What happens when 8 or 9 women gather? When many have not met, and many have not seen one another in many years? When they come from many places in their lives geographically and otherwise? This could be a recipe for disaster! This past weekend my friends gathered to celebrate my birthday in Savannah. Nine of us altogether. It was wonderful and amazing!
From so many different life experiences, stories told, shared new friendships blossomed. I feel so fortunate to know all of them and I am so touched by how everyone connected. Maybe it was the champagne, maybe the nature of the celebration. Or maybe the connection was…ME. I have wonderful friends who are just…
goddesses!
And this is a BIG ONE! When I say it, it sounds so, well, old! Dare I? Yes, 60! OMG! I have never been one to deny age, complain, or lie about it. I just seems weird to say I’m 60! I feel really good. I feel like I am coming into my own…really caring about myself and what I am feeling, thinking, doing. I am thankful to be healthy and fit. I exercise every day…joints feel it sometimes…oh well!!! Some things do bother me about aging, like having to really excercise more as I age, and still gain weight so easily I can hardly even LOOK at a cookie… Still, I feel like I could paint up a storm…really want to paint up a storm! I can see it now…walls of paper, big brushes, buckets of paint. When you paint that BIG, you really have to get physical with it…big strokes, big images. Maybe a huge goddess! Oh, I just had this wonderful feeling of excitement flutter in my heart…THE goddess of my heart. I will DO IT!
Being 60…I can be eccentric, crazy if you will…I am HERE after all. So I celebrate my birthday. With joy, happiness, light and love and a whole bunch of creating, no excuses. My friends and family will celebrate with me. I have invited friends I’ve known for many years and friends I’ve made more recently. I am honored to have them in my life and look so forward to celebrating them, celebrating ME. YAY!
I’ve been wanting to paint, just had a lot of excuses. Stepping up and into my creative self seemed like a long stretch. I think it is a lot like what I have and have NOT been doing with my life. I’ve been a caregiver for so long it is second nature yet right now at this moment I’ve been thinking that it is an excuse for me to NOT step up and honor my dreams…love myself. Am I lazy? No. I am busy all the time…finding things to do…lists of things to do.
I do not put myself on the list much. I am feel like I am ignoring the voices that are telling me to live, live, LIVE my dream. Love and honor myself, my creative lovely self FIRST. What will that mean? I will have to just do it. Get out the paper, the paint, the pens, the glue…and do it. So today I got out the paper and the red paint…I painted for just a short time and the tears came…my heart, my heart is so full of creating…This is me. My happy creative heart needs to be out here…singing, dancing painting, loving and honoring myself for who I AM!
I am smiling today as I had a wonderful creative day yesterday. I’ve always said that one creative thing I have NOT done is glass blowing. Yesterday I had a chance to try that at a workshop thru the Telfair at Drayton Glassworks. It was just amazingly cool- or I should say HOT! The process made my heart pound as I watched the molten glass take shape. Jon and Tom guided the novice glass blowers in each step. I gently turned the molten glass to keep it from just drooping into a misshapen mess, added color, blew the bubble into a sphere shape…I eagerly look forward to picking up my glass globe- could be the ugliest or the most beautiful piece ever made! The process….was wonderful- ahhh…it is about the process…the joy of creating….YAY!!!
I am excited to be attending a glass blowing workshop this Saturday! I have tried almost every media from oil painting to raku pottery…but glass blowing! Now this! It kind of confirms what I have known and have been reading about- being a “scanner”. Barbara Sher’s book – Refuse to Choose- is so interesting and insightful. I believe that most creative people must be scanners, as our brains are wired this way- New creative ideas and projects are in infinite supply! I so love the idea of being inspired to create to inspire creating…
It’s a lot like being an evangelical…you just want everyone to have this wonderful experience! I know- how annoying!!!
Ahhhh… a thought- creating is what brings me closer to my Creator!
