Sunday Scribblings ..... Art

This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings is a little word, and a tall order... gather together and articulate something in writing about art. That's Art. Or is is art? The capital letter makes a difference. Julia Cameron made the point very well in The Artist's Way. When we think of Art with a capital A, it's important, serious, something that Professional or Trained or Talented Artists do. People who are "not like me", in other words. The world is full of people who are utterly convinced that they "can't" draw, paint or make other art, and what they really mean when they say things like that is that they can't do it as well as "Those other people... Real Artists", and what that really, really means (in part) is not that they can't, but that they feel they can't, and because they feel they can't they aren't going to try, because that's pointless, because they can't. There are a multitude of books out there that can help people get over that block, through that thinking, and into making the kind of art they will enjoy, the kind of art that's not meant to be judged against anything else, that is art for its own sake - but that will sometimes turn out surprisingly to be more than you'd expected to be able to produce. I just love the attitude Julia Cameron encourages - one of "gentle exploration", as in, if I just start playing around with these coloured pencils, and enjoy doodling with them, and let myself not have expectations as to outcome, what might happen?...

I will always suggest The Artist's Way first to anyone who has the urge towards making art, but I recognise that it doesn't suit everyone. Well, then, there's Eric Maisel's many books. I was fascinated by what happened when I started following Betty Edward's "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". The exercises there had me drawing in ways I never had before. Not perfectly, by anyone's standards, but joyously, happily. There's a website here called Everyone Can Draw.

Sunday Scribblings is a strange thing. I didn't intend to write in that vein at all when I began. I just wandered into it. I intended to write a bit about what other people's art does for me. And maybe I didn't go in that direction because so often I find myself speechless and filled with responses for which there are no words when I meet art. - "Real" art, as in galleries and museums. I have been so lucky, so blessed in being able to meet the work of artists that touch me deeply, that delight me or move me, and I'm not sure how to fit it all in here. So I'll just stay with the most recent things that have touched me.

In Buenos Aires, during my Christmas visit to my son, coming into the Museo de Belles Artes, the first object to catch my eye was Rodin's The Kiss. Familiar from pictures, and yet a whole new experience to come upon it "in the flesh".

I loved that museum. There were European artists a-plenty there, modern and classical. Rich bounty of art. And then, the South American artists, many of whom I'd never encountered before. This one took my breath away, in part because the image echoed a dream I'd had around the time of my mother's death - the black egg: This is by Leonor Fini.

Close by, I encountered this:

The artist is called Varo, and it's entitled "Feeding Stars to the Moon" or Celestial Pablum. I laughed aloud. The idea!

I'm sorry.... These are snippets, mere glances, of a few hours of abundance, riches, beyond anything I can really describe. I wasn't very good at recording names and dates. (OK... I wasn't good at all... I didn't do it). I came away with impressions, memories... full, sated. Aaaah!



And then... within a few days of that experience, I found myself doing two things I'd long wished for... Visiting MOMA in New York, and seeing an exhibition of some of Van Gogh's major paintings, including two Starry Nights. It just happened. My layover on the way home was long enough for a trip into the city, and I got in a taxi and asked to be taken to the Museum of Modern Art. That's the only place I visited. I just got so lucky that the Van Gogh exhibit, Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night, was still running. It was closing 3 days later. I just walked through there soaking those paintings up. That was where I missed having someone with me, someone to share the experience, so I just enthused to whatever stranger happened to be nearby instead. Well... I'd have burst if I didn't! All around me, I could hear people making their comments, and there were plenty of really well-trained eyes there, obviously. Parents educated their children about the technicalities of the techniques he used, urged them to observe the effect of this or that. I just loved hearing all the intakes of breath, the murmurs of "amazing..."



I needed air, space, a little quiet time to bring myself back from that place, and readiness to go back onto the street, back into traffic and "reality", and the perfect bridge was a turn around MOMA's sculpture garden. A wonder in itself, containing wonders. [You can see how inarticulate I get in the face of art, can't you?!]

I came home with a sense of having been blessed in so many ways. Blessed with good fortune.

This post has become way, way too long. I was going to write about and post some photos of what local primary-school children did as an installation in celebration of the sweets (candy) made at a local factory, but I've discovered that there's a lovely description on one of the school's websites HERE... The Sweet Fantastic. Enjoy!
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This post is in celebration of Art as prompted by Sunday Scribblings. Go HERE to see what others have offered!
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Also, I'm participating in One World, One Heart again this year. Here's the post with my giveaway, if you'd like to take part. There's still time... Any comments up to midnight (GMT) 11th February will be included.

