Upon Awakening

Upon Awakening

Listen
this spring morning
to dew drops
sunshine
blossoms opening
noise on the freeway.

Listen
for back stories
echoes of relationships
loops between words

how I'm changed
by friendships

It takes a little while
when I awake
to invite myself to this
new day
to reassign labels
I gave myself yesterday.

I'm feeling a bit anxious...
breathe, stretch
say good morning
wait for the dance to begin
trust my muscles
know the steps.

I haven't written poetry for a long time. This is the fruit of one of my early morning five minute writings...not born exactly this way, but the framework was there when I wrote intuitively without an idea of where I was headed. Several times lately, when I've realized I can't get places with my thinking brain, I've found my way when I trusted my muscle memory, built over time, to get me there. It's such an interesting experience.

Baruch ata adonai...The past two weeks I've burst with creative energy or felt dry dry dry, and I've been acutely aware they are only cycles. If I wait, I will bloom and I will fade. I'll feel indolent and then suddenly awake with possibilities. I ebb and flow with inner tides. Now I know I am at peace.  Amen

Art as Metaphore

"What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and those around you. I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy, but flowers keep blooming inside me." Lupita Nyong'o

The activity in last week's Life Book 2014 online art course was to celebrate connections in life while at the same time continuing to learn how to draw a face, create transparent layers using collage, gesso, stamps, writing, and applying paint over and over again. The first task was to find a face in a magazine to use as a base and then make it our own by completely changing it. Wow. Isn't this just like real life. If you peeled off your layers, wouldn't find you find something completely different underneath, an entire back story? This week's project is a metaphor for life: create a face, change it, try on clothes, change a hair color, collage over the rough spots, get a new wardrobe until you've got your very best look. Then with compassion, change your thoughts as well.

Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o, winner of the supporting actress award for 12 Years a Slave, is an amazing inspirational speaker and writer. "I had begun enjoying the seduction of inadequacy but flowers keep blooming inside me." I love that. I know about that. Peel back my layers and you can see all the times I've lived that seduction, but not now. Now I'm getting better and I'm gentle with myself. Lovely combo.

Baruch ata adonai...I am so blessed to live a long enough life to look back and appreciate my many layers with compassion and love. Amen

Can't Wait for Inspiration

"You can't wait for inspiration. Sometimes you have to go after it with a club." Jack London 

"Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." Anne Lamott

Given a choice, it's a no brainer. I want to live in the world of WOW NOW. I want to stride from peak to peak, to be effortlessly inspired, cheerful, full of seeing things for the first time and knowing my heart is full and I am present. I want to look out my kitchen window and always see the full rainbow that arced across the sky yesterday. I want everything to come easily. I want to write and paint effortlessly. Don't we all!

Entering the unknown of the blank page or canvas takes a lot of wandering in the wilderness. It takes a lot of practice to bring something out of nothing. It takes a lot of faith and a lot of work and given a choice, I want cut to the chase and start with inspiration. But when I start out knowing where I want to go and stick with that, I limit myself. I'm in the land of easy, of tried and true, not on the road to discovery.

We all have limiting beliefs. One of mine is that for most creative people art and writing come easily. I know this isn't really true, but there is this nagging belief; since it doesn't come easily to me, it means I'm not very good. And then Jack London appears. Thanks, Jack. The truth is I love the process of discovery, of not being so good and getting better. I'm so in love with those aha moments. The most important thing is to do a lot of work even if it's not very good work, because I know my work has gotten better. It takes a lot more time than any of us want to become competent in almost anything.

When I get bogged down on the creative path, I realize I am also way low on the gratitude scale. The more I feel grateful, the more willing I am to see the blank page as an opportunity for discovery rather than a stab in the dark.

On my desk is a lovely gratitude box. Around the edges are the cards below, little recycled remnants of art projects and motivating messages.

Card by card, I will write on the back of each one a few words about people and events I'm grateful for.

There are very few whoopdeedoo wowzers in this box. The cards are appreciations of lunch with friends, a good movie or concert, finding something I've lost and found, good food, community, a productive time in my studio. Forty-seven little cards so far this year. I look at that little box and those little cards and know card by card I'll fill that box to overflowing in another couple of months. It helps me to pay attention to the smallest joys, joys that can be written about in a very few words.

