilled with the amazing connections I've made with fabulous creative people this year, many I met through this blog. I feel so incredibly lucky to be part of such an amazingly supportive community.
It's been a challenging year in other ways. I lost my Grandma after a battle with Alzheimer's just before Thanksgiving, I had some behind-the-scenes technical issues and problems with boundaries, I had a health scare with my beloved cat, Sadie, and I found the whole process of moving to be exhausting. I also made the decision to come off anti-depressants after being on them for ten years (I did this over a long period of time with the help of a doctor.) It was one of the most challenging things I've ever done. It still feels like a bit of a journey for me, but I'm doing really well and I'm thrilled about that. Overall, life is good. So very good. And I'm so grateful for it all.
To help me close out 2009 and grow my vision of what 2010 will be, I've printed out Goddess Leonie's stunning Creating My Goddess Year Workbook & Planner. There are some pages in the workbook that go along so beautifully with next month's (totally optional) theme of Body for the Creative Every Day Challenge, so I'll share those here. And I'm going to be interviewing the lovely Leonie next month about loving up your body, so stay tuned for that too!
Actually, I've got so much goodness planned for next month, that I can hardly stand it! It's going to be an amazing year. I love the energy that's building already. I wish each and every one of you a beautiful close to your 2009. May 2010 be filled with wild creativity, uncontrollable laughter, quiet moments of delight, and loads of love. See you in 2010!
Happy Holidays!
December 25th, 2009, Comments (13)
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it and Happy Holidays to those who celebrate in other ways! I just got back from festivities with part of my family and tomorrow we'll resume with another part of the family. On my mini tree, I have an ornament that I made back in pre-school, a reindeer made from clothespins. And I had to snap a picture of it because it fits so well with the recycling theme (and I still adore it after all these years.)
As an interesting side note, my mom tells me that when I was very small, before I knew any bad words, I'd call people clothespins when I got angry with them. As in, "You clothespin!" Hehe. Not sure why clothespins were bad...maybe because they pinched?
I hope that your holidays continue to be magical. And if you're feeling a bit stressed out, you might try listening to the recording I've linked below. I have one Catholic and one Jewish parent, so I got a kick out of Tama Kieves' hilarious impression of her Jewish mother doing a stress relief meditation. And even if you don't have Jewish family, you'll probably get a giggle out of it too.
I shall return as soon as the festivities end to share the totally optional theme for January for the Creative Every Day Challenge. Exciting!!
Creative Recycling Linkage
December 9th, 2009, Comments (4)
After an intense period of creating over the weekend, I've been taking some time to rest with the hubster who has the week off. We've been enjoying a lot of relaxing, movie-watching, and reading. It's been lovely.
I'll share some of what I've been up to soon, but in the meantime, I've collected some super fun ways to play with the totally optional theme of recycle this month for the Creative Every Day Challenge:
* I love the look of this plastic bag wreath seen on Vickie Howell's blog. So cute with Target bags. I also loved Vickie's instructions for turning greeting cards into tree ornaments!
* Recyclart might be the coolest recycling find I've discovered this month. It chock full of amazingly creative artwork and diy projects that utilize recycling to make super cool things like this vintage button rings, inner tube vases, and beach plastic artwork.
* This cool project shows how to make a wastepaper basket out of...waste paper!
* Here's a great interview with artist William Wagenaar, owner of Reclaim2Fame and creator of super fun recylced, sculptural creations.
* I enjoyed this Craft Sanity podcast interview with author and clothing designer Cal Patch, someone who strives to make all her own clothing and do as much repurposing as possible.
What’s Inspiring You Lately?
September 3rd, 2009, Comments (15)
Yes, I'm curious. What's inspiring you at the moment? Are there any books or tunes or artists that are lighting your inner fire?
I'm constantly adding to the list of what juices me up and I plan on sharing some of those things throughout the month. I'm super excited about and inspired by the wonderful guest posters who will be sharing stories of inspiration here throughout the month. Jen's post yesterday was fabulous!
I've had a fairly quiet day today for the first time in a solid week and so I thought it'd be a great moment to share a few things that are inspiring me and ask you about your current inspiration!
