At work during yesterday’s Personal Creativity Workshop

We had 17 enthusiastic women who came with open hearts and minds, you couldn’t have wished for a better group.

The main concepts were Exploration, Creating and Reflection. Most exciting for me was to see people take risks and really move.

The simplest exercise surprised me the most. We took one material to explore, in this case, crêpe paper. The assignment was not to ‘make’ a product, but to see what the material could do. First it was torn, folded, twisted into threads, knotted, cupped, stretched. From there we worked with connection methods like sewing, glueing, tying, taping etc. And finally the brief was to combine two elements into one object, say a twisted rope with a bunched up wad.

Each table then got to choose the best objects and combine them into an exhibition for the rest of us. They were to find a uniting theme in the objects, name the exhibition and make an invitation for everyone. 

This group’s exhibit was mounted on the wall and called, ‘Freedom’.

Like me, many of the participants were moved by the cooperation and exchange of ideas and inspiration such a simple concept could lead to.

We happily went to enjoy the delicious lunch cooked and catered by the organisers Aafke and Martine.

Afterwards, we made leporello( accordion) books and simple pamphlet bound books. Here are some of the results.

I had a wonderful day watching people get inspired by the materials and each other.

In designing this day, I drew a lot of inspiration from Keri Smith’s approach to playing with materials without having expectations or valuing the outcome. For many, the underpinnings of this approach; valuing mistakes and surprises, starting with what you have, paying attention to details in the environment, using the imagination and documenting your findings, were very different to the usual art class approach, ie, learn how to do something then make an aesthetically pleasing ’good’ product with that technique.

Thanks to everyone, Baukje for your beautiful studio to work in, and the organisers and participants for making it a rewarding and fun day!

For 2 months, this harpsichord (spinnet virginal, replica of a 17th century instrument) has lived on my work table while I painted the sound board. Normally this isn’t a problem, but recently I’ve had several commissions coming in at once, and I’ve been going crazy.  In the studio I also have a light table and another drawing board, but they were taken up with office and drafting work, so all the other projects  got spread out on the floor or the bed.

I am organising a workshop, and I’ve literally felt that I couldn’t think straight with all the clutter around, and without a clear area to just spread things out to look at.

Well, it all changed this morning. The instrument was picked up at 11:00 AM and I have Space.

Space, I just sit there looking at what seems to be endless acres of fresh, virgin potential.  I fantasize spreading out all my workshop plans on that empty white table, being able to see for the first time the structure of the day and how the exercises lead into each other.  After that is cleared up then I can draw, cut and assemble my craft kits, (soon to be available through my webshop). Oh what a luxury to have everything at hand, all on one table, and pile and stack things according to progress made. And to see in a glimpse what has been done and what still needs doing.

Having my table back has shown me how much my well being and ability to think and organise are dependent on space, space to move and space to think.

 The Dutch have a saying,’ A clean house, a clean spirit’.  That’s sure how it feels today.

Recently I read an article about a young mother raising two children while working on her dissertation. As an aside she said, ‘Yes I still work 2 days a week  so I have something to say when people ask me what I do’.

That got me thinking about how deeply identified this society is with roles and status. The next day, someone asked me quite innocently at an artist’s gathering, ‘What are you?’  Meaning: artist, poet, musician, etc.  In the context of the above, I resented having to put myself in a box in order to be able to have a discussion with someone. Anyway, I don’t know ‘what’ I am yet, I’m only 59 and haven’t decided what I’m going to be when I grow up.

I told him that I didn’t want to answer the question and asked him instead,’What are you really excited about at this point in your life?’ And lo and behold we had a perfectly pleasant and inspiring discussion about the ‘new art’, basically all the things I”m also interested in, edgy art being made in homes on the streets and in the margins.

And all this without ever once mentioning ‘what we do’.

My heart often falls when people ask me to respond to ‘What do you do’?’. It limits the discussion right away.  And it makes me wonder why we feel so insecure  when we don’t have a conventionally accepted answer to that question. Have we accepted so completely that our sole value is in what we do? Is that our only basis for establishing a context to talk with new people?

I think I’d rather be asked what excites me, what inspires me, what issue am I wrestling with at the moment, what progress have I made in realizing some of my goals, what  are some of the nicest moments I’ve had with friends lately, in what areas of my life  do I feel connected and passionate, etc.