2nd Blogiversary

Two years ago today, I took the step. I know the archives suggest that I began in october 2005, but that was just a pretend-post to fix my profile picture or something like that. No, it was 11th January when I posted my first proper post. Ok. There was one on 10th January, which consisted of the immortal words "A test to see whether this will work... Out there... ???", to which three kind souls replied, and so began the adventure that was/is this blog. The impetus to start a blog came from the urge to join the online group following The Artist's Way, led by Leah, who is now leading the Creative Every Day 2008 group.

I'm a fairly boring blogger, stuck in my ways. I haven't changed the design (template?) in any way in all this time. Only recently, I went in to change the words on my profile which described me as "heading towards fifty" to the more correct (now) "just past fifty". The rest of that description still holds true, though. I love the new paths and alleyways I get to explore through blogging. Last week, and this, I've encountered new-to-me blogs (I know - among the thousands, millions maybe... that are out there) which thrilled me, encouraged me, inspired me, humbled me, and which I've had to add to my list of blogs to check in with whenever I have a chance. I've never acquired the technical skill to allow me to make big changes, and I'm still at a total loss as to how to do what I see other people do regarding "feeds" and "subscribing". It's all a mystery to me. But that's a side-track there - right there!

My first post was about slaying (no, not slaying... reassuring!) my Creative Monsters. They still come to visit from time to time, telling me my blog is a pointless exercise, that it's sheer self-indulgence, blah-blah-blah, but these days, they don't stay long, and I usually manage to simply turn them around and say "Come back when you've something useful to tell me!" In that post too, I finished with this quote:

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. ---Thich Nhat Hanh

The blog-world has been one of the most powerful instruments to convince me of how un-separate, how connected we all are. People do come and go here. I wonder about some of the people who have disappeared. Did they start other blogs elsewhere? I realise there are blogs I've lost my connection to. When I changed computers I lost a lot of my links, and some just never re-emerged for me.

In working The Artist's Way, in meeting others along the same path, I found such community, such a sense of being held and welcomed, cheered along, understood, it became possible to really envision things I would have previously dismissed. This is how I took the step of booking to travel to the US for the first time, to take SoulCollage(R) facilitator training, to travel at times alone, and to discover - for myself - a whole new world.

This was not the only new venture for me since I began the blog. I've qualified as a Bach Flower Remedy Practitioner, I've graduated from university. I've become a member of the regular workforce. I've written ad nauseum about many of those things. I've written for Sunday Scribblings and for Poetry Thursday. While I haven't gotten into a regular habit of writing for Writers' Island, and my weekly Haiku have all-but fallen by the wayside, I keep their buttons on my sidebar, because I love such ventures. I love that, all over blogland there are groups and communities forming, melding, shifting, evolving, opening to receive new members, and that there is such goodwill, such kindness, such genuine positive energy being shared with no agenda, for the most part. Most of the blogs I visit have no advertising. There is no gain other than connection, nothing I experience other than the open-heartedness of one human being for others who pass their way.

I've read back over my archives during the past couple of weeks. I've surprised myself that there are insights and pieces of writing here and there of which I could say "I like that a lot". This blog has been a companion and a friend to me, a home and an open door, through which have come so many wonderful people, with your questions and comments.

I'm looking forward to the next two years. I don't know what they will hold. I know some of the plans and intentions I have for them, but I don't know how they will manifest exactly. I do know that I would like to still be here, still turning up, still doing my disappearing-act now and then, and still returning refreshed and re-energised.

This blog has become my home. You are my neighbours. I love when you pop in for a cup of coffee. I really value the deep, important things you say, and the "How's it going? Nice day!" shout-outs. I'm not naming anyone, because the list is too, too long, and I don't want to leave anyone out, but I hope you all know that I value you more than any words can say.

Blessings to you all, my friends.

Other Sunday Stuff

I've just posted a Sunday Scribblings post, but realise that I have the time and the inclination to keep going here and fill you in on some of the other stuff in my life, but it's seperate from what I had to say in Sunday Scribblings, so that's why this is another post. (Having said that, suddenly I'm sitting here, stopped, wondering "What was it I meant to say?")

