The Artist Way: a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

 

I have worked through this book a couple of times over the past 10 years and the new levels of inspiration which I uncover are fascinating. It is a philosophy that enables the creator within each of use to flourish by using morning papers (a regular practice of a free stream of writing unedited and for private use only). In the morning papers one begins to see the pattern in self reflection, thoughts, and what gets the mojo working. It is not a deep book nonetheless useful. It provides a path to  pull the creativity from within by giving a visual life the inner self.

 

Mantel Time

The work of a man’s hand is a mark in time etching forever a moment of thoughtfulness, kindness and caring. A dear friend made this walnut mantel clock for me. This meaningful treasure perches on a slate table near my front door and is proudly displayed when entering my abode. I am lucky to have so many friends who back their friendship with carving a piece of time in a handcrafted item. Nothing compares to the love, affection and respect that goes into an item, a story, photograph, poem that says here is a part of my heart I am giving to you. My camera is perfect for capturing events, outdoor items and family functions but the quality need to caputure art or hand-designed items it is sorely lacking. I so apologize to Darin.

Everyday Spirals

I currently have a job that requires me to be on the road before the sun even contemplates what splendor it will paint for the day. Thus, I get to witness the glorious display every day and at predawn there are few clues what wonders await me. I just know that “something” will unfold just like Mercies to manage my day.

 

How many of us can put aside the childish milky ambitions for the finer meat of life? Can we say with a clear conscience that it is NOT about me? The numbers dwindle when we say we live a selfless life in all areas. Yeah, we surrender the few obvious eyesores. We might even proudly confess that we have yielded areas that please our loved ones so we can see the light dancing in their eyes. When the door is shut and windows closed do we still so righteously lay bare with self-sacrificing or do we all have a measure of a hoping or yearning desire that it is “about me”?

 

I was heading for a project early last week, when there was no sun—only the downpour of a Midwestern thunderstorm. The new fangled tires make the road more huggable for the individual cars but they spray such a mist on anyone behind them, the visibility becomes thick misty veil. The mercies were no different that rainy morning but the tension was so elevated I screamed out “I WANT IT TO BE ALL ABOUT ME”. I so wanted all those other drivers home either having breakfast or already at work surfing the net. When I finally arrived at my destination, I so focused on my needs, my wants and my responsibilities that I saw how rarely I think about anyone but me. It saddened me that I have spun around so quickly and tightly that I am caught in an unstoppable vortex of anxiety.

Retouched

Inspirational Torch

What I want to say, the words are impounded, what I shouldn’t say seems to be an unending supply of hurtful empty darts. Words are such a challenge for me. I grew up in a home of humiliation and constant teasing, although I still feel the sting of those ugly words, I am stuck and almost committed in the same pathway. I allow the overflow portal of my soul to spew hurtful pebbles or sharp jagged rocks at those I care about and love. I, so, desire to speak inspiration, hope and, to stir the kindness within peoples hearts. I had a design/art professor in college that opened doors of motivation and dared me to think higher and deeper. The natural outcome allowed me to excel beyond my skills and understanding. If she had doubts about me, she never dropped the hint of incompetence. I left college believing the stars were too close or minute when I could go “where no (wo)man has gone”. I did some amazing things in the following years; I accomplished things that still dazzle me. Twenty years later, the torch of inspiration is at my fingertips ready for dispensations so others can reach out and touch their dreams, accomplish or exceed their capacity as Mary Ann did for me. The question is how do I gather the words that seem to stumble and fall at my feet? I want to escape that humiliated child holding an empty basket, unable to speak because of the frequent tongue lashings. There are no scars only open wounds.

Purification Loyality

 

“One can not feel true happiness until one experiences loss …” a man quoted as saying in regards to losing all his worldly possessions after a California fire.  To add insult to injury last year his daughter died and the year before had a family business fail. Thus he is no stranger to purification.    I seem to have lost my freshness, and spontaneity that I once tasted in the success of my art work, my career and my relationships.  The cares of the world are weighing heavily and I feel flatten like a pancake.  It is frightening to lose resilience and see oneself as a sac of tiredness. I sense what Job felt like when his friends pointed their fingers at him and told him to curse God and get on with it.