Just as I expect too much of myself as a beginning artist, I sometimes forget to remember the power of gratitude. It all takes time and practice. As much as I've been working on this, sometimes I forget how easy gratitude is and how good it makes me feel. Perhaps a few words on little cards in a lovely box will work for you, too.

Baruch ata adonai...writing today's blog has been an exercise in patience. It has taken me hours. Because I haven't been writing, I'm rusty. I'm going to begin writing everyday for five minutes first thing in the morning. I used to do this and I want to begin again. I am grateful to myself for coming back to this piece over and over until I finished. Amen

How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick by Lettie Cottin Pogrebin was written just in time for me and my friends. It's an important read for the friend who is ill and for those of us who want to be the best kind of friend we can be when all the rules change. I bought a copy for myself and gave it to my friend with breast cancer. Then I ordered another for myself. Now I'm ordering a third.

My friends and I are getting to that age, not that there is any right age for this sort of thing. It can happen at any age, but more and more a bad diagnosis for you or your friends is likely to happen the older and older you get. My friends and I have been dancing with each other for a long time, dancing like we know the steps when we do and when we don't, dancing when we feel more like crying and hiding, and being wonderfully brave and adventurous when we haven't a clue what dance we're doing. And then the bad diagnosis taps us one of us on the shoulder, cuts in, and partners us off to an unknown ballroom where the rules have nothing to do with us, except they do. And so it is for three of my go to friends.

Lettie Cottin Pogrebin is an old friend too. She doesn't know we're old friends. She's someone like me only on a national scale. She is one of the founders of MS magazine, and because we're the same age and because we're both Jewish we've always had a lot in common. Twenty-five years ago she wrote a book for me when I was beginning to figure out if I had a place in Judaism. She introduced me to her friends and I read their books as well, and I found my way. Some of them cycle back through her current book. I'm grateful I met them all.

If you are in the dark corridor of illness, your own or a friend's, if you're looking for a light to lead you forward, the title of this book is the beginning of everything you need to know. 

Baruch ata adonai....I am grateful for health and the wealth of friends who guide me to unknown parts of myself. Thank you for waking me up this day. May I be a friend to others and especially to myself. Amen

Feeling Content

"All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer...It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as  your ambitions."Ira Glass

This morning it only took me an hour to make that watermark. That's a lot of time first thing in the morning. I started at 7:15 and voila! There it is, covering up an important world. I'm settling for good enough. One of my words for this year is ease, and so I relax. This morning Ira Glass whispers in my ear, "It's going to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your way through."

Well, here she is. My artistic guardian. I love her. She's the first face I've ever drawn I truly love. She looks me steadily in the eye and reminds me to keep being creative and pay no attention to those snotty voices that could be muttering away if I were to listen. She wants me to have fun. And I am. I do need to give her a name. Hmmmm. I'm going to give this some thought today.

My guardian, loving and steely, appeared during the first assignment in a year long online class, Life Book 2014. One week into it and I'm smitten. I think it's going to be a wonderful course for me. There are students from all over the world. It's a huge class in terms of the number of people participating and the content. In the first week there were six videos. There will be many guest teachers over the course of the year, and Tamara, the founder, producer and guide-in-chief has done an amazing job of building in support for artists like me whose courage might flounder, whose stuff is just not that good, yet, but trying to be good and getting better with practice.

The word you can't quite see is Abundance. My guardian wants me to explore Abundance. Isn't she wonderful? With ease!

Usually the first few months of the year I like to go away to someplace warmer and sunnier. Last year I painted in Mexico. Another year we spent a month in Kauai. This year I am very happy and content to be at home and to grow myself right here in my own sweet place. Sometime feeling content has a short shelf life. Today I'm creating a gratitude jar and dropping a little piece of paper inside, a reminder that today at nine in the morning, I am feeling an abundance of contentment.