Nature: I'm feeling inspired by and grateful for the gorgeous weather. I took a walk down to a nearby river where I ate my lunch and wrote for an hour. It was lovely. I'm always inspired by sitting in nature and near moving water.
Books: I'm currently reading: The Wishing Year: A House, A Man, My Soul A Memoir of Fulfilled Desire by Noelle Oxenhandler and absolutely loving it.
Music: Somehow I missed out on the music of Arcade Fire, but the song "Wake Up" in the trailer of Where the Wild Things Are (also very inspiring, check it out below) was haunting me, so I got the album the song came from and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
Inspiration Journal: I keep a nifty inspiration journal by my bed. It's one of those thick, red, canvas-covered, blank journals you can get in book stores. I keep it to do very light, low-pressure, playful collages and doodles in whenever I feel like it. It's fun sometimes to tear through catalogs and magazines, ripping out images of whatever catches my eye. I glue them in in a pleasing fashion and sometimes write words alongside them. Looking back through it today, it felt like I had been writing a visual love letter to our first home. Sadie helped me flip to this page today. I like all the muted colors and textures here.
Interview: I loved this video interview of Dirty Footprints Studio's Connie on Darrah's blog, artcetera. Connie is too cute! I loved when she said, searching for your artistic voice is like searching for your own nose, it's already there, you don't need to find it!! Ok, she said it better than that, so go over and listen for yourself. And if you'd like to hear more of Connie (and me!), tune into Connie's blogtalk radio show this Sunday, September 6th at 6pm EST when she'll be interviewing Jennifer Lee and I about our Creative Play workshop in Boston this month and lots of ways to add creative play to your everyday life. You can even call in and say hello!
Writing: I love Eileen's writing. This post about the times between our creative pushing and the meanings behind our obsession with Buffy (or whatever it is you're obsessed with) is saying about you, is a great example!
Podcasts: I love to listen to podcasts, so I'm super excited that the fabulous Jamie Ridler has started her own all about creative living! Check out her very first podcast here.
And the list could go on and on and on...But for now, I bid you adieu.
p.s. Please send some good kitty vibes to my kitty Sadie who is having an itty bitty lump removed tomorrow. Thank you!!
Links to Move You
August 26th, 2009, Comments (8)
So many fun links to share. Hopefully some of them will move you!
-Jamie Ridler has this great video and post about dancing in response to Gretchen Wegner's Muse Cubes. So fun and fabulous!
-If you want to see some more wonderful movement in action, head on over to Creative Every Day Challenge participant, Shamsi's blog, where she talks about her own movement practice, her work, and she's also got some wonderful videos of her belly dancing!
-Another beautiful belly dancer, Tatty Franey has some gorgeous pictures of her dancing on her site as well. The costumes and colors are so gorgeous, especially as they move! Oh my, super inspiring to me!
-Tammy Vitale has a wonderful discussion on her blog with Molly Gordon about how artist/entrepreneurs can set goals vs. expectations as you move towards your big dreams. If you leave a comment, you'll be entered to win a gold membership to the Self-Employment Summit.
-Vicki of Faint Heart Art is celebrating her 200th post with giveaway of a lovely travel art set. Great for art while you're on the move!
-Pema Chodron has a new book available for pre-order called, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. This looks like it would be a great book to continue playing the move theme of this month!
-For a completely different kind of movement inspiration, check out this time-lapse video of NYC that was tweeted by the lovely Kirstin Butler (she's @kirstinbutler on Twitter.)
-There's less than a week left to take advantage of early bird pricing for the Creative Play Workshop, happening in the Boston area on September 19th. Jenn and I would love to see you there. Spots are filling up, so grab yours soon!
-The art above was something I played with during the Art Picnic Workshop on Saturday. We had such a great group participating in this class! One of the participants was actually having her picnic in the backseat of her car while her husband drove. So cool! You can also check out Beckie's experience of the workshop here. The next Picnic will be in October and I'll announce the date soon.
-As I mentioned earlier, this month's theme was especially poignant to me as the hubster and I just purchased our first home. Well, the closing happened today and we are officially homeowners!! I'm super excited to share next month's theme with you, so look out for that announcement tomorrow. In the meantime, keep on movin'!