Without having a decent picture to show you, I will say here that last week (was it Monday? it may have been Monday!) two wonderful gifts arrived from Liz Elayne. Way back, I won her birthday button-counting (or guessing) competition, and the exchange of addresses took a while, but was the prize worth waiting for? Oh, yes indeed. A beautiful tote-bag in shades of orange. Oh... what am I saying? No picture! I can link to her Etsy shop, where you will see, not the exact bag I received, but others like it! I've found a special use for it - holding my copy of Organising for the Spirit, my journal and vital "bits and pieces" for my ongoing project of making my home and my life places where the real me wants to live. It was such a thrill to have the notice of a package arrive! Hurrah! ... And not just one, but two packages from the same Liz, because, as a 9/11 memorial, she very generously gave away some posters of 'Awakening', a Brian Andreas Storypeople print. I wasn't familiar with them, but this resonates deeply with me, and I feel very grateful to have received one. I will be framing it to hang in my therapy room (the "where" just came to me right now... of course!)

She (Liz) asks in her latest post that we name "Five Really Good Things". Well, there's

1) Couscous. Good with almost everything, I'm realising. Fantastic when I need to prepare a meal in a hurry. quicker than defrosting. Add salad... Dinner!

2) Finding music I'd forgotten I had. Searching for a tape for a friend, I rediscovered Mary Chapin Carpenter, Janis Ian, Leonard Cohen, Guy Clark... Hurrah.

3) Memories of my sister's wedding. My attempt to post after the 14th September wedding was frustrated by computer problems, and a few days later, my attention was focused on the loss of my little dog, Trixie, so I never got to tell any of you about it (and I'm not sure she'd appreciate having her photos up here in public), but I will tell you she was a beautiful, elegant, radiant bride. More than one of us noticed her resemblance to Grace Kelly. It was a happy, happy, day - filled with emotion, laughter, poignant memories and moments, and some tears. She and her new husband make a beautiful couple. His tender care for her is a joy to witness. Her total love for him is open and profound. His family's embrace of my sister is full and open and reassuring to see. Their words of that day echo in my heart. Their happiness is a Really Good Thing.

4) My Autumn/Winter wardrobe. I never did this before. I usually buy budget clothes far too often, running into a shop, buying somthing, finding after a couple of wears that it really doesn't suit, (or fit, or wear well...), and running into a shop again... a neverending wheel. Well, not this year, because when I was shopping for the wedding (see 3 above), I consulted a personal shopper (another one of my "If I could do anything I wanted..." items from the Artsits's Way), who outfitted me for the wedding, and for work-wear to take me through the coming months. I have trousers, blouses, sweaters, jackets and shoes that co-ordinate and match, are easily-laundered and pose me no dilemmas when I wake up in the morning! Hurrah!

5) Baraka, the movie without words, that is soul-filling, soul-lifting. It makes me feel my real relative size in the world, and the size of the world around me. It stretches me and connects me. This is a good thing.

Hmm.... there were other things I meant to speak of, but that little list took me in so many directions, I'm a bit scattered. I've decided that, as the balance of my life has shifted, in terms of time devoted to (employed) work, it's really important for me to make sure to schedule in friends time, Baha'i community time, me-time. (This counts as friends time, I guess!) A few days ago, one friend and her son came to dinner. Yesterday, I went to visit a friend - just an hour, but good, good, good to see her. Today, I'm heading out to enjoy some October in the countryside, going to one of my favourite places. I'll be going soon, in fact, so it's time to wind up this post.

Oh... and because my 50th birthday is coming up, my sister and I have been planning, and decided that, instead of celebrating it all at once on a single day, we're stretching the celebrations, and are going here (oh... can't get any pictures to post! OK... It's Paris!) in May. We'll be visiting Monet's garden at Giverny, and May is the best time. I'm so excited!

I know I won't get to visit and read up on everyone's posts from the past few days, and if I do, I may not comment, but I hope all my BlogLand pals have a really good weekend, and a great week ahead too. Au revoir!

Blogiversary! New day, New year !

It's a year today since I started my blog in order to follow along with 100 others as we worked The Artist's Way. What a year it's been!

I've been away over Christmas and the New year, and stayed away a little longer than I'd intended, and then, strangely, when I got home, the impulse to post wasn't there. There didn't seem to be anything to say. I'm gone into a little cocoon of no writing, no blogging, a hibernation-of-sorts. BUT I am aware of the date. I am aware of the wonderful community I fell into this time last year, and the marvellous , amazing, inspiring sharing I've been priviliged to participate in during that year.

I want to thank all the bloggers who have come by here during the year, and to say I'll be back. I will be back!