Baruch ata adonai...I rejoice in moments like this when everything seems right with my world. I rejoice that I recognize in this very moment I am optimistic and happy. No qualifiers. Thank you. Amen

Before I Walk Through the Open Door Into The New Year

"In the case of the creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely." Friedrich von Schiller

Because I have been willing to trust my creative mind more than ever before, trust its murmuring, trust its quiet little voice, its tap tap tapping patiently on my shoulder and especially when it slaps like a thunderbolt, I have learned a lot about myself and what I'm capable of doing. As I continue to be willing to be active in the process of letting go, I've been able to keep my inner "worthy critic" at bay longer than before. When I saw this quote last week it resonated with a big wow. "I reject too soon and discriminate too severely." I compare my work in process with an accomplished artist's final product, and you know all about that don't you!

Because I paid attention to my mind's murmuring, I signed up again for Bloom True, an acrylic painting class with Flora Bowley. I've got a long way to go before I'm at home with acrylics and canvas. I've taken classes from her before and love her style, her use of color and her willingness to take chances. This year Flora stretched herself a lot and she showed her students the personal risks she is taking even though she was way beyond uncomfortable taking them. I enjoyed painting for longer and longer periods of time and though one painting is still in a chaotic state, two others are hanging in my home, reminders of how far I've come in this process.

I'm much more comfortable drawing my little ladies as well as mixed breed animals all of whom defy gravity and normal body shapes. After years of being shy about sharing this with others, I went public on my blog and in real life by putting cards together and selling them. Our local museum shop took a chance on me as did a half dozen other venues. I'm learning what I don't want to do again, and last night I wrote down steps I could take next year, tomorrow, to continue to grow and take chances in this area. My inner critic is quite willing to withhold comments when it comes to drawing. What a relief.

It was quite a surprise to realize what a creative lightning strike can accomplish. There were three I can think of. One clap pushed me down the road to others. Flora suggested I look into the August Joy Up, a vision book class. I loved doing that and made some discoveries about myself. One is that I love horses. Through the joy of creating vision pages and trusting the process, I discovered equine therapy. I was moved to make all arrangements to take a class only a couple of weeks away within hours of discovering that it existed.

The rewards from making the cards have gone way beyond the steps of creating, making and selling. I've met a wonderful new friend that way and put together two books, one combining prayers and drawings. I've learned to ask for what I want and take chances. A goal for the new year is to create a different line of cards, keep track of the expenses, and make the process of putting the cards together much simpler and keep the cost of the card down. If you have experience along this line and are willing to share, please contact me.

I'm closing the door on 2013 with no regrets and a feeling of accomplishment and joy. Yeah!

Baruch ata adonai...may I trust my creative mind and let it grow without the need to check its madness with fear and shame. Hallelujah! Amen

Friendship and Gratitude

"When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled and pleased to give back. Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you." Anne Lamott

Yesterday and the day before captured everything good about 2013.

One day was totally and unexpectedly dominated by the celebration of friendship, and I began to rejoice in the way serendipity brings us together and then glues us through all the calamities and joys of life. Two friends who arrived by pure chance have stayed for decades. Another opened the door just a few months ago. The amazing thing is that we each recognize something undefinable and alluring in each other which is worth sticking around for. Many friends come through shared interests, and I wonder when so many others are involved in the same way, what it is about certain people that keeps us checking into each others lives. My friends have rallied over and over this year. Thank you all. You are better than magic, and I know I am so lucky.

Yesterday we drove to the mountains to have lunch with our grandchildren and watch them confidently and eagerly start their skiing lessons. It was the Monday before Christmas and not many people or other creatures were were stirring on the road or at the resort. We drove over to the mountain and hiked into our cabin. A couple was ice skating way out on the lake. It seemed like a daring and joyful thing to chance so early in the season. We crunched our way over the snow filled road, checked out our cabin which looked snug and brave, and then continued down to the lake.  Could a day be more life affirming, more soul drenched, more beautiful and pristine? It was truly a winter wonderland.

As the year ends, I am filled with gratitude, optimism, and good health. At least for a few days, maybe if only for today, may I remember to stop and enjoy each moment. May I look into the eyes of others and see them. May I go forward and into the future minutes and hours with soft sweetness. May we all.

