5 posts tagged “inspiration”
Originally published at file under "Miscellanea". You can comment here or there.
(Note: This post is part of a series I am doing on my progress through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way with a cadre of creative ladies. More info about this venture can be found in an earlier post and all of my related posts are under
one category.)
As I'm reading through each chapter, I take little notes in my composition book. Reviewing those notes as I do my weekly check-in, it's interesting to see what I find worth jotting down and how if plays out during my week, if at all. This week, my first note is from page 61 of my book:
Anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are.
I know I initially jotted this down because my mum talked a lot about the value of knowing your own boundaries, but in retrospect, this should have been a red flag: The whole first section of week three is about anger. While I am grateful for everything I've experienced and explored this week, I wasn't comfortable sharing a lot of it publicly nor would all of it had made sense without an extensive personal history.
What was most interesting during this process was revisiting emotional and explosive moments in this heightened creative state brought about by having my own studio, hanging my art on a gallery wall, and going through The Artist's Way with my cluster. While we often attribute creative endeavors and accomplishments a kind of head-in-the-clouds quality, I found that those things were instead quite grounding as I did this week's tasks and exercises. I started thinking less about the specifics of my life in some instances and more about the underlying themes--moments of bliss in hours of darkness and how to take that joy and do something productive with it, what is secret versus what is shown--and ways to interpret those experiences creatively. In discussing my house sculpture at the gallery opening, I realized these were some of the things I was thinking through, but I would like to do so in a way that retains its personal resonance while being more universal. Exploring the themes rather than directly mining personal history.
Some of week three's exercises/tasks follow, but I'll try to share more of week four's work:
Detective work, an exercise
- The best movie I ever saw as a kid was either The Last Unicorn or The Neverending Story. The former probably gave me unnaturally mature ideas about the nature of regret and life experience, the latter's special effects probably don't hold up today, but really transported me to a different place back in the '80s.
- If I could lighten up a little, I'd let myself take Polka or Bollywood dancing classes.
- If it didn't sound so crazy, I'd make a book out of a suitcase. Oh, wait, I am going to do that crazy thing!
Five childhood accomplishments
- I consistently had high grades and test scores and held my own in honors/advanced courses.
- I won a state-level writer's award and was invited to a young writer's conference when I was around 12 years old.
- When my family raised and bred sporting dogs, I was responsible for the complete training of two dogs (though I assisted with others) and got points on each--one in confirmation showing, the other in hunting trials.
- Attending two pre-college summer programs--McMurray College in Illinois the summer before 8th grade, Washington + Lee in Virginia the summer before my senior year of high school--was a huge honor and really helped me visualize myself as a college student and meet some great people.
- Putting on a school play my senior year of high school; though the school had a drama club we had never, in the time I attended the school, had a school play, which I thought was ridiculous. (Having just spent too much time on said high school's terrible web site, I can't tell if the play is still ongoing.)
Week-end check-in
Artist's Date: First, I spent half an hour on a local nature
trail, just taking photos (forthcoming!) and exploring the various colors and
patterns in Florida's greenery. I came back quite inspired, even accounting for
the heat and skeeters. That same night, I also pulled out a book a friend gifted
me and taught myself a simple pamphlet stitch binding, making three small books.
I feel this is the first week I've been 100% successful at the artist's date and
honestly appreciated the time to myself, with my own ideas.
Originally published at file under "Miscellanea". You can comment here or there.
Like an invisible zipline, sometimes fate drags you to where you need to be.
Last night, as we were considering a movie night on the couch, I recommended taking the dog for a walk.
As we concluded our walk, my husband suggested going out for a drink.
When we got downtown, I peeked into an art gallery, saw it was open, and said we should stop in.
If you can see where this is going, you are far wiser than I!
Once inside the Progress Energy Gallery, we were greeted by Michelle Astuto Collins and Sergio Vitorio Flores and informed a silent auction was ongoing and would end that night at 9:45pm. Much chatting and perusing followed, and we left having bid on two items. My husband and I went for drinks across the street, a conversation about football and a delicious crab cake later, we were back in the gallery and were going home with one of Sergio's masks and I had won a artist membership to the gallery.