Finding Flow in Your Self-Portrait
July 29th, 2009, Comments (15)
I couldn't let the month of "self" for the Creative Every Day Challenge go by without doing some self-portraits!! I did a couple quick ones today. The top one was originally done with some oil pastels which I took a picture of and then played with in photoshop with filters. It looks a bit like a mosaic to me and I like the colors, even if it doesn't look quite like me. Even if a self-portrait doesn't look quite like you, it can still be a great jumping off point for a piece of art.
I did this quick drawing using a Pitt pen and I think it captures me much better. When the hubster came home and saw it across the room, he said, "Oh, you drew yourself! It looks just like you!" I laughed and thought, yep, captured the essence of myself there.
Having taken many art classes and gone to art school, I've done a lot of self-portraits in loads of different mediums, some more successful than others. One thing I've learned is that when I get too tight and controlled with them, the portraits feel stiff and forced. But when I let go of the desire for perfection and focus on capturing the essence of what I see in myself, everything flows much more easily. I also feel more connected to what I'm creating and generally more satisfied with the process and the results. Seems like a good metaphor for most things doesn't it?
I've been a bit distracted in the last week by the heat and traveling and a bit of house hunting (eep!), so please excuse the delay in announcing the theme for August, which is right around the corner! I'll be announcing the new theme tomorrow and I hope it excites you as much as it excites me.
More fun things to check out:
- I got a little mention on the "Embracing Your Creative Self" segment from Katheryn Tidwell Bieber on Tiffany Windsor's wonderful Inspired at Home blogtalk radio show. I really enjoyed listening to the entire show that aired on Sunday, but you can also just listen to Katheryn's segment here.
- My dear friend Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio is celebrating her spiffy new space today. Take off your shoes and head on over!
- The incredibly cool lady, I affectionately call the "other Leah" has opened up her own business doing web & graphic design. Leah Creates is currently running a special on Express Wordpress installation through August 1st, so if you've been wanting to get set up on Wordpress, this would be a great opportunity to make the leap!
Weekend Linkage
July 10th, 2009, Comments (1)
fishing for the moon
The sun! Hooray! We're finally getting a stretch of sun here in New England and oh my, I just love it. I've got a busy weekend ahead with some traveling and then some visitors at home, so I shall leave with you some lovely linkage to entertain you while I'm away.
First off, Jamie Ridler's beautiful new site is up and running. Yay! Congrats, Jamie! To celebrate, Jamie is offering a special on the Your Creative Spark package which is filled with 12 inspiring interviews from creatives including myself, Goddess Leonie, Jennifer Lee, Andrea Scher, Jessie Marianiello and many more plus some fabulous bonuses. Through midnight today, you can get $10 off Your Creative Spark by entering the coupon code: "champagne" at checkout. Click here to check it out and get your copy.
Secondly, I'm offering free shipping on my artwork through the end of July! Pick out art to fill your space with inspiration and then enter "freeship09" at checkout! Bingo-bango-easy.
Third, The next Art Picnic is scheduled for Saturday, August 22nd, from 1-3 pm EST and I'd love to play and create with you! Check out all the details and sign up here.
And I feel like there's more, but all the rest and my journal wrecking will have to wait til later because I need to get a move on!
Wishing you all a wonderfully creative weekend!
WTJ and Muse Cube Fun!
June 26th, 2009, Comments (21)
muse cubes
For the month of sound, I just had to mention Gretchen Wegner's fabulous Muse Cubes! Gretchen is currently working on a new set and has asked for our help.
The cubes are like two dice that you can roll any time during the day to shake things up and help move you through any stuckness you're feeling by using movment and sound. I just shook my set and got "stretch" and "sigh." Try it out. Don't you feel better?
Gretchen is looking for some feedback on the words she'll be using on the new set of cubes and has set up a short survey to get some feedback, so she can choose the best possible words. Please give your feedback on Muse Cubes here. It's quick, easy and anonymous! Thanks in advance!
I've also been playing with my copy of Wreck this Journal for Jamie Ridler's book group. I decided this was the week to take the journal in the shower and I did that yesterday with amusing results. After the shower, I decided my journal deserved it's own little towel.
