The spirit of death weighs heavy on me this week. A friend who has been battling cancer for nearly 3 years has entered hospice in preparation for her final days. At home our dear, sweet oldest cat also appears to be preparing us for his last days. I am heartbroken. We knew these times would come. Someday. Yet all the mental preparation in the world really doesn’t prepare you.
Run
I want to run. I want to run hard, fast, and away from the pain that grips my heart. I feel it ache and tears well-up in my eyes. I want to scream and push the pain aside. I want to tell death to F.O. And then I find a moment of calm. My heart relaxes and relief washes over me. I don’t like this roller coaster. I want to busy myself with something else. I cannot. I must embrace my fear.
Time is Precious
I look back on the days when I would visit my friend. A group was formed after she returned home from surgery. We would take turns visiting, providing food, conversation, helping around the house. Whatever we could do to be of service. It was a bit hard at first. What will I say? What will we talk about? There were good days and not so good days. Months of good health in spite of the situation. Laughter, jokes, walks, and ice cream. Sharing of art. Sharing of spirituality. On the days when I really didn’t feel like going, I was glad I did.
At home, I find myself missing Woody cat, even though he is just one floor below me curled up on our bed. He has fought kidney and thyroid disease for more than a year, but less than two. So many blood tests & pills to give. Through it all he has been our Zen kitty. So tolerant. So accepting. I wonder how I would’ve put up with all he’s gone through. Changes in his health were mostly gradual. And then one day you notice something isn’t right. This latest change happened over last weekend. It is the one I’ve dreaded.
Preparing
How does one prepare to say goodbye? I honestly do not know. This isn’t like “goodbye, I’ll see you later.” This is the final goodbye. I know you won’t be coming back. You tell yourself you’ll be alright. That this is the circle of life. Then you tell yourself that is a bunch of BS. The pain grows stronger inside. The grief. It swells and then I burst.
I’ve spent most days this week in silence. No music. Some TV. Meals are quiet with some conversation. A pall hangs over us. This has been a pretty sucky week. Sometimes it hurts to be a heart-centered person. I know my heart center is large and it absorbs much of the pain and sorrow around me. That is why my heart breaks so easily. I feel it down into my hands and all around my chest.
I wake each morning and thank the Universe for another day. I thank the Universe for bringing my friend and my pet through the night. I spend time thinking of good memories and the joy these two beings brought into my life.
I don’t know if I’m truly prepared for what comes next. I only hope that when it comes, I can let it wash over me. Welcome it. Then let it go.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.
I want to create mixed media wall art pieces as part of the Glimmer Series. As I started to develop this body of work, I had a strong urge to work with beeswax. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea. But the muse said to give it a go and to see what happens.
Ideally I would love to create the mixed media wall pieces on artist panels. I bought a few 4″x4″ panels with a 3/4″ profile last December. Those panels are intended for a different project but they might be incorporated into this body of work.
Anyways, before jumping right in and working on the panels, I created a prototype wall piece on 5″x7″ artist canvas panel. This gave me the chance to play with beeswax, papers, oil paint and polymer clay all on one surface. Beyond that, I didn’t plan out the piece with a sketch and just worked intuitively.
Glimmer of Hope Wall Prototype
I started out by applying beeswax to the canvas, placed a page torn from an old book into the wet wax, and then fused more wax on top. From there I built layers with rice paper, paper beads, and oil paint. I fused tiny pieces of branch around two words from the book: “Changed” and “Beautiful”. The polymer clay face is taken from a mold made of Glimmer #1′s face and painted gold.
When the entire piece was cooled and dry, I highlighted the raised areas with Gilder’s Paste. Gold stamped words “Glimmer” and “Hope” finish this prototype.
As I have done for the last few years, I have finally chosen my Word of the Year for 2011. Drumroll please……
The word I’ve chosen to guide me in 2011 is the word BIG.
So, why did it take me so long to post it to my blog? Because I’ve been working on BIG things. That and well, I wasn’t quite sure what to write about the word I chose.