Baruch ata adonai...More and more for more and more time I feel I am the person I want to be. It is good to feel comfortable within myself. May I be the friend others are for me. May I continue to be willing to learn and change and challenge and accept what comes to me day by day. Thank you for the blessings of this year. Amen

 

Blooming At Last

"In a world that just keeps getting faster, increasingly more complex and loaded with never-ending expectations, I continually need to remind myself to be gentle, both with myself and with the people around me. For me, being gentle is about softening and allowing. It's about letting go of my grip on how I want things to be and allowing things to just be the way that they are. In this way, being gentle is also about acceptance." Flora Bowley

This weekend I completed a five week online class on intuitive painting with Flora Bowley. I've taken classes from Flora before both online and twice in Mexico, and this is the first time I feel as though I have overcome myself, been gentle and patient enough to soothe the inner angsty voices and paint on anyhow.

This process involves putting down layer after layer of acrylic paint until the painting works its way from a mess, from the unknown, from stuck, to something that begins to speak to me, to something that seems to want to be born on this canvas. I have no painting background and no particular skill I bring to this process except determination, except knowing I want so much to let go, and when I do, I will stand on the other side of what I know now.

Lots of potential in this one. I love the colors. It's maybe the fifth layer I've put on.

Several days later it looks like this. You can still see bits of the painting above and now it's kind of an underwater scene. I like it a lot. I fuss with it a few days, and I am stuck. I don't know where to go next. Time for radical change.

Tuesdays and Fridays Flora demonstrated the daily lesson on two paintings she began the first day. They were about as big a mess or full of possibilities, whichever you might want to call it, as the rest of us were making. We compared notes and shared our paintings and emotional journey on a private Facebook page. This day she added a flower or maybe it was a fireworks burst, and I ran with that idea. I wanted to see how she did it.

I love this painting, because it feels as finished as I can make it and because it is the first time I painted effortlessly and with abandon. Even though what you see are blooms, each of the many layers I added is still there and adds to the whole. I've named the painting Blooming at Last.  It's on my studio wall as an acknowledgement that I can let go, I can move through many layers of paint and emotional uncertainty, and I can do it while being gentle with myself.

Baruch ata adonai...I've struggled with this process for years and something in me wouldn't let go. I know this painting is the beginning of a breakthrough in all parts of me. Thank you. Amen

On Your Mark, Get Set, Let Go

"There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be." Rev. Safier Rose

I awoke from a long dream and knew it was an important one. There were the usual suspects: people I haven't seen for years, in places I'm not quite sure exist, vaguely connected to things I've recently encountered. Toward the end I'm sitting on the ground Indian style (which I can't do anymore), writing important sayings on a block of plastic wrapped Monterey Jack cheese which is supported by a stack of my green childhood encyclopedias, which in real life I just gave away and haven't looked at in years. The dream occurred at the end of a week when all the steps I wrote about a couple of  weeks ago were finished, and I felt there was nothing more I could do to help myself prepare for the future.

As soon as I woke up and wrote the dream down, I realized it had a important piece of information for me. Cheese melts. Reference books are not only out of date, but also unread, and no matter how much I prepare for the changes ahead, life is going to happen in unpredictable ways. Relax. There is nothing I can control. At that moment, I let go.

And remember my experience at Equine Therapy less than a month ago? Until I let go of my self talk, my self defeating self talk, until I emptied myself of all thought and just stood quietly and at peace with no expectations, only then would the horse know I was safe and it was safe with me. Only then could we join together and play together.

Today is the beginning of the third week of an online art class that involves, guess what, letting go. What you see is the third step. The first two layers are applications of warm colors and cool colors. The class is about painting intuitively. I see some good stuff here, and I know my head and my heart are loving this journey. Great music is on and am having fun. Nothing in mind. No expectations. Then we're on to adding black and white.

Oh dear. Getting a bit chaotic and yet there are elements here I hope I can come back to. I know they're going to disappear with the next layers, but there are parts I love, and before it becomes too precious, too hard to let go, I add more elements so I can move on. Then we add three translucent colors.

This is what letting go looks like. I know it is just where it's suppose to be, and yet, where are the parts I loved so much? We've been told not to worry about pretty or making it look like anything in particular. I've taken this class three times, and I've never gotten this far, never been able to look at it and not see chaos and be scared and intimidated. I can hardly wait to see what we're going to be asked to do next.