Poor thing got washed well and I'm not sure how it's feeling about its first ever shower. I mean, it got really wet.
And it got scrubbed too. Even behind the ears, but especially on the "Scrub this page" page.
Only problem is, one day later and my journal is still all wet. I think it's the humidity we're having and all the rain. But wait, as I type this, the sun has poked out! I want to cry I've missed the sun so much!
O.k. Just put the journal out for a little sunbathing. Hope that helps things. I'd like to take the journal along with me on my trip to NYC this weekend, but if it's going to be a big wet mess, it may miss the party. I thought about taking a hair dryer or heat gun to it or popping it in the dryer...Hmm, what do you think will work best?
Random Assortment of Sound
June 26th, 2009, Comments (6)
A random assortment of sound goodies to inspire you! Enjoy!
-Peggy Fussell sent me a link to the fabulous artwork from the Zurich Orchestra campaign from Euro RSCG, an agency in Switzerland, which is on view at the website fubiz. What a fun interplay between sound and art! This one is called "Goosebumps."
-A month or two ago I linked to a video of artist, Jonas Gerard, but I thought it was worth sharing another one this month, just because of the way he reacts and interacts with music while he paints. So fun to watch!
-For more inspirational listening, check out Art of the Song, a one hour public radio program all about creative expression with a focus on music. Lots of great interviews!
-Explore the beginnings of "sound art" in Luigi Russolo's "The Art of Noises" and in this article from TATE ETC.
-I had to do a little searching to find this story again as I couldn't remember where I'd heard it first. But it was on NPR and you can read it, listen the story, and hear the music here. Very cool stuff. The story is about artist, Quinn Kiesow, who has constructed amazing music out of urban sounds. He has a songs for Los Angeles, New York, Madrid, and Barcelona all created from recordings of urban sounds in those cities. Listening to these songs may make you think differently about the sounds you hear in your own environment. There is music all around you!
Featured Creative Every Day Challenge Participants!
June 12th, 2009, Comments (11)
I love featuring fabulous Creative Every Day Challenge participants here to give you all a glimpse into some of the wonderful things happening in our large group. I hope you enjoy the wonderful creations below!
The fabulous photo above is from the incredibly sexy mama, artist, and blogger, Karen Mowrey. Karen was inspired to do her TGI Bench Monday self-portrait with her saxophone, in response to the sound theme this month. This image just kills me. So cool!
Heart Senses by Emily Long
Listen
Close the eyes
Still and listen
Open the senses of the heart
Listen
Smell the green
Washed clean by falling rain
Smell the soil
Warmed by beams of sun
Feel the air caress the skin
Cool shadows
Hot sun
Feel them play across the face
Hear the heartbeat within
Let it slow
Hear it match its rhythm
To the pulsing of the Earth
Taste the love that dwells within
Taste the joy so deep
Listen
Hear the footsteps of the ages
Steps that were, are, and will be yet
Listen
Hear the voice of all that is
The poem above was written by Emily Long of Healing Pages, a blog filled with heartfelt poetry. Emily also recently wrote a poem in response to my painting, Listening, called Listen Deep (which I loved!)
The beautiful mandala above is Fairyland Pentagram Mandala by Sue O'Kieffe of the blog, Sacred Circle Mandalas. The colors in this piece sing Spring to me!
This art journal spread above was created by Verna of the blog, Studio Vee, in response to a prompt from Ali Edwards. It's all about the things that make Verna happy. What a lovely thing to play with in your journal!
Kitty Duet! Last, but certainly not least, I want to point you in the direction of this post from Janice of the blog, Postcards from Wildwood. The post itself is hilarious, but the recording Janice put together in response to the sound theme...oh my, it may just be one of my favorite responses to a Creative Every Day Challenge theme ever!! It's flippin fantastic! So, please go over there straight away and check out Janice and her cat Oliver's earth-shattering duet based on Rossini’s famous Duetto buffo di due gatti (Comic duet for two cats). And then you can come back and thank me for making your day by sending you over there. 
Wishing you all a wonderfully creative weekend!