 

Misjudged Red painting

How often do we misjudge circumstances, words, intentions, people (when we only look at behavior). I raise my hand first and foremost. Misjudgment is not always in condemnation but we can allow the idolatry in our hearts to look on some more favorably then deserved. Naturally the opposite is true and more often than we care to admit.                              1 Corinthians 7:25

Taming Life

Tonight after work, I got a image of me riding a wild stallion, as if I were trying to break its’ wildness and make it a domestic creature. I squeeze and ride him the entire day, he bucks, roars up and runs too and fro trying to throw me from my game and by dusk I feel overly spent. It reminds me of a cartoon, where the sheep dogs guard the flock with all their might all the while Wile E Coyotee attempts vainlessly to gain his next meal. Then at dusk they punch a time clock and a new set of characters step in to fill their shoes. This scene is clearly a parallel to my daily routine. I fight the good fight, check out, go home, veg then do it all over again.

Wall of Red Paintings

Can you see a sea of red paintings where each can stand on its own merits but the sum of its parts is even stronger? This is in progress. It is an expression of us, we have our own voice and convictions; yet, we stand together in this decaying world. I read a posting by a Father Stephen and why the small things matter. The words were emotionally touching because I often discount the small things in daily life, as I strive to obtain a level above survival mode. It is devastating to be rejected, tossed on the heap, viewed as spent, of little value when I once was singing and earning gold…… My input was highly valued and backed with a salary exceeding abundance, laced with benefits and regular, handsome quarterly bonuses with constant talk of cutting-edge technology. I miss the mass of people I met on trains, planes, the sleek,colorful work environments not to mention the off hours play grounds.  Someday I will look back on this solitary life as a blessing but currently I crave for the excitement of hectic airports, business suits, deadlines and long hours. Yeah, vanity, vanity all is vanity because love is where the important things lay— without it, we are a clanging cymbal explaining why I am so brassy. Love only comes from the power higher than me, the one who gave atonement for my short comings. yet He seems so remote and unconcerned with my state of affairs as He sees a bigger, all encompassing picture.

FIRE

The purging fire that brings blazes of heat, red, gold and awesome flicking, licking and ultimate destruction kills all in its path. It shows no mercy, favoritism or even prejudice, it just consumes. Fire is fascinating at a certain distance, too close an we all know what happens. The colors are awesome and the way the flames flickering into the sky in a unpredictable pattern is awe striking. Fire, is one thing snuggle around with friends and quite another to watch ones house with all your memories eaten and vanished in a few minutes.

The redeeming perspective it that only birth can come unless there is a death. Only the new can come after the old prairie grass has been consumed by fire. To be continued.

Three reds in Progress

Three red work in progress. I hate stopping works in progress as it’s hard to pick up the momentum that previously blazed golden. There is something intriguing about the purging, purification that comes from fire. these works speak of fire colors but the images are most cells of life.

Lindee Hoptoad

Lindee Hopkins an artist who speaks from the heart. She has fought the good fight against, what she calls the C-train, two separate incidences of cancer. Her vivacious nature and faith in the Creator kept her focused on the fight. She de-boarded and has emerged a reborn creature. She began doing art pieces dedicated to those she loves. This piece was made for me. I have yet to get a decent digital image

Hope Beyond Our Strength

This piece was done in July, as a result of seeing a four year old boy struggle for his the beating of his heart. There were no words to express my inner anguish hence I painted. It was only recently that I learned from his parents that green is the color of hope.

Hidden Treasures

Intelligence is a long debated subject, there have been standards devised yet it is well known fact they are biased by the authors environment/intellect. Then, Howard Gardener came along with his seven levels of intelligence, which gathered the creative slice of society as a mother hen would her chicks. Emotional intelligence a whole slice of a different pie, which is rarely addressed or taken seriously. The past 12 years I have oozed with envy to have what a group called Mensa, the “supposedly” top two percent of society’s intellectual group contains. I have worked for firms that only hire the top two percent of their school class. I seem to gravitate to those with higher reasoning skill sets. So, what has intelligence come to mean to me? Not one who can recall facts, figures or trivia at the snap of a finger, or those in prominent leadership positions, or even those who have intuitively extracted from life what they need. To me what it means to be intelligent is one who knows who they are inside, is sensitive enough to see past others behaviors and understand them as people, one who assesses situations or circumstances and can accurately address it not project or jump to symptom conclusions. I believe an intelligent person is insightful, mature, humble and caring and yet appropriately interjects humor into a tense state of affairs.

