The Seattle Artist's Way Center

One of our fall Artist's Way students suggested us doing a photo blog entry ... great idea, Sharon!  Here it is:

Candle idea stolen from Crate and Barrel:

Like rose petals:

Tree ...

Meditation ...

Red ...

It's all about perspective ... lucky birds ...

Artist's Way student fleur goodness ...

It's got it all ...

And the leaf end zone ...

"Just a little bit more" ... 

I'm reminded of the great response by Will Rogers when he was asked "How much money is enough?"  He replied (say it with me people) ...

"Just a little bit more ... "

As I've been pondering abundance lately it doesn't surprise me that this is the line that has been haunting me. 

It's easy to feel a lack.

A lack of time. Of money.  You name it.

Especially these days.  

Especially when you're laptop goes belly-up (don't get me started).

Especially in this consuming culture we live in.  I can buy into the marketers' message (those wiley marketers!)  that I won't be happy until I get the new ipad/ipod/itouch/ishuffle.

I-whatever

I-know it.

It's I-nsane. 

On top of all of the messages we get around us that we need to get more and more, to hear the word "abundance" during a time of extreme financial woes can be like pouring salt on the proverbial "wound".  

And then synchronicity struck.

I saw the purse.

More a satchel really.

Reddish brown, sitting alone in my creative space like a high school girl standing nervously alone at her first dance wanting to be picked to twirl around the dance floor.

The only twirling this satchel has done in the last year was being moved from "here" to "there" when I vaccumed around her.  (She is SUCH a "her").

Then I read Julia's chapter about noticing what feels abundant.  

A box of raspberries.

A new favorite pen.

Or for me - looking around the items I already own and truly appreciating and using them.

I also REALLY heard a comment an Artist's Way student made in class. She noted while on vacation she imagines some of the clothes that didn't get worn are disappointed. Imaging that it actually matters that we appreciate what we have is one SURE way to be more mindful of the things we actually are so very lucky to have.

I was also reminded of a comment my pastor made about an orphanage his daughter runs with her husband and son, Yohani in Mozambique.  He said "you have never seen such happy children."  

It stopped me in my tracks.  Still does.  And I'm glad it does.  

It makes me grateful. For the comforts I have around me - both material but even more so in the friends, colleagues and family I am honored to know and have in my life.

Here's who is getting my attention and love this week:

My dear friends who make me laugh so that I snort. Yup, the truth is revealed.

The digital piano that seen more dust on its keys than my fingertips

The kind comment from a total stranger.

The pretty green scarf hidden behind my other scarves ("come out and shine you little wallflower you").

The group of musicians who ask me to play guitar with them on Sundays who I haven't strummed with in months.

My funky clunky (and favorite) brown/black boots who have a new life when paired with knee highs (who KNEW??)

Actually sit and look at the gorgeous artwork Annya Uslontseva made and I now own. (see below)

I'm going to take my purdy satchel, throw my knee highs on and go pluck some strings of my guitar with my strumming friends.

I am going to be mindful of the abundance right in front of me. Without having to spend an extra penny. What's that?  It's this little brown, round thing that most people step over on the street ...  

Maybe I'll even stare at a penny today.

And I'm going to rework the joke:

"How much money is enough?"

Exactly what I have.  Exactly what I have.  Exactly what I have.

I think Will would approve.

Dorcas and Yohani, Mozambique residents

I was giddy.

Like you're 6 years old, jumping up and down and waiting for the doorbell to ring with one of your birthday party best friends kind-of-giddy.

It was "Salon night" aka "Use Your Outside Voice" night.  A night for a diverse group of folks to come together and perform for each other.  "Perform" in the loosest, most casual sense of the word - think one step up from what it was like as a kid to jump up in front of your parents and put on a show/routine/skit.

This idea had been germinating for easily 6 years.

I'd been volunteering at The Empty Space and read an article where the Artistic Director Allison Narver spoke of the death of her mom Betty Jane Narver and how she would gather people from all walks of life and would have these amazing evenings of conversation noting her home was a "community center in the true sense of that word." 