Artist members get advance notice of shows, discounts on gallery fees and purchases, and a link from their site.
Obviously, I need to get in gear: updating my arty site, uploading photos, and completing both the 3-D house piece I've been puttering on and the two canvases I've begun. I knew, of course, in the back of my head, I wanted to do these things, but I let them get piled under my regular job, paying taxes, washing the dog, feeding the kid, and dozens of other large and small tasks. Now, fate has given me a reason to put artmaking back on the front burner of my life, a subtle conspiring of events that has set me right, saying: You need to put your energy here.
red disc of hosannas.
Anyway, after reading a few of the opening pages, I prepared to return to work. I paused, glanced at the cover, Winterson's words still swirling in my head, and thought about the process of making a slipcover for my copy of the book. What images and words would I use? What would the purpose be? The thought turned over in my mind.
While handling the book, turning it over and considering that process, a slip of paper fell out:
as an apple falls,
as rain falls,
because you must.
Use gravity to anchor your desire.
I thought about the process of writing out Winterson's words, how it made me slow down and take them in differently when I was transcribing them versus just reading. The work of interpreting/translating figures heavily into Paul Auster's Book of Illusions, which I finished earlier this week prior to picking up Art & Lies, and likely influenced this line of thought.
What if I transcribed the entire book? What if I made my own unique copy of Art & Lies, not just a slipcover but the entire book?
What the purpose would be? How long would such a thing even take? How would I handle the nine pages of Der Rosenkavalier printed at the book's end? I've no idea if this will every be actively pursued, but it's been percolating in my mind all morning while I should be making graphs and charts for a work report.
5 Promises
The introduction of Vickie Milazzo’s Inside Every Woman describes five promises and asks the reader to commit to each:
1. I will live and work a passionate life.
2. I will go for it or reject it outright.
After reading the introduction, I decided to write out the five promises in my own hand. Beneath this one, I added the following:
- Don't wait.
- Don't be wishywashy.
- Don't say no or reject things because you expect others to do so.
Obviously, this promise was one of the first things in the book to truly grab me. Promise #1 is far more abstract and idealistic, while this one cuts to the chase--both about how I've been damaging my own success and what I can do about it. Particularly in relation to my career, I feel like I have been saying no for other people; that is, I've skipped opportunities and avoided risks because I didn’t think they would pan out. Instead of putting myself out there, I said “no” for potential employers and collaborators and stuck with the status quo. Not only has this not worked out for me, it’s not who I want to be. I want to be someone who grabs life by the horns, to be someone who knows what she wants and goes for it—instead of talking herself out of things that could be truly spectacular.
3. I will take one action step a day toward my passionate vision.
Despite being turned off by the slogans about “action steps” and “passionate visions,” this is very simple and practical advice. How passionate can you truly be about something if you’re not willing to do one thing a day to make it a reality? If you wanted to learn Spanish and memorized one word a day for a year, you’d have 365 vocabulary words. Is it enough to pick up and move to Spain with? I’d say not, but it’s a heck of a lot more words than you’d know by just continuing to say you want to learn the language. Thus far, I’d say that this has been the biggest and best kick in the butt to changing my life.
4. I commit to being a success student for life.
5. I believe as a woman I really can do anything.
Chapter One—Ignite your inner fire to live passionately
Writing Exercises
What follows aren’t all the writing exercises from this chapter, just the ones I found most relevant for me, plus my responses.
Imagine you have all the money you need and nine months to do anything and everything you want to do….You will be free of worry about financial or practical matters during that entire time. What would you do? Take three minutes to stretch your imagination and write down everything…
Finish my thesis. Remodel house (kitchen, bathrooms). Go to Europe, Australia, and Mexico with my husband. Hike the Florida Trail. Take Mum to Paris. Make my own clothes. Create thoughtful gifts for friends and family. Plant a garden. Write more letters. Volunteer at art organizations, local trails, animal shelters. Start an art camp, create a space for people to be inspired, learn, share. Blitz build. Finish The Artist’s Way with a group. Take a painting/printmaking/photography class. Learn a foreign language.