In order to let go, I've got to go against my nature. I've got to let go of being in control, of needing to have a plan, of knowing where things are going. In paintings and dreams and in life, things change quickly. What I'm changing is only paint on canvas, and I do know it's much more than that. The other side of being in control is everything else that is possible.

"There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be." Rev. Safire Rose

Baruch ata adonai...what a journey. I'm loving all these lessons one after the other. Thank you. Thank you. Amen

The Cleansing Blessing of Being in the Present Moment

The view from my window: the sky's gorgeous layers of grey, dark and darker grey, and also white and brighter white. Quite monochromatic. Definitely a change in the weather common to the beginning of September and a welcome break from last week's heat. I took several pictures through the open window's screen which gave it an effect I loved. I tried three times to move the pictures to my computer. Nothing connected. So here's the first best thing about today. I chose to do nothing about it. What a blessed relief.

This is a perfectly ordinary Monday for me. I'm sitting at my computer first thing in the morning, wondering what I'm thinking and liking this idea of doing nothing. What if I acted as if I didn't have to do anything at all about so much that goes on in my life? What if I acted as if the me I meet this morning is just a perfectly fine version of me? What would happen if I didn't worry about my leg pain which really concerns me? What if I acted as if everything my husband does requires no help or opinions from me? What if I acted as though I'm not waiting for one single thing?

The kind of nothing I'm thinking of is a surrender to the moment, to living in that moment. I can choose to rearrange my mood by struggling with iphoto or my camera, or I can do nothing at all about it. Who really needs to see those pictures?  Last week my acupuncturist suggested every few hours or so, I check in to the present moment by taking a minute to notice the colors or shapes or sounds or textures in that moment. Nothing more. Just be in that minute. I choose to think this has contributed to sleeping better at night. For a few minutes a day, spread out through the day, I stopped the chatter. Yesterday a very bouncy song ran through my mind, you know, the kind of thing you can't get rid of? Then I missed it when it wasn't there, because it too became a moment of dodging the commentary constantly going on in my monkey mind. Now I sing it on purpose and enjoy the moment of doing nothing more than singing.

I like the Hebrew word dayenu. It means "it is enough." For today I am waiting for nothing at all. For today I'm celebrating what's right with the moment. It's another thing I'll add to my hourly moment of being in the present moment and doing nothing about it. Whatever I am is enough. Dayenu.

Baruch ata adonai...I sigh a great sigh of relief. I am here. I am just here in the cool breeze of this grey morning. I just am. Here. Amen

Reaping What I Sowed

"How often I experience growth and work toward growth as a result of pain and suffering. May I commit myself to growth through joy and happiness. May I believe this is an even more valid means of growth." From a prayer I wrote in 2010.

My art journals from the fall of 2010 through the end of 2011 now look to me as though I planted seeds and knowingly marched on to how I'm feeling about myself now and what I'm doing today. In that year and a quarter, day after day, I wrote poems and prayers and dreams and experimented with ideas for projects and drawings. If you've followed my blog, you know it wasn't a straight line, but rather one moving through angst to joy.

The odd shaped pieces of colored paper came from SCRAP, a San Francisco treasure trove of recycled art supplies. They still have hundreds of these pages with a flag cut out. I can't imagine where they came from. I love the two hole binder ring approach. I was willing to put down anything. I know if I'd started with a bound book I wouldn't have been as uninhibited.

Today after a great meeting with another artist, I decided to go through these journals to see where they might take me today. I farmed them and put together this little book of resources.

The note cards I've been selling this month came from ideas I developed in these journals, but then I had no idea where they would lead me. I was too into the idea of art being hard work rather than fun play.

Somehow through writing this blog, through prayers, through loving my little ladies and seeing where they would take me, I did let go and then I took off. I have ideas for moving my drawings from cards to walls. Or maybe I'll go back to painting fabric. That was something else I found in the journals. Or maybe I'll figure out how to combine the two.

Baruch ata adonai... I'm so glad I documented where I was a few years ago. I can see how far I've come. I am so pleased I've lightened up on myself. What a lovely journey life can be. Amen

What Is Your Story?