The idea of a place where community gathered was never far from my mind.  I thought "wow, I'd love to do something like that only have it involve music and performance."

Hence the Salon was born (if only in my head!).

It took a few years later (along with the help of the amazing Katie Talbott who runs the community center Present Sense and offered up the space for free) for the idea to come to fruition.

So how can I paint this picture (since I refused to miss one minute of really being there by taking an actual picture)?

First, here's the space:

Present Sense sang to me the first time I saw it - I imagined some wild west frontier store (and apparently it was at one time a store) - so simple, so sweet and nestled into the middle of the Wallingford neighborhood.  We've been teaching our Artist's Way classes there for awhile now and the space radiates warmth.

The night.

6 people signed up to do a variety of singing, group sing-a-long, solo performance, poetry, and reading an original play.  No rehearsal (at least not together).

We started with the whole group (guests and performers alike) practicing the failure bow (hands over head stretched to the ceiling, smiling broadly and shouting "I failed" and then clapping for ourselves).  We noted how important failure is to the creative process and we were going to honor our successes and most importantly our failures tonight.  Katie talked about her vision for Present Sense - a place where community can gather.

As simple as that.

And gather we did.

Starting off the night with everyone singing "this little light of mine I'm going to let it shine" over and over until you could hear the collective undertone "oh yes, I AM!  I am SO going to let it shine."

Shining happened ...

I could go on and on about the radiance of the voices that reminded me of the sweetest birds tweeting, or the knowing laughter as the performers shared their written word, or the courage it takes to get up it front of people and say "this is who I am and what I have to offer."

So many gifts - many of which I was hoping would happen.

But it was the things I couldn't have expected that touched me most.

The man from the neighborhood who saw we were having the Salon came in off the street and asked if he could perform (and did! a lovely poem)

A guest of one of the performers who asked spontaneously at the end of the evening if she could sing noting at the beginning "I'm surprised I'm doing this - you can ask my husband - I never sing in public" but DID and was fantastic.

Or perhaps the greatest compliment from a friend who said "this so inspired.  I want to go home right now and write."

At the end of the night the attendees were super excited by what they'd just been a part of and kept saying "thanks so much for doing this."

Here's the thing.

I SO can't take the credit for it.  And mind you.  I'd love to take credit for it. 

What I think?  I think it was simply divine-inspired. 

Call it what you will, God, Higher Power, Universe, Creative Force.

I heard a voice saying "get people together and sing". And all I did was listen and take direction.  When I do that, glorious things happen.

So what I say?

Bruce is giddy too

"This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine, this little light of mine ..."

P.S. The other added bonus of the night came from the suggestion that Katie Talbott had was to have a hat out and any donations made go to the charity of my choice.  I choose this amazing couple who run an orphanage in Mozambique and because of the generosity of the attendees, they will be receiving $181. 

Thank you ALL!

We hope to do these quarterly so hope to see you there in the future.

Week 10---Julia warned us that this segment of the journey would include “waves of resistance and hope” in “a birthing process”.

Every day as I turn the corner of my porch and see my red bench and red door I experience a wave of hope!

They are my daily inspiration reminding me that my mind is constantly CREATING and sometimes I catch those thoughts and MAKE THEM SO.

3 weeks ago I had a broken down bench I was ready to haul away and a stained and scarred front door. As I turned the corner my critic would have plenty to say: 

“When are you going to toss that useless bench?”

“Why haven’t you at least cleaned the door-how embarrassing!”

“Curb appeal?  I don’t think so!!”

The door was open (literally) to an avalanche of self-criticism and carrying my 300 lb. critic across the deck meant I arrived home discouraged & tired.

Creativity always involves risk---what if I choose the wrong red?  My helper (husband) after the 3rd coat of primer and paint assured me that it absolutely was the RIGHT RED.