Next, considering your everyday world as it exists right now, list everything you might want to accomplish in the next year. Stop after two minutes…
Do something about the yard. Start selling my crafty stuff. Make a Christmas tree skirt. Finish my travel boxes. Visit in-laws. Take a trip with my two college girlfriends. Take my brother camping. Spend time with Mum. Be a better cook. Make my Renfaire dress. Trade ATCs and do more swaps.
What benefit will you gain by living your passions? What are the realities of this lifestyle? Does this passion support your other life goals? If not, how can you modify or merge them?
If I start a crafting-from-home business, I will benefit from:
- working from home, being available to my mother and brother
- expressing my creativity
- being able to make whatever interests me—medium, style, color, etc.
- bringing in money to help with our expenses
- having pride in my skills and creations
- not feeling like a lump for not having a good answer when people say, “What do you do?”
- giving my daily life more schedule, more balance
- sharing more of the housework duties with my husband because I will also be working
- meeting other crafters
- attending fairs (traveling?!!)
- learning business skills
When writing out this answer initially, I didn’t both to answer anything but the first question; I had already come to this goal because it worked so well with my current life. What surprised me was that I had not fully considered all the benefits I would receive by going for this dream. I was stuck at the rather simplistic, “It works because I like to do it, I have to stay home anyway and the extra money will be good.” While those items all make it on to this list, the other benefits were what really lit my fire—learning about being a small business owner, knowing the pride I take in having others enjoy and appreciate my work, the possibility of meeting other crafters and traveling to regional craft fairs. I had only been thinking in terms of the convenience of working from home, which benefits me only because it makes me available to others; while that’s valid, it was hardly motivating.
The final part of chapter one related the theme of fire/passion back to the five promises and was equally inspiring. While I feel like a large portion of my time is taken up by tending to my mother and brother and keeping up the house, if I get on a set schedule, I think I can find anywhere from six to ten hours a day I can devote to creating things, learning more about starting my own business, and beginning to market my handmade goods. Actually writing out my current schedule and estimating what tasks needed to be done and how much time they took was a great motivator for better utilizing and organizing my time.
Like I suggested in my initial post about this book, I don’t know that Inside Every Woman is the best and greatest self-help book, but I do know that it’s working for me right now. I don’t mean to suggest the advice or techniques in the book are unique or miraculous; heck, sometimes it’s only a matter of the author stating the obvious, things I already knew or should know—but, for whatever reason, was not implementing in my life.
A week ago, my husband suggested learning more about selling my creations online and getting involved in craft fairs, and while I agreed with him, I did nothing. I told myself I didn’t have time to do it, that it would be better for me to get a job through a temp agency, and that nothing I made would be worth selling. Now I’m considering what my product line should be and am checking out books from the library about starting a home craft business. It’s not life-changing, it hasn’t made me a foot taller or my teeth whiter, but the book has provided some much needed motivation and a welcomed change of perspective.
I recently received a copy of Vickie Milazzo's Inside Every Woman and finished chapter one today. I don't know if this is actually a life-changing self-help book or if it just arrived at an ideal time in my life, but I've thus far found it to be both helpful and motivating. Like all self-help books, I feel like there's a certain attitude I have to get over before I can understand and evaluate the true core of what the author's saying. In Milazzo's case, I'm ignoring whether the characteristics she highlights are truly more predominant in women than men and trying to overlook her desire to capitalize words to give them Significance and Unnecessary Weight. But, honestly, those are minor quibbles for the value I've already gotten out of less than forty pages.
It's often easy to sneer at self-help guides, but I've chosen to give this one a fair shot by reading it with an open mind and doing the recommended writing exercises. Partly, this is because I received the book as part of a word-of-mouth campaign, but mostly it's because I know my life is in an unfortunate rut and I'm willing to try new things to inspire change in my life.
I'm going to write more about the book as I continue to read and will likely post some of my responses to the book's exercises. This, like so many self-help things feels hopelessly cheesy, but if my progress inspires one more person to do something to improve his/her life, I'm cool with being cheesy.
