12 November 2008

New Storage Unit!



Ignore the "30% off sewing Baskets" -- I just bought this storage unit to help store my art supplies. I'm pretty jazzed about it. I can't wait to start filling it up! The bottom three drawers have lids on them, so that you can just carry them with you when you travel.  Pretty smart idea! I am having trouble getting one of the casters on; I'll try again in the morning and if it doesn't work, I'll take the caster back to JoAnn and see if they can replace it or make it work. I suspect I'll have to take the whole unit back. SIGH. 

07 November 2008

Wedding Bells ...

Dear friends Alison Cuyler and Steve Hutt are getting married tomorrow morning, and we're invited to the wedding! Of course, John is at AT with the National Guard, so he won't be attending. I love attending weddings with my beloved husband and will definitely miss his presence. But, I'll be delighted to see this happy couple exchange vows and start their new life together, even without my own husband in attendance. They are both great people and deserve this so much.

06 November 2008

Guerrilla Art, Revisited

In October, I posted about someone else's experience with Guerrilla Art. Tonight, at Hands-On (a monthly art group that I play with), I worked on tags for my own Guerrilla Art experience. I'm a little anxious about the whole thing, being as how I'm basically a little shy. But I'm also pretty excited about the experience, too. We shall see ...

The Artist's Way Class

As some of you may remember me mentioning several weeks ago, I'm taking a class in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's a really great class. We just did Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 together. I missed a few sessions while Tammy was visiting, but I went back to class tonight and was back in the swing of things. I'm really enjoying the class. Since it started in September, I've only missed doing my "morning pages" twice. Some people haven't missed any, but some people have missed much more than that! I'm pretty impressed with myself. My MPs aren't always done in the morning, but they are almost always done. 

I'm not sure how much "unblocking" or "recovering" I'm doing, but I think I'm coming to understand myself better. I think I'm also treating myself a little better, too. I've done TAW on my own a couple of times before, but I've never gotten any further than Chapter 8, so we're about to get into all new territory. I'm really excited to see how well I've stuck with the program. I'm not usually one to follow through well with things like this. I hope I continue to stick with it. I think I will. In fact, in my pages today, I kind of "re-dedicated" myself to the process. I'd gotten lazy about doing some of the exercises and tasks -- doing only what was quick and easy for me to do. From now on, I'm going to do tasks that challenge me, and do more of them. Typically, I only do about half of the tasks at the end of the chapter -- the minimum that's expected of me -- although most people seem to do many more than that. 

I think, for the five weeks of class that I have left, I'm going to talk more about the class and book than I have in the past. I'm really excited about the program and would encourage anyone to either take a class in TAW or work through the book individually (there's no reason for a person not to do it on his/her own, other than the accountability that a group could provide). 

I just finished reading Chapter 8 in bed and realized that I needed to blog before I went to sleep! Chapter 8 has a lot to do with time and how we use it to justify staying blocked. The things from the chapter that really struck me was how people use their age to keep them from trying new things -- as in, "Do you know old I'll be by the time I learn how to do that?" -- and how we can approach things by "filling in the form". By that, Cameron means doing the next small thing that presents itself rather than obsessing over the big picture so much. Sometimes the big picture gets overwhelming and you don't know what to do next, or you get caught up in the moment of it and don't do anything next. But if you do just the next small thing, you've done something to carry yourself toward your creative goal. Or, you've just done something creative -- toward a goal or not! Sometimes, taking one small creative action is all you need to bring about the idea for the next creative action. I confess: I'm guilty about sometimes getting caught up in the big actions and not thinking of the little baby steps I could be taking to exercise my creativity daily. 

The agism thing is something that's been bothering me lately. Not that I've said those words to myself ("Do you know how old I'll be by the time I learn how to do X?"), but rather, I look at some of my favorite artists who are several years younger than me -- Kelly Rae Roberts, for example -- and I mourn the time that I have lost by not returning to art sooner or not taking my art more serious these past few years. I look at my age and think "I'm so much older than she is; I'll never be able to accomplish what she's accomplished." That's the form that agism is taking in my artistic life. And it is ocassionally a creative block. Sometimes, that way of thinking keeps me out of the process; it keeps me from opening up to the flow completely.

So, that's what I've been thinking about tonight. I thought I'd blog about it to see if any of you think or feel the same things. Let me know if you can relate to any of this!

I know I'm posting after midnight, so it technically doesn't count as the November 5th NaBloPoMo post, but I've not yet slept, so it's still MY November 5th! LOL! I've already messed up on the chance of winning any prizes (if they are even doing prizes this year), so I'm only worried about the spirit of the game. I do realize that I'm still one post behind, too! At some point, I'll catch up! I promise!


04 November 2008

Quick Post

Just a quick post so that I don't get further behind with NaBloPoMo! John and I proudly did our civic duty today. I'm not sure about John's polling place, but I didn't have a line when I went to vote. It was virtually painless. 

I had my monthly Art Association meeting tonight -- short because of the election returns, thank goodness. I'm not so glued to the returns. But since John is going to AT tomorrow for 12 days, I wanted to spend the evening with him. We went to Chili's for dinner and are going to bed early. First formation is at 0700, nearly 70 miles away!

03 November 2008

Busy, busy, busy

Today has been a busy day. A few days ago, John and I bought two sets of assemble-yourself shelves for the living room and we just got them in the house today. Luckily, a friend had a hand-truck we could borrow! Otherwise, I think we were faced with bringing them in the house piece-by-piece, because the boxes weigh 70-pounds each and we don't park close to our front door. Anyway, we got them in the house easily today. I've got the area where they will go mostly cleared. The nosey little kitties thought that was great fun! They had to sniff everything as I moved it and piled it somewhere else and had to sniff the empty spot. You'd think they'd never seen carpet before, they way they investigated the corner where the new bookshelves will go. Trust me, they've seen carpet! On ocassion, they've even seen clean carpet!

I also spent a good part of the evening studying my voters' guide and marking my sample ballot. I knew who I was going to vote for and how I was going to vote for some of the issues, but on other issues I was clueless. In fact, on a couple I still am. I'm waiting for John to get home so that we can talk over a couple of them. I don't know what I think of Proposition 2 or Proposition 3. The rest I've decided on. 

So, no new art for a few days. John is getting ready to go out of town with the National Guard for 12 days. I'll get the shelves assembled and organized during that time and start planning for Thanksgiving. It will be the second Thanksgiving that we've hosted. We're very excited about it. I think I'll make a homemade cheesecake for dessert. My mother bought me a cheesecake pan this spring and I've never used it. Got a good recipe?

02 November 2008

NaBloPoMo -- Already Messed Up!!!

Since I didn't do so well with The Big Draw, I decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month again this year -- and I've already messed up!!! As many times as I wrote the date yesterday (because of my treasury work with the Redlands Art Association), it just never occured to me that it was the first day of NaBloPoMo. So, I didn't post. Shame on me! I'll post twice today to make up for it, but it won't really be the same.

This afternoon, I worked on closing out the month at RAA. I got to do the most rewarding -- and least fun! -- part of my job: writing commission checks to the artists. It's the most rewarding part of my job because I enjoy seeing how much art we actually sold during the month and writing commission checks is a happy thing! But writing check after check is a bit fatiguing and -- let's face it -- a little boring. During the "M's", I took a break to go to a reception for the current Featured Artist, Leah Balisteri. She had a great reception. Lots of friends stopped by, and she even sold a piece! When I got home, I finished up the checks and decided to post, so I'd at least have one post under my belt for the day. After John and I have dinner, I'll post again so that I've got two posts for today; from here on out, I'll try to get my post-a-day in properly!