"If you understand the strands of your creative DNA, you begin to see how they mutate into common threads in your work. You begin to see the 'story' that you're trying to tell; why you do the things you do (both positive and self-destructive); where you are strong and where you are weak...and how you see the world and function in it."

Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit Learn It and Use It For Life.

For a month last year, Twyla Tharp, a most outstanding choreographer and dancer was my mentor. Early on, her thirty-three questions helped me look at my creative autobiography. Recently  Richie Norton in his book The Power of Starting Something Stupid mentored me through developing my Be Bold Collection of cards and bookmarks. With such wonderful mentors, how could I have been caught off guard when Kay, the owner of the charming French at Heart boutique, asked me what my story is? She bought twelve cards to sell and said her customers want to know the story behind the items they purchase. She means she wants to know my story as an artist, and if you've been following me for any time at all, you know connecting my story to the word artist has been a journey. 

As I went through Twyla's questionnaire, I learned my DNA has to do with the particulars of swirling colorful and fleeting moments bumping into each other to reveal universal concerns about being social, active, and curious. I've made cards for friends over the past few years and the common response is, "Your cards make me happy." As I went through Richie's book, I began to break the process down and I am learning to trust myself. I can't begin to explain why it is all working, and for now, I'm not asking any questions. I think this is my story. 

Two years ago at the beginning of a painting class I created this affirmation. Today I own it. 

The past month has been quite a ride! By the end of June, I will have sold about a hundred cards to galleries, a museum store, and boutiques. Last week I spent three days in near isolation making forty more cards, thanks to the help of a friend who volunteered to help with the assembly process and also developed a new line of cards and bookmarks thanks to the encouragement of a friend who liked the one I posted a few blogs ago. Our Lady of Fatal Assumptions and Our Lady of Possibilities are two entirely new Be Bold Girls who have come to life. So much fun! So much work! So much satisfaction! 

For the time being, I'm not opening an Etsy shop. If you are interested in seeing or buying my cards or bookmarks, please send me your email address or your web or blog address so I can get in touch with you. My email address is babschwartz68@gmail.com.

Baruch ata adonai...Help me to remain honest with myself and what I can do and can't do. Help me keep to a pace that is healthy for me. I want to keep my artist side a part of my life not let it become my life. Where I am right now is the answer to a prayer. Thank you. Don't let me become grandiose. Remind me small steps keep moving me forward. Remind me the words artist and play and fun go hand in hand together. Thank you for bringing me to this time in my life. Amen

The Power of Small Steps

"To recast larger problems into smaller, less arousing problems, people can identify a series of controllable opportunities of modest size that produce visible results." Karl Weick, psychologist who coined the term "small wins."

Last evening I began reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to my seven year old granddaughter on Skype. Ninety miles away she curled up in a chair eating a piece of watermelon, as I delighted in beginning Lewis Carroll's wonderful story after a very long absence. The first chapter finds Alice drinking something she supposed wasn't poison, but could have been, and observes herself getting smaller and smaller and then, seeing a beautiful little cake with EAT ME marked in currants, she does so. "Curiouser and curiouser," she says, now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was!"

Six weeks ago, part way into The Power of Starting Something Stupid by Richie Norton, I decided I wanted to sell the cards I'm making, and I called the manager of our local museum to ask if she would  look at them. First small step. (Six have sold so far.) Then I was asked if I wanted to show my cards at a local food festival. OK, I don't know about showing cards in that way, but I could learn. And Yes, I could sit with them and encourage people to take a look and I could forget about pride and suggest they buy some. Yesterday I sold thirty cards. Along the way I was told about a local company that prints cards for the museum. I'm not in Wonderland. Real Land is quite amazing in itself! If I thought I needed  to chart this out before I started, I might have been overwhelmed, but I do have the ability to go from one small step to the next. Today I'll go to the printer because crafting the cards by hand is stopping me from getting back to the art side of creating that I love: drawing and painting.

People have told me how happy the cards make them feel, and that support carries me on. Each step requires many many small learnings. I can learn each step, but if I begin to look too far ahead, I feel as though I could fall over backwards. Unlike Alice, I'm not getting taller. As I stay within myself, I feel like I'm expanding. It's fun. This week, I'll contact several more galleries and see what happens next.

