Prioritising Doing What You Love... (another note to self)

Doing what I love doesn't make me any money...
Doing what I love, can not be a sustainable career...
Doing what I love is not understood by the world, who sees it as a hobby...

And...
 

Doing what I love makes me feel tinglingly alive!
Doing what I love brings me back to my own authenticity!
Doing what I love makes my heart sing!

So...

Doing what I love must be priority for me...
Doing what I love needs to be the reason I do everything else...
Doing what I love, can be the home I live in, and everything else can be home maintenance!

*Warning! Following your bliss doesn't mean you don't have to "chop wood & carry water" in order to follow it! 

Dreamtime - Art for the art Therapist.

Today I entered the creative process, to dream & drift whilst still awake...

to think of things I would not normally imagine...

and create a life far richer than I could ever make in normal, day-to-day consciousness...

My hands worked clay... but at the end of the day, what I had created was unexpected...

The clay went back into a bag for next time...

I had spent time with my self....

sculpting thoughts, instead of physical form...

that is all

X

Happy New Calender Flip

Summer Solstice came & went, bringing with the changing balance of sunlight enormous changes in my personal life...

A New Year, and a new diary, now confront me... I have no idea how I shall create the life I need... a new page, a clean slate, a virgin canvas, are all intimidating...

What if I make a mistake? What if I'm not as competent as I need to be? What if nobody understands what I create?

Art reflects life... and so I must create art, despite my fears, in order to discover visual metaphors... and symbols representing elements of daily life... These are as signposts, for travelers in unfamiliar territory...

Here's to a New Year of high creativity, of great illumination, and new vision.
Here's to a New Year of innovation, and of wonder... of prolific ideas, and deep insights...

As you mark the first page of your 2015, I wish you much joy and kindness in the year to come.

Erasers, perfectionism, & happy accidents

When I was a kid, my art teacher banned erasers, so I learned to draw without them. I wonder now, if she had a deeper reason for teaching us to make "mistakes" into "happy accidents".
 She was a very good teacher... 

Now I am adult, if I need an eraser, it's a warning sign that I'm compromising my integrity, by not expressing myself freely. I'm pernickety & pedantic and secretly, I feel cheated out of my own creative experience. My effort to resolve the work unappreciated, I feel manipulated into having to produce something "perfect' for the rest of the world's to approval, instead of birthing something new with a life of its own, that I will love, imperfections & all, knowing the secret struggle we shared....

 

 There is a tenderness between the artist and the piece of work which has struggled to be born. Erasers, in a quest for perfection, can wipe away the unintended lines that reveal & respect the intrinsic character of the work....

And metaphorical erasers can disregard the private tenderness between a person creating their life, & the life they are creating that is known only to them,

 " happy accidents" & all.

Yep, she was a very good teacher....