Sometimes, some days there is no telling what will get to me. I have so much swirling about in my head! All the shoulds: projects that need doing…starting, finishing…the daily list of things that I never get to. What should I do first anyway?
There is no end and yet I stop, I stop and lately do not do…everything. My days are so filled with worry and anxiety about everyone else and all those things that need doing…I stop. No one, I know, is worried about me. I prevail. I do. I am…
I realize I must take care of myself. This is my responsibility. I have always taken on the caregiver role, out of necessity at first glance. I see now that this has been a way to hide, to avoid my true self, my passion, my purpose, my creative life.
Even now, I find myself lulled, pulled into a mire of doing things for others that they need to do for themselves…when what I really want to to is create- paint messily, or majestically…create sand castles…look for creatures in the clouds.
So I propose, I declare, I AM. An artist. A creative being, full of passion for creating, for looking at the world in all its glory and seeing the creative possibilities in it and in everyone. I will not hide behind some imagined duty to take care of EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE. I kindly care for myself.
This is my declaration of love for myself! LET THE WORLD BE WARNED…BIG THINGS ARE COMING!
Could it just be the heat of summer…99 in the shade!? I feel the energy drain from me. I wonder what is wrong. Yet, when I get to create…paint…collage…even talk about creating I get a little surge and feel the passion again. There are so many things…people…problems operating in my life! I want them all to go away sometimes, or maybe I want to go away! I am changing. I am feeling my feelings more and more. This is new. Altho’ I feel like I have a positive, happy heart, I often feel forced to be positive…for everyone else. So I am here…for me being me. I can be this way for only so long…then I just want to have fun! God! It sounds so idiotic…so childish…but really…WHY NOT???
When I think about art and making art, I feel so excited. Just the prospect of doing the creative thing makes me smile. I have lots of stuff around to use: paint, paper, glue, magazines, little bits of stuff. The thing is just sitting still to do it. The day gets in the way. Afterall there is dog hair to vacuum up, laundry to do, even business stuff to do. I am thinking, thinking of new ways to get my message out there and have people come…paint, create with me. That is energizing itself. I want everyone to come…experience the intuitive painting process. See if they connect with it. The thing is you have to take the time for yourself, just as I must make time to create. It all comes back to that….taking time for oneself. I know this is a topic that has been beaten to death really, but have we really taken it to heart? We may to lip service to the idea, but how do we do this? Have a manicure, pedicure, massage? O.K. that works for the grown up woman in us. What about play? What about just feeling the feelings we feel and making no excuses? I have felt this while I painted. Painted like a child for fun and the joy of it, and have discovered I have new stories to tell. I am amazed at what I have learned about myself. The strength and energy I have, the love and lust for life, and the richness of my life. Now, I know I must vacuum, but there is a plan in my head about the next creative adventure!
Collage-ing for my mom’s birthday. Quirky and sentimental. That’s me. I laugh at my musings all by myself. No one else will get it. And it is nice to amuse myself with my own artistry. It’s funny how personal art is to me and how I now relate to my work. I used to have a different relationship with my work, more focused on the results. I love the feeling of immersing myself in the process. Almost having a conversation with the work as I do it. The collage is nearly finished, as I have to send it off to Michigan in time for Mom’s birthday.
There is lots of glitter and sequins and color in this one, and an old photo of us…Mom, me, brothers Michael, Tim and David. We are tourists in Florida decked out in our sunglasses and shorts…another time. I laugh at our seeming innocence and it is with that childlike innocence that I work. Just for the fun of it.
I have been thinking about how one stands in front of the paper painting…how this is important to the creative process as well. There is a certain challenge standing there, but it puts you and the paper on equal terms. It seems if you were to work on a flat surface, bending over the paper, there would not be the same energy. You would feel as if you were in a position of “power”. Also standing in front of the paper allows you to get your whole body into the painting…dance if you like, or angrily slash the paper with the brush…I know that in certain situations it may be necessary to paint flat bending over the paper…I will have to try it myself and see how I feel about it.
February 2010