Baruch ata adonai...I asked for help to stay out of fear. Thank you. As I stay within the reality of taking small steps and away from grandiose thinking or looking too far down the road, I am forward. WOW. Amen

Accepting Authenticity as an Artist

"Most of us simply don't know how to move from who we are pretending to be to who we truly are. Every day, you either become more aligned with your authentic self or you move further away. And the difference lies completely in the choices you make." Richie Norton, The Power  of Starting Something Stupid

I still stumble when someone asks if I'm an artist: after all, real artists are in galleries, are on museum walls, are the stuff of art history classes. Now my art is in a museum, in the museum gift shop, and my art will soon be in galleries. I'm in transition as I move from someone who dabbles to someone who must own that a change has taken place. My challenge is to become comfortable calling myself an artist and become comfortable selling my art.

I can trace the change to two things: my sister and a friend strongly encouraged me to hang my canvases on the walls in my home, and The Power of Starting Something Stupid. I found this book recommended on a blog I tripped on one day. As I read, not yet connecting what I read to what I would begin to do, I thought of my son and how much this book was aimed at him, and still not yet connecting to myself, I decided to ask the manager of our local Haggin Museum if she would look at my cards and consider selling them there. She said yes, and then a new friend, a gallery owner, said yes too.

The past week I felt as though I was running rough. I think my gears had been stripped.  This morning,  I believe I am going through a realignment and am moving toward a new balance, the first of many I'm sure, as I accept my authentic self as an artist.

Baruch ata adonai...it is a blessing to accept myself as I am. Why have I been struggling? As this new path opens, help me to stay calm, to recognize more quickly when I'm stressing myself, to breathe and meditate when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Help me to love myself when I doubt and to appreciate and enjoy the journey into the totally unexpected life bonus opening to me. Amen

Great News: The Subject Reveals Itself

"Each painting has its own way of evolving....When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself."
William Baziogtes

After waiting all week, I finally had time to begin painting again. I could hardly wait. For this warm up day, I pulled out a 12x12 canvas waiting for something to happen to it

and one paper that began life in some now forgotten way.

My camera was ready for me to capture the steps in my process. My expectations were low. Music danced inside and outside. The challenge was on.

Quickly George the cat appeared. But no, not exactly. I thought it was going to be Gracie, my labradoodle. It was Gracie pretending to be a cat named George. Go Gracie!

Ever since I bought Creative Illustration Workshop for Mixed-Media Artists  by Katherine Dunn, I've been wanting to combine painting with story using found materials. I haven't had time to get to it, but now with George, I have a beginning. I think I'll see what happens if I add some pastels or give him a slight makeover or write his story all around him and add earrings.

This is what happens when I don't know where I'm going and decide to use up the paint left over from George on a canvas I wanted to head in an entirely different direction. I was having such a great time, it was hard not to be exuberant with color and go way over the top.

These paintings aren't finished, but they are revealing themselves. This is so much like real life. If I have fun instead of being serious, if I go where my intuition takes me even if it doesn't make any sense at all, if I play with ideas instead deciding angst is a reasonable way to spend my time, something will evolve that has never been created before. It may be nothing at all, and a day will have passed in a most delightful way. Thanks to Leslie Saeta for reminding me to document my progress.

Baruch ata adonai...have I ever had so much fun painting in such a light and carefree way? I'm still pumped up when I think about it. You keep reminding me to be happy and grateful and this day when I painted I was both. Amen

Sit. Close Your Eyes. Ask Yourself How You're Feeling.

A few minutes ago, when I sat down to the computer, I closed my eyes and asked myself how I'm feeling. The way the answer came surprised me. "You are feeling great joy." Not I am feeling, but rather it seems someone else is giving me that message. So then I asked myself why, and the answers came rolling in. "Because your cabin in the mountains will be open in six weeks or so. Because you are going to the art center party tonight. Because finally your new glasses are ready to be picked up. Because you've made plans to go see Charlie play t-ball, and Sidney turn three, and discuss with Annie the book you're illustrating for her. Because after years of not wanting to prepare dinner, you're enjoying it now and making delicious meals. Because you made a breakthrough in thinking on the assemblage you've been working on. Because your body will be feeling better. Because you believe what you wrote the other day and are back on the track training for your life long marathon. Believe me now?"