I have been given the privilege of being able to give a workshop I’ve been dreaming of for years. It is a mix of enchantment, making objects of personal power, using art techniques to create meaning and healing in one’s life, creating room for creative wishes and dreams, and just plain having fun with wonderful materials.   This is the place I feel the most connected and useful and inspired.

I wish I had the words to express what art and creativity mean in my life, and how much it means to me to share this.  For years I wanted to go into the healing professions, but it never felt entirely right to have to choose between that and my art. And now, approaching 60, I see they are not at all separated.

Many times in this blog I’ve been trying to express what it is about the new subcultures in art that inspires me in the way conventional channels for making and selling art don’t.    Tonight I received the latest Art Healing Network Newsletter with their 2009 awards. The approach to art as a transformative  and healing tool is perfectly expressed in this year’s winners. Here is a link to Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang, two of the award winners.  What they are doing, their sensibilities, their stature as artists and  aesthetic quality perfectly express what it is about the new art that so entirely captures my imagination.

I am just so grateful that my life seems to be opening out into ways to share this way of seeing with others and participate in my own way in this holistic and engaged art.

We have a beautiful modern library in Groningen (NL). The extensive English novel collection has sustained me in my 24 years here.

Reading occupies a large place in Rende’s and my lives, partly because we don’t have a TV.

Every week I go to the Groningen library and search for new books. I walk through the stacked shelves talking to the authors of each book that I pull out. I say, ‘Matter! Write something that matters to you so it can matter to me’. 

I get attracted to titles and colours and covers, but 99% of the books I pull out, I put back. It is such a gamble, spending 200 or more pages with someone, in their head, in the world they have created. Where will they take you? To old grudges of theirs revisited? To a vision of hopelessness? or to a new world of hope and magic.

I’m looking for light and meaning…. and love. And Anne Michaels writes because she cares. What matters to her is the world,  so intensely, it edges on pain:

‘on a table graced with stillness and smells, the wild order of plums’.

 Flat on my back, I dug a hole in the sky. I inhaled the sea until I was light-headed, and floated above the island.
Alone, in space, I imagined the Antarctic auroras, billowing designs of celestial calligraphy, our small portion of the sky like the corner of an illuminated manuscript’.

‘On Zakynthos I tended a garden of lemon balm and basil in a square of light on the floor.’

These quotes are from Fugitive Pieces.

I’m reading Winter Vault  now.  I hesitate to quote from it. All I can say is that each word is charged with meaning and purpose. The language is so beautiful, the sensibilities intense and eloquent. Reading it is like praying.

ok one tiny quote:

‘ Avery leaned overboard, dipped his teacup into the river, then set the circle of water next to him’.

The books I love most leave me in a state of constant gratitude;  thank you Anne Michaels for this,  ’a circle of water’.

I was thinking of the overuse of Obama’s campaign slogan; I just saw it as a heading on an article about creativity. It is , like the happy face, starting to get tiresome.

But no matter what anyone says about this man, he has done something miraculous, he’s rekindled hope.

So many of us, and not just my generation (babyboomer) have been hurt by life and have become cynical.  I was 13 when JFK was shot. My youth was also shadowed by the assasinations of Bobby and Martin Luther King.  And later, much later, like us all, I witnessed the horror of planes intentionally slamming into downtown New York’s buildings.

We’ve had our hopes dashed again and again by corrupted politicians. All of us have wanted to believe in a better world; I left my secure life and good career in the states to spend 6 years living in an international spiritual community, so high was my idealism. Especially my generation of idealists and new agers sincerely believed we could make a difference. ‘Yes we could’. And of course we’ve been disillusioned.

I have somehow found my way back to my early openhearted beliefs in an ensoulled caring world, albeit older and wiser. Granted,  I daren’t believe too much, too hard, too openly, that Obama is who he seems to be. But as he says, he is not going to save anyone, we all have to do it together.

One first step is to start daring to believe again and dropping our protective cynicism.

And I find that creativity is often the means to become engaged again, hopeful, playful and connected to the things that really matter.

LATER: I loved this synchronicity, a friend just mailed me this link to a speech Paul Hawken gave to University of Portland 2009 graduation class.  It is every bit as good as any Ted talk. I know Paul from my Findhorn days and he walks his talk.

Continued from Eric Maisel’s The van Gogh Blues 1

If I were asked to single out the one most important piece of advice in this book, it would be that creatives need to take action in service of their creative work.