As 2010 drew to a close and I was dealing with my health issues, I started having very vivid dreams. In one dream, a man spoke of his rebirth as if he were a prophet. That dream stuck with me and I contemplated choosing rebirth or renewal as my words for 2011.
And then I read Lisa Call’s blog post on how she chose her word for 2011 and how she distinguished between “doing” words and “being” words. That made me think. Is the word I choose for 2011 going to be a “doing” word or a “being” word?
The words “rebirth” and “renewal” sounded nice but on some level they weren’t quite clicking with me. They seemed too, um, airy-fairy.
And then the word BIG popped in my head.
I was thinking about some of the goals I want to achieve this year. For me they are BIG. And as I contemplated this word, some BIG things happened:
My iron levels returned to normal which means I’m no longer anemic.
If the last few weeks are any indication, the word BIG is already guiding me and having a positive influence.
So BIG has become my word of the year. I guess it is both a “doing” word and a “being” word. I want to do BIG things. I want to be BIG and live fully. Who knows; maybe BIG will also bring renewal and rebirth with it.
In January of last year, I chose the word SOAR as my word of the year. I chose this word because I considered it an extension of the word Momentum. Momentum was the word I almost chose. But SOAR seemed to fit me better. I liked the sound of SOARING through the year. You can read more about why I chose SOAR here.
The idea behind choosing a word for the year, as opposed to making resolutions, is that a particular word provides you with guidance all year along. I admit that sometimes I forget that. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing. If I beat myself over the head with my word of the year, I probably wouldn’t enjoy the process any more than I like making New Year’s resolutions. So I often choose my word, put it out to the Universe, and then let it go.
How did I embody the word SOAR during 2010?
I embarked on a long thought about goal and started teaching polymer clay mixed media classes. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by visiting Italy. I had mixed media artwork (on canvas) published in two different books by Patti Digh. I was interviewed by our local newspaper and a local cable channel. I dove more into social networking by finally creating a Facebook personal page and a page for my art business. I also created an online studio on ArtFire.
Many of these events and other accomplishments happened rather effortlessly. For most of the year, I felt like I was soaring on thermals. Opportunities appeared and I accepted or let them go.
My full phrase for 2010 was SOAR with MOMENTUM into ABUNDANCE and have FAITH.
And in the last two months of the year, FAITH came into play. Big time.
First I received a surprising notice that one of my galleries wished to end their contract with me. The loss of a contract is not entirely new. I’ve ended them in the past and consignment shops have ended them with me. In this case, however, the loss caused me to question the value of my artwork and my self-worth as an artist. Would I be resigned to create production artwork forever?
Then came the health issues. At 47 I expect to be facing some changes as I move closer to a new phase in my biological life. However, what I did not expect was several doctor’s appointments, a biopsy, blood tests, unplanned weight loss, and an ultrasound. As a generally healthy person, to be confronted with a body in sudden revolt over a period of several weeks not only made me angry, I was scared, tired, and crying. I found myself delving deep into prayers and searching for faith in my self and my situation. Faith that I was well, that I would be well, and that all would be well.
The sketch below sums up all the feelings I experienced during those weeks.
As the year drew to a close, my health started to return to an acceptable level of normalcy. Answers were received and a solution to the situation was found. The experience caused me to think deeply about several areas of my life. This has put me on a new path for 2011 and influences the word I’m leaning toward to guide me in 2011.
In some ways SOAR in 2010 was a mixed blessing. Much like the hawks that I love to watch, SOAR carried me on the thermals of success but it also meant I had to dive deeply to find the source of myself.
I’ve been dealing with some health issues this month. Nothing terribly serious but just a constant annoyance. A visit to the doctor tomorrow may provide some answers.
But in dealing with this health issue, I have, several times, felt like I’ve lost control over my body. Your mind can take you to dark places if you let it. At other times, I’ve felt like I’ve had the upper hand.
This morning, as I sat in meditation, I had this brilliant idea to draw how I’m feeling. To sketch my mood, hopefully each day, as I resolve this situation. They say art can be therapeutic and bring healing. I know I’m most happy when I make my art. Maybe creating a daily drawing will help out in other ways too.