I failed (picture me hands raised with a smile on my face) to buy the right amount of paint. Michelangelo must have faced this very difficulty!

Some people might not see the connection; but my imperfectly accomplished creative movement to paint a door and bench somehow helped me to make a phone call and write a letter that are the first baby steps for two other stalled out projects. 

Maybe I can take one more baby step today!

Learning new steps is a big risk at any age.  But let’s face it, a 3 year old doesn’t fall far!

I got a bike this year after a 30 year gap as a rider and the pavement got harder and farther away than in my small Midwest town as a 20-something.  It’s true I’ve been riding a bike in a spin class for 18 months but taking one outside……a whole different sport.

·       Trucks and SUV’s give a new meaning to defensive riding

·       I don’t do spandex so other bikers may also distain me (yes, they definitely do!)

·       My choice of helmet has more to do with color than aerodynamics

BUT there is such unexpected joy in speed - with memories of waterskiing or sledding or racing after a puck on ice!  When did I become so afraid of falling---

·       Literally on my butt

·       Or socially on my face

·       Or emotionally on my sword

Tomorrow I’m returning to a day in my life as a 12 year old.  Getting on my bike with some water and a snack and simply riding away from home. No destination-no distance or speed goals-no calorie count for the workout-just the joy of wind in my face, the unknown adventures of a life with possibility!

Taking new steps?  It ain’t easy at any age.

 Here's proof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdylQeg5B9I

If you haven’t read Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 classic Anne of Green Gables, you have missed out on a great childhood friend and champion of all things creative!  I imagine her as one of my Artist Way cheerleaders and in week 5 I need a cheerleader. Or 10.

My inner critic sounds a lot like Marilla Cuthbert, a past her prime spinster in conversation with an earnest, red-headed 12 year old artist.

"I'd love to call you Aunt Marilla," said Anne wistfully. "I've never had an aunt or any relation at all--not even a grandmother. It would make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can't I call you Aunt Marilla?"

"No. I'm not your aunt and I don't believe in calling people names that don't belong tothem."

"But we could imagine you were my aunt."

"I couldn't," said Marilla grimly.

"Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?" asked Anne wide-eyed.

"No."

"Oh!" Anne drew a long breath. "Oh, Miss--Marilla, how much you miss!"

"I don't believe in imagining things different from what they really are," retorted Marilla. "When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away.

But doesn’t He or She? Someone had to imagine a world without slavery, or small pox, or diptheria.  Someone had to imagine The Brothers Karamazov, and Hamlet and Frodo Baggins.  What might I imagine?

As I try on imaginary lives maybe like, Anne, I need to rename my inner artist.  After all, Ruth, can’t even be spelled with an “E” to improve it.

What's your name?"

The child hesitated for a moment.

"Will you please call me Cordelia?" she said eagerly.

"Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?"

"No-o-o, it's not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It's such a perfectly elegant name."

"I don't know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn't your name, what is?"

"Anne Shirley," reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, "but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can't matter much to you what you call me if I'm only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is such an unromantic name."

"Unromantic fiddlesticks!" said the unsympathetic Marilla. "Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You've no need to be ashamed of it."

"Oh, I'm not ashamed of it," explained Anne, "only I like Cordelia better. I've always imagined that my name was Cordelia--at least, I always have of late years. When I  was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an E." 

"What difference does it make how it's spelled?" asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot.

"Oh, it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can't you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you'll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia."

This week I think I’ll be Rory or Madeline or Ruby Isabella.

So this week if someone asks me what I know about myself, I may steal Anne’s words.

Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I imagine about myself, you'd find it a lot more interesting.

Two weeks ago, I wondered if my little oak leaf hydrangea had been done in by our week of freezing cold this winter, but life found a way. 

I’ve been babying this little plant for 2 years since I paid too much for it.  When it arrived in the mail I was underwhelmed---a few inches of stem with some roots attached.

