Wonder, Letting Go, and Creating

I'm participating in a 31-day blogging challenge called reverb10, responding to writing prompts that are designed to elicit reflections on 2010, and hopes for 2011. You can find out more about it here.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

I have always been very good at noticing beauty in nature.  I stop for sun rises, sunsets, color in the clouds, rainbows, etc.  My boys often have their breakfasts interrupted by me encouraging them to come to the window and look at the color of the sky in the early morning sun rise.  I always wonder how I might paint such wondrous colors.  So for me, this year wonder has most recently been found in nature in our new locale.  The trees here are tremendous giants.  Beautiful and moss covered.  A stroll is like walking through an emerald fairy land.  It is so stunning it sometimes doesn't seem real.  The ocean is tremendous and powerful.  The fog settles in to the valley making you feel like you are floating on clouds.  And, will you just look at the paint job on that chicken!  I bet the egg she came from looked just the same.....well, maybe not, but it could have!

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

Lots this year.  We left behind a house we had designed and built, a life in Airdrie, all our friends there, but with that we also gave up all the chaos of the big city madness too.   We gave up the fast pace, and the jammed-full schedules.  Thanks to technology we can still connect with friends and family.  So....the trade off has been more than worth it.  Why?  Because it was important to slow down for our health and for our connection to our boys and to each other.  And it is also important for our boys to experience something other than the lifestyle we had created up to that point.   Busy, busy, busy, go, go, go isn't life sustaining.  So now we are focusing on experiences rather than stuff and timetables... and free weekends and evenings allow that.

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

The last thing I created was this digital print.  Not my usual mode of creating, but I guess that would qualify as the most recent.  It is a scan of a painted background I did some time ago with a quote from the book "Marry Your Muse" by Jan Phillips.  I sent it to some friends to print and hang in their studios.  It was put together in Illustrator so completely a computer generated project.  I have a few things I want to get to next.  I bought a small piece of felted wool and some colorful merino wool fibers to make a flower hair piece for myself.  I've been saving mandarin orange wrappers and candy containers for a recycled journal project I've got in my head.  That one will most likely become a tutorial I will share later.  And I have several journals that I have lots of ideas for that I want to get to very soon.

The Uncertainty Hump

I'm not exactly prolific when it comes to art projects....or at least it seems that way to me. I consistently feel that I rarely ever get anything accomplished or finished. I currently have at least 9 paintings alone that are started, but not done. I recently (just before the holidays) finished this one and I wondered to myself why it took me so long to get to finishing it.

The task of finishing really only took me an hour at best, yet I left it for ages. So, why?... I think for this one in particular it was about fear. I was worried that I would wreck the face. That's all that was left - just to finish the face. I'm not terribly good with faces, and so my uncertainty kept me frozen. Silly in hindsight.
I know I let this kind of thing stall me all the time. Seems too big, or I'm not sure how to do something and I run away and hide from it. And the un-doneness of it nags at me. I really dislike things to be unfinished, but not enough to get me to do something about it all the time.
One day, I'd like to figure that little hang-up out. At least for now, this fairy is done and off to sail on her bubble.

Being Grateful For Me - A Mixed Media Self-Portrait

My Naturopath gave me an assignment - to keep a gratitude journal about myself.  Not what I'm grateful for that is outside of me (other people, places, things, etc.), but what I am grateful for each day about myself.  Wow, that's an entirely different thing...and infinitely more challenging.  But, I set out to give it a whirl and from this initial little gratitude note I wrote grew a self-portrait, and with it I observed again some initial resistance.
A self-portrait seems like the most daunting of creative endeavors. Why is that? Do we feel we can only attempt a portrait if we have the skills to get the likeness just right? Or is it because we really have to look closely at ourselves; if not at our actual features, then at ourselves, our lives, our values, etc. Sometimes this navel gazing seems like a huge task that we don't have the time to do "properly" - with genuine reflection and effort. Does "properly" mean that we need to get it RIGHT? Goodness, there seems to be so many things that can stop us dead in our tracks because we have this perception that we must get it right.
I think of that quote...."boldness has genius in it...", you know it:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” - Goethe



So with that abandon to action, I attempted a self portrait that became a wonderful exercise in letting go and surrendering to the process. Surrounded in a variety of papers I found appealing, magazines I love reading, pages from old journals, and a current writing on Gratitude, pictures of family and a selection of my own artwork that had some meaning for me, I let loose with scissors and gel medium. The process of collage was completely absorbing and enlightening as I watched myself be moved and inspired by certain images, colors, and words.
The whole process was inspired by the book Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts, so I can't take credit for the idea. I can however own the courage it took to jump in and allow myself the gift of engaging in the process. It's hard to give ourselves permission to take the time for these things most of the time....so for this I am grateful - to myself.
In the end, it was very moving, enlightening, and fascinating as the painting spoke to me on it's own as I worked. Only one brief moment felt frustrating...when my critical brain (left brain) piped up to observe that my facial features were out of proportion. I was both amused and grateful that my Wise Woman (right brain) very quickly quipped back..."that's OK, it's SUPPOSED to be like that!"