Here is the result of putting pencil to paper this morning.
Yep, I’m sticking my tongue out at this annoying little issue. Go Away.
Today I discovered the Hippy Urban Girl blog and her December Views project. I love the idea of taking a snapshot of your day and using that to describe your mood or what you’re doing or whatever is going on around you. I signed up for the project as an additional way to deal with my current situation. Best part is there are no rules!
The Right Brain Business Plan (RBBP) e-course is rolling into its 6th week. That puts us 3/4 of the way through the class. Hard to believe it has gone by so quickly…and that I haven’t been very good about keeping you up-to-date on my progress.
Last I wrote about the RBBP, I shared my business vision and the Vision Accordion Book that I created. Since then, we’ve tackled our business self-portrait, our target market, working the numbers, and determining sources of support.
The Business Self-Portrait
Developing our business self-portrait and business landscape was fun and challenging at the same time. This is where we determine where our business fits in the larger business landscape. We approached this from two directions, those things under our control (our strengths, challenges, and opportunities) and those things NOT under our control such as customers, trends, competition and barriers.
The self-portrait provided another opportunity to creatively paint a picture of my strengths, challenges, and opportunities. It was also a bit intimidating because we are asking questions about ourselves. While this is a hard task for anyone, I think it may be a bigger challenge for women because most of us are told not to talk about the things that we’re good at, not to talk about our successes and achievements. That is the sign of a bragger, an arrogant person, and an egotistical person.
Well, fat on that.
One way we were given to approach this task was to ask friends, family, associates, co-workers, and colleagues a series of questions such as “What three words would you use to describe me?” “What would you say are my natural gifts, strengths, and passions?” and “What would you say sets me apart from the crowd?”
It was humbling and heartwarming to receive people’s answers to those questions. Holding a mirror up to yourself is not easy. Asking people their opinion isn’t always easy either. However, the way you are seen in another person’s eyes can be very affirming.
Following another RBBP classmate’s lead, I entered the words and phrases into Wordle to create a word cloud. Then, inspired by those black construction paper silhouettes we had as kids, I asked Eric to trace my head onto a large sheet of paper. This profile would become the centerpiece of my business self-portrait.
Business Self-Portrait
The self-portrait features the word collage in the center of my silhouette. Other components include my background and experience, skills and talents, customer quotes, opportunities and challenges.
Biz Self-Portrait Top Half
Biz Self-Portrait Bottom Half
The Wordle collage puts in bold typeface those words that appear most often. From this one might summarize that the words most often used to describe me are: knowledgeable, caring, creative, understanding, organizer, listener, thorough, and courage. These words give me insight into my strengths and skills and themes that could influence my business.
The Business Landscape
The business landscape is an on-going process. Creating the landscape requires a bit more detective work. It is here that you look at trends (social and economic), think about how big your market is, map out your target market, consider direct and indirect competition, take into consideration what you do well and barriers that you might encounter.
The fun apart this assignment is we can create SWAGs (Silly Wild Ass Guesses) for those areas where we don’t have a definite answer right now. It is better to put down a SWAG than to get stuck and not move forward. And through research an answer, hopefully, will be found.
To help with this part of the process, I set up a fabric covered tri-fold foam core display board that I used long ago in my first art shows. At the top of the middle section, I’ve posted the name for this entire venture “The Creative Well.” This section is also for tracking trends and market information, including a map of Massachusetts and New England, information on population, numbers of polymer clay teachers in the area, and my business self-portrait.
The left panel is for information on the competition and potential collaborators. The right panel holds information on resources, such as places where I might be able to teach polymer clay classes. As I come across and collect information, it is added to the designated section with push pins or notes written on Post-it notes.
Biz Landscape Detective Board
I like this format because it is portable and collapsible. I keep the board on a shelf right across from my work table so I see it every day. When I add information or want to analyze the entire picture, I can lay it on the floor to get a good overview.