Silent Tears

There resides a secret code consisting of tears in a bottle seen only by those who have the encoding. It is not an encoding that any person can chose for themselves. It is a marking that is exceedingly painful and totally inescapable for those who seek truth. NO man welcomes or embraces these tears, at first. We, as humans deny them, run from them, hide them and even attempt to destroy them. They are heavy and wearisome. They are relentless and press the very life out of us. Our breath, what we have made of ourselves is snuffed out like a candle on a winter night: cold and lonely. We die not a physical death but an emotional, spiritual type of death, one that is ugly, and, unattractive to others. As we give up the ghost, new life is birthed. A beauty resides for those who can behold the tears and not become embittered by the unyielding suffering they bring.

Tears Shall Pass Away

I was depositing a minuscule check into the bank and anxiously wanted to see the daily balance. Instead of rummaging through my purse to located my reading glass, remove them from their secure case and raise them to my aging eyes, I merely curled my index finger and peek through. The teller smiled when I looked up and he told me a friend used to do it. I commented “Yeah vanity darkened my door step, walked through and has just kept on going.” I , now do or don’t do things unlike 4 years ago. As an example I would have never considered exposing the world to an non- makeup face. NOW, I rarely wear any, except to a job interview. The list of must do’s has shrank considerable in light of present issues. It seems these days I am living atop a house of cards, one good Kansas wind and I would easily become, not out of desire but necessity, a bag lady. Granted my bags would be buttery soft Coach bags. I was telling a friend thisstory the other day and he so kindly informed me that bags have evolved to Samsonite luggage. So “vanity vanity all is vanity except to have faith, hope and love.”

 

Cranbrook Fruit

A friend of mine was attending Cranbrook School of Design and I was green with envy. Happy for her, of course so I press my nose against the portal of her experience. I was growing tired of paint and the 5’ x 8’ pieces I had been creating and showing. She wrote to me about her exploration painting with the juice of various fruits, which was way out of the box even for Krissy. As I waiting anxiously for a post card or some sort of visual of her ideas, I began looking at fruit as a medium. I happened u pon this citrus peeler, oranges, limes and grapefruits. I cut designs into the fruit then let the fruit dehydrate; of course they had to be rotated every other day so the interior juice would not flatten the fruit. At the end of 6 weeks, my masterpieces were completed. I never did anything with them except send some to her, after they sat in a box for 9 years. I moved to a new house and the insects loved these hardened hollow citrus creations. Within no time they became total powder. So the experiment with fruit was a short lived one but fun.

Green Eyes of Tension

I have nothing to say am just filled with unresolved emotions. They build until I am “set off” by little things like someone running shower water for unmentionable length of time. Instead of eating my self to numbness, I am making an effort to express the frustration and confusion of my life by escaping with paint. Granted these are not the renderings of my soul but a release of the unmanageable tension that daily screams for release. This darken green/blue is a watercolor 18″ x 24″

Sustainability

As I was telling my friend in Montana last night, about this project, I felt an urgency to post it on the blog. It is a slight repeat for some but I would like to press onward to define, refine this project and see where it leads.

In 2004 I recognized the high “quality” plastic(of one can legitimately use quality as an adjective for plastic) that sheltered our newspapers from rain and the lawn sprinklers. I contemplated for months over the nice translucent blue bags. They has a reflective quality about them as most plastic does, but the color still intrigued me. My interest in this project was highly ironic, as I have NEVER worked with any synthetic fibers. Therefore, this was a challenge beckoning to be conquered. As most ideas, it came to me in the middle of a sleepless night to cut the bags in a circular way as to created a long ribbon then knit with it. I turned the exercise into collaboration by uniting my neighborhood, which eagerly saved all their newspaper bags for about a month. The project was set in motion as I finished the prototype; the cat felt highly compelled to add her destroying signature on several finishing edges. Since I am not really a knitter, I had no idea how to repair it. The whole thing was an experiment and I was not that committed so I gave up the vision. Three years later some artist were in my studio and saw the mangled piece and encouraged me to press onward to finish the project. I responded to their prodding begrudgingly and completed the piece. I took it to an art conference, as a “joke” since it does not reflect or display any of my interest or talents.

Four nights into the Art via Affrimativa conference in St Paul, Minnesota, I was taking down my other art work and packing it up when a gal from Yale University showed some interest in the dress. I asked her if she wanted to try it on and she excitedly agreed. As we chatted the ideas began to flow, let’s do a fashion show of this dress HERE, NOW at the conference. Within an hour a film maker/ dance professional, worked out steps for the model’s runway walk. Then, a musician heard about it and put together some House chi, chi chink kind of beats. Sorry to have not captured the whole event in video/sound. It was beyond words.

Opague Mirror

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. All I know it that faith hope and love remain in the middle of chaos.