How many of the gifts of my life have arrived in just such UNDERWHELMING packages.  The woman I met when she wanted me to sew a suit for my husband – a groomsman – in HER wedding.  Are you kidding me?  I could barely sew a button on a suit.  Turns out she was the woman who helped me survive my children’s toddler years. 

Or for that matter—those kids didn’t look like much when they arrived either.

Julia says, “Growth is an erratic forward movement:  two steps forward, one step back.  ….You are capable of great things on Tuesday, but on Wednesday you may slide backward.”

But life finds a way! Even tiny changes like pathetic little mail order plants. 

·       This week I’m leaving a whole pile of dirty dishes from Tuesday night until Wednesday afternoon.

·       This week I spent $25 more to get a haircut from someone I WANTED to go to.

·       This week I went to bed when I was tired, at least two times.

·       This week I said, “No, I can’t” and didn’t explain why.

Somehow those tiny changes gave me new courage. 

I’ve had a couple of playful, silly, impractical,energizing, creative ideas bouncing around inside my head for weeks and I SAID THEM OUT LOUD.

To someone. 

AND they didn’t fall on the ground laughing. 

And I said them to two more people on my safety map and now those ideas are out there. 

Feeble little parcels finally delivered.

Who knows what could happen---maybe life WILL find a way.

Two blog posts in one week.

Must be a red letter week.

Had to repost this from NPR, interview with Pierre Bensusan.  Loved what he had to say about not needing to meet your musical heroes "I know them already by their music."  Plus, he taught himself guitar.  My HERO!

Full interview and music here ...

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=133875793&m=133896583

Enjoy!

The full sentence is:  "We meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression."

This from Julia's chapter on Recovering A Sense of Integrity.

I'm pretty sure that is why I keep hearing this from our Artist's Way students:

"I think the Artist's Way material is helping me get to know myself more."

I even heard it from a colleague at an arts marketing conference just this morning.

When I told him I teach an Artist's Way class he raved "I return to it time and time again whenever I'm feeling blocked or in a lull."

This idea of knowing ourselves and the challenges of doing so have been on my mind having just read the book Mockingbird (no, not Mockingjay, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine) a fictional book about a 12 year old girl who has Asperger's and how she copes with the tragic death of her brother (and more).

Caitlin is getting to know herself.

It is not without difficulty and challenges. 

Each step of the way I found myself rooting for her.

Like when she said that "recess is her worst subject" and so whenever she gets an upset feeling in other situations she calls it the "recess feeling".

Or when she gave her dad a sticker "for being polite."

Or when she said she couldn't draw faces, so insisted she would draw everything BUT the face.

I'm "with you" on that one, Caitlin.

When Caitlin has challenges to tackle she wants to recoil and hide.

OK, FINE! Caitlin and I have another thing in common.

But despite that "recess feeling" and sweating palms she trudges forward.

She even tries to get her father to come aboard the "face your challenges train" when she tells him he has to "WORK HARDER!" at feeling better. 

(My own personal tweak on that comes from a friend of mine who when she hears "work harder" likes to substitute "work softer".  You're still working but you're not whacking yourself over the head about it.).

Caitlin is meeting her truth and in doing so amazing self-expression comes forth from her.  The "meeting ourselves" and "self-expression" is what our students see in each other every week.

They meet themselves ...

When they share that they wake up groggy 45 minutes earlier than normal at 5:00 am to scribble out their morning pages on the chance that they'll glimpse another part of themselves they hadn't seen before.

When they bring in a project they finally finished after starting it some 20-odd years earlier.

When they talk about how angry they've been about ... (name it).

When they say they just read Winnie the Pooh to their adult friends just because it sounded like fun.

When they're excited to see synchronicity popping up (or frustrated when they don't).

Julia says in uncovering your emerging individuality "the snowflake pattern of your soul is emerging.  Each of us is a unique, creative individual."

I picture Caitlin's snowflake pattern as ultra bright white, with lots and lots of detailed circles, squares, asymmetrical shapes of all sizes.

Heck maybe one with even a face on it.