Our first major assignment in the Right Brain Business Plan course was to create a vision board. We were tasked with cutting out images that represented the overview of our company, our business values, the products and services we offer, our target market, our creative cohorts and supporters, our financial dream, and anything else we wanted to add.
The fun part, aside from following our intuition and cutting apart magazines, was creating our vision board in any format we desired. It could be a large poster, a book, a cube, a deck of cards. Anything.
I decided to make what I call a Vision Accordion Book.
The Book’s Exterior
To make a Vision Accordion Book, you need an old hardbound book that you’ll tear apart. A year ago, in preparing for my trip to France, the thought of tearing the covers off an old book sent chills up my spine. It seemed sacrilegious to deface an old book. This year, however, I had absolutely no qualms about ripping apart an old book.
I searched my studio and found a book that I used in a collage class several years ago. Nothing of value inside this book.
Future Vision Book
Using a sharp box cutter, I sliced along the front and back spine of the book until it was loose enough and I could pull off the covers.
These will become the Vision Accordion Book covers. At this point these covers are now called book board.
You can cover the book board with fabric or paper. I choose a fabric that I bought in Revel, France because it was during my time in France when I realized that I wanted to teach art workshops. Workshops and retreats are the focus of my business plan.
French Fabric for Vision Book
I cut the fabric about 1″ larger than the book board. Glue the fabric onto the front of each book board, flip the book board over, and carefully fold and glue the edges of the fabric, one edge at a time, onto the insides of the book board. After the book board is covered and the glue is dry, glue a contrasting sheet of paper (solid color, decorative, your choice) on the inside of each book board.
Note: The paper on the inside of the book board is going to be covered by the accordion fold pages of your book. So don’t agonize over using fancy paper or paper with text because you won’t see a lot of it once you glue in your accordion fold pages.
Covered Book Boards
I decided to use large sheets of watercolor paper for the book’s pages. I can’t tell you the weight of the paper because I bought it years ago (when I took that collage course I mentioned earlier.) I wanted my pages to be 5″ wide by 8″ long. I measured the paper accordingly and cut the paper. And when I tell you there is no such thing as a straight line, believe me. Even with a ruler and a pencil line on the paper my cutting is a little wobbly.
I cut two strips of paper and glued them together to form a really long piece. Then I started accordion folding. I measured and scored the paper with a bone folder every 5″ and then folded the paper. I flipped the paper over for every other fold to ensure the pages would accordion correctly. (There are simpler ways to make an accordion fold. But because I needed a specific width for each page this was the approach I used.)
Images
Since this is a Vision Accordion Book, I needed lots of images to glue onto the inside pages. This is a fun task and almost always results in an overabundance of images. I spent a few hours on different days going through Martha Stewart Living, Yoga Journal, Shambala, Women’s Day, and MORE magazines.
The tendency, when choosing images for your vision board or book, is to tear out pictures of things you like, things you want to have, places you’d like to visit, etc. Often we do this without any conscious thought about our intention for the vision board. And this means we may miss the very image that we’re really looking for. Martha Beck recently wrote an article on vision boards that you might enjoy. Check it out here.
Here are all the images I cut out and spread out onto a table in my studio.
Looks a bit overwhelming doesn’t it?
From here I sorted the pictures into various categories: Company overview and values, products and services, wealth and abundance, target market and creative cohorts and supporters. And then I sorted the piles again, removing images that didn’t quite resonate with me and the intention of this book.
Vision in Action
Once I sorted the images and felt good with my choices, I started to lay them out on each page, one at a time. I spent over 3 hours trimming, laying out and gluing down the images. Then I glued the first and last page to the front and back book boards.
And viola! My Vision Accordion Book was complete.
Vision Accordion Book
The first two pages explain the overview of my business.
Company Overview
Pages 3 & 4 show my business values and the products and services I’ll offer.
Business Values, Products & Services
Pages 4 & 5 explain more about my business and my vision for wealth and abundance.
