Entries Tagged as: play
Moon Collector
March 24th, 2009, Comments (12)
Moon Collector, 9"x12", acrylic on paper
More moon art and more blue. Two of my favorite things at the moment. This piece, Moon Collector, came together intuitively. I was about to add the red strings attaching the moons to the bucket, but found myself hesitating. After stepping back from it a bit, I got the sense that it was about something rather personal and I wasn't sure I wanted to reveal it in the paint, but I went ahead and put them in there.
So what's up with the moons here? Can you guess? Perhaps you could make up your own story about what they mean.
I think my internal dialogue about becoming a mother sometime in the near future is coming out here. The moons with their red strings make me think of ovaries. Not all my art is so deeply personal, but letting your intuition guide you, often leads to artwork that expresses what's going on underneath all the layers. It can be scary sometimes, but it's always fascinating when approached with a bit of curiosity.
One of the places I first learned to play with my intuition is through Art Picnics. Feel free to join me on my first Virtual Art Picnic this Thursday from 1 - 3 p.m. Eastern time for $25! We'll be talking about how to get playful in your art, how this playful attitude can help connect you to your intuition, and we'll be spending a whole hour creating joyfully! You can sign up for the class or get on the Virtual Art Picnic mailing list here. I plan on doing a Saturday workshop next month for those who can't make it on a weekday. And I'm planning to offer an Art-Picnic-To-Go kit in the near future!
Tomorrow, I'll be sharing what the totally optional monthly theme will be for the Creative Every Day Challenge in April! Wee! I love sharing these themes with you and I think you'll love this one!
Upcoming Virtual Art Picnics
March 19th, 2009, Comments (4)
The Virtual Art Picnic Intro call went great today! I hope that if you were listening in or if you got the recording that you enjoyed it. I loved talking about the process, although, I definitely need to watch ums. Um, oy! Lesson learned.
The first actual Virtual Art Picnic will take place next Thursday, March 26th from 1 - 3 p.m. EST. And you can sign up for that here.
I think I'll do another intro call next month before the Saturday, April 25th Virtual Art Picnic teleclass. If you'd like to be on the mailing list for that, go on over to the Virtual At Picnic info page and fill out the form at the bottom. I know weekdays don't work for everyone, so do let me know (in the comments or by email) what days and times work best for you. Next month's call is on a Saturday and I plan on doing an evening class in the future as well.
Chatting about it with the hubster last night, I realized I'd really like to put together some kind of Art Picnic to-go package that you could buy and download from the site. Something with an audio component (mp3 recording) and a pdf ebook. And possibly also an Art Picnic basket that you could buy and hold in your hands that would include a cd and mini book.
I love it when ideas are flowing. I hope your creativity is flowing wherever you are. I'll be checking in again tomorrow. Until then, sweet dreams!
Virtual Art Picnics – Free Intro Call, March 19th!
March 12th, 2009, Comments (5)
The first Virtual Art Picnic will be taking place this month and I'm so thrilled to share this experience with you! This workshop will help you ground yourself, get unstuck, and find the joy in your creativity.
A quick overview of art picnics: One of my favorite ways to get playful with my creativity is to have an art picnic. All you need is whatever materials you have at hand, a comfy spot (I like to spread out on the floor with a blanket and pillows), and some dedicated time to play. I like to begin by giving myself permission to make "bad" art and then I jump in by selecting whatever material I'm drawn to in that moment.
The class will meet for about a half hour to check in, do some grounding, and then go off and have our own creative fun for an hour. Then we'd come back and check in again for a half hour at the end. Doing it in this class format is a great way to plan for some pure creative fun in your life with a great support system in place.
The date of first teleclass is Thursday, March 26th, from 1 - 3 p.m. EST and it's only $25! I will describe the process more thoroughly in the coming week, but there will also be a Free Intro to Virtual Art Picnics call on Thursday, March 19th at 1 p.m. EST. (Use this time zone converter to find out what time that will be in your area.) The call will be approximately 40 minutes and we'll cover:
- What is an art picnic, anyway?
- What will the Virtual Art Picnic workshop will be like?
- How can you use art picnics to kick-start your creativity?
Simply fill out the form below and I will send you the call-in information when the call gets closer. I will be recording this call, but you will need to sign up in order to receive the recording.
*Update: This call has already happened, but you can sign up below if you'd like to receive information about future Virtual Art Picnics and free Intro calls.
The call is free, but long distance charges may apply. I look forward to speaking with you on the call!
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.
CED March Theme: Dreams
February 23rd, 2009, Comments (34)
The *totally optional* theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge in March will be Dreams.
How can you use this theme in your creations? Well, you could use the previous themes to help you brainstorm by getting playful and writing all the ways you could intepret the theme. Or perhaps you will dream something up?
If you need some suggestions, I will be posting about the theme throughout the month. Here are a few ideas to get you started. You could:
- *Keep a dream journal
- *Use your dreams (or nightmares) as the basis for art
- *Read about artists who used dreams as a source of inspiration
- *Explore your dreams for the future in a dream board
- *Practice Dreaming Big
- *Turn your dreams into poems
- *Play with visualizations to spark your creativity
How to use the 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.
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.
Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.
And have fun with it!
I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious. -Andrew Wyeth
p.s. The painting above was one I was working on this week and it seemed to fit the them nicely. It was created with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper. I added the theme word to it in Photoshop.