Fittingly, as she does throughout the book, Caitlin gets the last word and sends us out with some "to live by" marching orders that I hope to hold onto ...

"Michael is still next to me but he's stepping from one foot to the other.  I can tell that he kind of wants to play football too so I tell him he should follow his empathy and go play.  I watch him run and tackle Josh and they both laugh and roll in the grass."

The voice told me to read the "Little House on the Prarie" books.

I blame the voice.

You know the one.

The one in our heads that says "pssst, hey you, yeah YOU, try that."

The "try that" was calling me to order the first in the "Little House on the Prairie" books from the library.

So I there I stood, a forty-(cough mumble cough mumble) year old in line at the Capitol Hill branch with "Little House in the Big Woods".

Staring at the ground while surrepitiously making side-way glances at my fellow book checker-outers I thought "I could TOTALLY be getting this for my 9 year old child".

Ok, if I HAD a 9 year old child.

Two days later ...

I am now officially hooked.

For so many reasons.

Not the least of which is how these pre-teen (or maybe pre-pre teen) books have caused me to pay closer attention to the things in my life.

Julia says in the Artist's Way that "the capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention."

If that is the case, Pa (and Ma, and Laura, and Carrie and Grace and even annoying "perfect" Mary) have that down. 

In "The Long Winter," the 6th in the Series, (YES, alright!  I confess I've read all the ones prior), after having no wood to burn and no coal to heat the house and after

being stranded because of the blizzards for easily two months with only brown bread and potatoes to eat

Brown bread and potatoes for breakfast

Brown bread and potatoes for lunch

Brown bread and potatoes for dinner

For two months PEOPLE! ....

Ma brings out a small salt codfish as a surprise and begins to flake the codfish and Pa replies: 

"Just the smell of it chirks a fellow up.  Caroline, you are a wonder!"

Over salt codfish.

My tuna is going to be a love-in for me from now on.

Or the time that Pa knew that the winter was going to be very, very bad because he'd noticed the muskrat house walls were the thickest he had ever seen and that "the colder the winter will be, the thicker the muskrats build the walls of their houses."

Those muskrat walls have been on my mind for days.

Maybe it's because there is something about the simplicity in the wisdom of animals that struck me as so beautiful and profound.

Something that I miss when I run around in my busyness, not paying attention to much of anything in particular.

Now I know.

Even if I slowed down I might not be poking my nose into muskrat houses.

But I might pay attention to other things.

Like the way the sunlight hit the side of the macrina bakery bricks and radiated onto my back and made me toasty and full of smiles.

Or catching an interview on NPR that shouted "attention synchronicity, Kate!"

Eric Wiener was talking about his book "The Geography of Bliss" and how he went to places in the world that focused on happiness.  He wrote about Bhutan and how he appreciated how as a people they do everything so attentively whether they "cross the street, wash dishes or shake your hand in the Bhutanese handshake" ("Two hands cupped over one of mine, head lowered in a half bow.  It is a very deliberate, present action."). Eric says that 'Attention' is "an underrated word" and that "our lives are empty and meaingless without attention. .... Attentive people, in other words, are happy people."

Julia I think would say "bravo."

Pa, too.

While I know paying attention to every moment of the day would be impossible and probably downright crazymaking, I know I could do what my trickster dental hygenist said regarding my lackadaisical flossing : "don't do it perfectly, just do it a little bit more than you are now." (Of course paradoxically, now I can't go without a day of flossing. Hence the "trickster" label).

"So after supper Pa called for his fiddle, and Laura brought it to him.  But when he had tuned the strings and rosined the bow he played a strange melody.  The fiddle moaned a deep, rushing undertone and wild notes flickered high above it, rising until they thinned away in nothingness, only to come wailing back, the same notes but not quite the same, as if they had been changed while out of hearing. ...

"Listen" Pa stopped playing and held his bow still, above the strings.  "The tune is outdoors.  I was only following it."

What is your voice telling you to follow?