It's not everyday I have the feeling God is laying on the evidence, telling me what I should know, if only I were smart enough to see myself clearly. I think I'm out of the funk that began a week ago today. I believe I am feeling great joy today. Way better than inglorious funk! It helps that the weather is great,  that the wind has slowed down. It helps that for the past two days, I've been working in the garden feeling sad for the plants that didn't make it through the winter and delighting in the forthcoming gifts from the ones that show so much promise.

Baruch ata adonai...thank you for being with me this morning and for such a clear message. I have so much in my life. I am grateful for the joy it brings me. Today I will remind myself over and over, "You are feeling great joy." And so I am. Amen

Let Your Little Light Shine

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity....Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  Melody Beattie

"Mental sunshine will cause the flowers of peace, happiness, and prosperity to grow upon the face of the Earth. Be a creator of mental sunshine." Graffiti on a wall in Berkeley, California

The best gift I gave myself this week was to turn my mind toward being grateful. I'm grateful a lot, but when I was reeling from not feeling well in Mexico, when I felt stuck in a state of ennui, I made the move. It was effortless, and you don't have to do anything to improve your outlook either except to thank people in your life. Yes, even your dog counts. Good things have been happening all week and yesterday I won a drawing for a hand quilted Valentine wall hanging. You can say, "no thanks" to lots of things. I do it every day. No thanks to those people who require me to say hello a second time when they call and then seem surprised I'm on the phone and pronounce my name wrong. No thanks to confusion, no thanks to negativity, my own or that of others. Saying yes to yourself starts with recognizing others. Thanking them for what they do for you. Soon you'll be thanking yourself too. This miracle is so simple it's hard to credit it for the change you'll feel. Your situation in life might not change, but you will feel better, more at ease within yourself.

Please tell me your story. Read the stories in the Newsletter tab on my blog. Read the comments left this week. Not too many, but you could change that. Tell me how gratitude has unlocked fullness for you this week.

Baruch ata adonai...I am feeling much better physically. I am thankful for the people in my life who have helped me this week: excellent body workers, healers who have taken care of me for years, artists who willingly share their talents, a friend who brought me a special book last night, another who thanked me for listening to her. I've gone from feeling sorry for myself to feeling creative, strong, and peaceful. Yahooooo adonai, yahooo! Amen

A Gratitude Experiment

"It is easy to thank God for life when things are going well. But life is much bigger than we give it credit for, and much of the time it's harder than we would like. It's a package deal, though." Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow

A year and a half ago, a friend and I agreed to send each other three brief statements of gratitude each day. I've written about this before, and today I want to encourage you to do the same thing. Do it with a friend, or do it in the comment section of each day's morning prayer blog, or please do it both ways. Check the Newsletter tab in my blog too. It is my intention to fill it with your stories and make it a source for learning so we all incorporate more gratitude in our lives.

Yesterday I didn't have too many people in my life but here's how sharing gratitude went. First there was Gracie. We exchanged licks. Well, figuratively. Then my husband. No licks but a kiss and a thank you being in my life. I thanked my Pilates teacher for her close attention to details that make my workout more valuable to me. I wrote to a dear friend I haven't heard from in awhile and received a lovely email filled with love in return. Hours later I went to my film club which is always fun. In the course of a conversation with one friend, I said thank you. I wonder if she heard it or wondered why I said it. I was just so thankful to be having the conversation with her, I blurted it out. Another friend and I had a very intimate sharing amidst the din of many other conversations about health and the need to have friends who are our health advocates. We both felt enriched by it.

This morning I woke up and decided I need to continue practicing gratitude for the rest of the week, and I hope you will too. It's easy to do for one day, but the point is to incorporate it so that it isn't something we must remember to do but something we eagerly anticipate doing to fill our well and the wells of others too.

Baruch ata adonai...I eagerly look forward to this day. Waking up again today with gratitude on my mind has me anticipating a wonderful day. It's just a word, but within the word are layers of feelings and intentions and untold gifts. Thank you for your presence in my life. Amen