Anxiety and indecision keep us procrastinating when we could act. Maisel says that if on a day we take one tiny step toward a creative project, then we can count that day as successful.

He emphasizes how we have to do this even when we don’t feel like it!! ( A big one for me). In my own experience, just showing up at the page, or the harpsichord, or the computer even when I feel dull and empty of inspiration, almost always helps.  Maisel says that taking an action, no matter how small, is the one most proactive healing thing we can do for ourselves. And that it will protect us from falling into a downward spiral that can end in depression and creative paralysis.

He also suggests that we know very well when we are procrastinating/just keeping busy, and when we are doing something in service of our art. For example, clearing out old files can be a way to waste time, or it can be the preparation for a new creative cycle. Only you know which one you are engaged in.

Paraphrasing from the book:

You have to risk unleashing your passion even with the possibility you will be disappointed. Creative people can’t resign themselves to postmodern meaninglessness. They always come back to the belief that a meaningful life can be led and they are obliged to at least try.

You decide every day to matter. You decide every day to live authentically, reckon with the facts of existence, and doing so your  truth becomes more eloquent.

Creating, as a life’s commitment, is hard; it is your heroic work. 

When we are not true to ourselves we suffer.
When we are true to ourselves we suffer.

I do my creative work anyway.

Maisel’s book is based on the premise that people who have chosen a creative life- artist, innovators in science and other fields,  are creating the path as they go. Since they rarely accept authority’s explanations,  they have to find their own ways to create  meaning. Failure to do this can lead to depression.

The most helpful thing I found about this book was the acknowledgement of how hard it can be to be a creative person.  Not only are we faced with our inner demons, the ones who tell us we are worthless, our work is irrelevant, our lives are meaningless, but also the hard facts of existence: that society doesn’t particularly value art or artists. And that to lead a meaningful creative life full of heart, engagement and meaning, you often have to work at something less meaningful to pay the bills.

Helpful on a practical level, Maisel helps creative people confront the hard parts, but also suggests ways to counteract our meaning crises. Here is an example of a meaning crisis: An artist spends 7 years on a screenplay he is passionately commmited to, and it is rejected everywhere he submits it. He sees lesser work produced for great amounts of money.  His crisis is, ‘Can my life be meaningful if I spend it producing work that no one wants?’

Maisel helps artists create a sense of worthiness inside themselves that is independent of outside recognition,though he doesn’t shy away from the grittiness of this dilemma.  By following his advice and doing the tasks set forth in the book, an artist can keep creating no matter what. And that is the most important thing.

Continued in Eric Maisel’s,  ’The van Gogh Blues’ 2.

When my life is busy, I tend to avoid the computer. So I’m showing up on the page here to keep some continuity going.

At the moment I have a lot going on. My large worktable is completely taken over by a small harpsichord (or spinnet) waiting to be painted;  I have a small business identity to design; there is a large art health event coming up in the beginning of October and I’ve done two in the last week; and there is my first ‘Re-enchantment’ workshop coming up.

The last is the fulfilment of a long-held dream to combine consciousness-raising with creativity. There is so much to say about it I will save it for another post. But basically it is about ensouling one’s life through creative expression.

I’m also working on my book about creativity and dementia care, and am finishing up the third article in a series of 3  on the same subject for the Journal of Dementia Care.

All this is so welcome after months of no incoming work. Yet it is also demanding patience from me since I was aiming to get my webshop launched in August and have to postpone that for awhile.

More on my new products in a later post.

Hi to all. Wishing you an inspired and creative autumn.

Encounter, Oil pastel on charcoal paper

There should be some kind of ritual to accompany the act of breaking down a show and bringing most of your old friends back home again.

I sold enough to cover costs, just. But still I brought home most of the work I had first departed with two months ago. 170 people visited the gallery, several left nice comments behind in the guest book.

The gallery owner said she’d rarely had a show where people spent so much time enthusing and so little buying. Well, there was a really nice energy around the whole show, and while I would have loved to have sold more, I’m pleased with the overall reception of the work.

There are several pieces I didn’t photograph which I am happy I didn’t have to let go of without a record.

Soon I’m going to have a ‘Featured Artwork’ page on my blog or site where one piece will be showcased every month or so.

Meanwhile, I will hang up some of my returned 17 framed artworks and put the rest gently into storage.  I’ll consciously appreciate how happy they look in their mattes and frames and let them rest with us here for awhile before exposing them to the public again.

That is as much of a ritual I can come up with at the moment.