Artfull-ness and vulnerability

Beginning of an installation/performance/interactive art project "1 in a 100 million-gazillion"

And so I begin somewhere over and over again...how many beginnings there are.  Both of these (Excuse my not so great pictures, my camera is broken!) pieces are beginning to become something, a part of the whole unmet and unseen picture...

These last months have been all about creating my classes and workshops and my energy and creative process has been fully devoted to their successful development.  I am truly proud to say that they are very successful!

Starting last week I noticed that I no longer felt anxious and I also feel enough emotional space and energy to approach my own personal art, and so I begin again.  I know it may be cliche sounding at this point but I am continually shocked by the magnitude of fear and doubt that I am met with when I begin my work.  I really hear myself saying "You really are not an artist"  "What is this shit you are making" "You don't even know what your making because it's nothing and total nonsense to be sitting here hitting clay for hours when you could be doing something else helpful"....there is more where that comes from...after two days of long studio hours and no "good" quantifiable results I did not want to go back yesterday.  So I didn't, instead I played hookie with a friend and was very aware of my resistance.  I, probably like you, don't want to look stupid and make unlikable work and so I naturally don't want to face those chances and by being away from the studio and not creating I am much safer and less whole.  The costs end up being high either way...risk the pain of being inauthentic and denying my creative impulses or risk not being understood, unliked, etc. 

I am going to embrace vulnerability like a life vest and jump in.  Begin again and again and again.....and so I expose to you my guts and somehow this helps me.  Somehow telling on myself feels like medicine.  Somehow I will go to the studio tomorrow and I will begin again.

One last side note.  I love my job as a teacher and facilitator of creativity.  I LOVE IT  and I LOVE ALL OF MY STUDENTS.  I LOVE IT SO BAD!!!!!!!  and I LOVE YOU SO BAD!!!!  Thank you and good night.

Easy Does It

 The harder it is, the easier I must make it.

   I am beginning again with simple daily actions.  A daily drawing.

  Noticing (and noting)

what I see.

Today is the artwork

My drawing this morning, my timer (1hr of creative work) and a petal

Let me start this painting RIGHT NOW
To begin with a pink and yellow prayer
To cover myself in a warm red outline
Moving back and forth and all around
My son will boldly zig-zag
Brushing yellow and green across the day
Tensions splattering angst
A bit of darkness that brings depth
This painting will find its resting place tonight
The masterpiece complete 
When I no longer wake.

Sooooo....I've been thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling.  I've been feeling badly because I feel I haven't been making art.  I haven't been producing.  I haven't been working in my studio (its cold out there!).  Soooo yesterday I was thinking about this and wondering how I would do it?  How would I make art when I wouldn't have anytime alone, I had Sunny all day yesterday and then a meeting in the night.  Then today during my 4 hr slot of "free time" today  I have a dentist appointment followed by another appointment....how can I do this???

A remark a wise friend made a long time ago came to me.  She asked me why I defined my studio as having 4 walls, a roof and floor? She said this once when I was complaining about not getting in to the studio.  This was one of those illuminating, uh-huh? moments....and it was again yesterday,  I all of a sudden got a birds eye view of my day and me in it,  I saw this was my art work, my canvas.  I was the brush, painting or the pencil, drawing and everything was my material.
Today I began the day reflecting on what happened yesterday, what I did, made, saw and learned.  I've decided that right now this is my art project-living.  I am my artwork.  My life is my piece.  I think I will just be and document it for a while, notice and participate in it, in this way.

Yesterday I had 4.5 hours with Sunny inside my home.  No car.  No escape.  I decided to involve him in a crafting/art activity.  I thought we would make collages.  I brought out the magazines and helped him select images and then gave him scissors to cut them out.  He became completely engrossed in the cutting.  At a certain point I introduced that now we would "make a picture with our pictures, glue them down and turn them in to something", well he didn't have much interest-he just wanted to keep cutting.  Then when he got tired of this I realized he really had a lot of attention and focus and thought he would enjoy the act and concept of sewing.  I brought out my needle and thread and showed him how to start sewing the pieces he cut by stringing them together.  He loved it!!!

What I thought about today was how much he loved the PROCESS it wasn't about the product, it was the making that was so enjoyable.  I realized that at a very young age we begin to be rewarded with praise for the completion of a recognizable product.  When we finish a drawing we are asked, "What is it?"  if someone recognizes it and likes it, we are praised.  We learn by what is given attention (negative or positive).  In autism treatment they teach my rewarding certain behaviors. This works to strengthen those behaviors-well this is the same in creating.  We reward a finished product and job well done.  We reward what we can understand and recognize-this becomes whats valuable.  Watching Sunny yesterday I saw myself being lost in his process, the excitement of discovery.  I hope I can be a teacher for him.  To be able to not put the emphasis on making snowmen that look like cookie cutters, but rather put the emphasis on trying new things, indulging in discovery, appreciating the "beingness" in process and to encourage the confidence in him to know when something is something because the knowing originates within him-not from a suggestion from someone else who needs to believe the lumpy white thing is a snowman.

Today is my art piece.