Wealth and Abundance
Page 4 above also has a picture that I glued to the top of the page. Siddharta sits in the “No Fear” muhdra. The image folds over the page when the book is closed. The page 4 picture comes from a Soul Card I made a while back. It signified how I felt at the time “facing the unknown” and how many of us feel during a time of change and transition. When I found the picture of Siddharta in the “No Fear” muhdra, it only seemed appropriate to add him to this picture. I’m moving ahead without fear.
No Fear
Finally, pages 6 & 7 represent my creative cohorts and supporters and my target market. Here is a shout-out to those people who are supporting me in this adventure, who offer words of advice and suggestions. As the small print under your pictures states “I can succeed by getting support.”
Creative Cohorts & Target Market
There you have it. My Vision Accordion Book. At some later point during this class, I’ll add some envelopes to the back sides of these pages for notes and goals. I’d also like to go back and soften the edges of the pictures with oil pastels. For now, however, it feels complete.
My goal with CED is to dedicate part of one day each week to an art activity inspired by the monthly theme. If I’m able to fit in other non-art related activities inspired by the monthly theme, even better!
Monday: Started the week off nicely with a treat for the body-a hot stone massage.
Tuesday: Keeping the body healthy with the annual mammogram
Wednesday: Exercised the body with a half day of skiing.
Thursday: A mind-mapping teleseminar with Julie Stuart; good for the brain and the business
Friday: Friday is the day I try to dedicate to an art specific project using the CED theme for inspiration. During the week I finished sculpting a head following the Creager’s head sculpting DVD. Heads always look a little scary before going in the oven and before the eyes are added.
Front of Head
This head also shows my first attempt at sculpting ears.
Left Side (My What Big Ears You Have)
Right Side (Do these ears make me look fat?)
And I completed this little guy, “Man in Turban.” This piece will be sent to the sons of a gallery owner. The boys helped in the construction of the head.
On this particular Friday I pulled out Cate Coulacos Prato’s book Mixed Media Self-Portraitsand worked on a warm-up exercise called “Color Your World.” Through this exercise you create a self-portrait using one color. The portrait can be literal or abstract or expressive.
Prior to creating my self-portrait, I meditated for a few minutes to get clear on which color was “me” this morning. I repeated the names of several colors over and over and the one that came to me most prominently was orange.
Orange? (Prior to the exercise I was focused on the color blue; my inner voice obviously thought otherwise.)
Okay; I spent 15-20 minutes gathering materials including colored pencils, markers, oil pastels, paints, construction paper, and tore orange colored images from several magazines. Then I got to work. I started by scribbling in a background and then glued the large image with the words “Find Your Center” on the middle of the paper. The woman meditating was glued on top of this background.
From here I worked intuitively, not really stopping to think about my choices. I just cut, scribbled, tore, and glued paper. Sometimes I would flip the image upside-down to see blank spaces that needed filling. During all the activity I remembered my paper punches and used them on the magazine images as well to make leaves and starbursts.
Here is how the piece turned out:
Color Your World-Single Color Self-Portrait
Find Your Center-Top Half
Find Your Center-Middle Section
Find Your Center-Bottom Half
Impressions
The piece seems to have no rhyme or reason. I started with the woman mediating because I like to meditate though I don’t do it as often as I used to. Ironically she was wearing an orange top! I also liked the words on the background image (Find Your Center) because I’m always working on learning more about my intuitive, spiritual side.
One thing I learned while working on this piece is that some personal symbols are emerging for me. Between this piece and last week’s creation, I find myself incorporating circles, dots, rough edges (torn paper), curly-q’s, and swirls, lines ending in points, stars or starbursts, little falling images (here falling leaves & starbursts; last week was falling stick figures.)
As I finished this piece I applied a wash of orange watercolor and thinned orange acrylic paint. As the piece dried, I spontaneously added a small strip of orange construction paper over the woman’s eyes. For some reason I didn’t want to focus on her eyes. I added a couple more strips of construction paper on the upper left corner and the right side of the piece. And then I glued the words “Guide Us” over the woman’s paper covered eyes. This represents my intuitive side, the part of me I’m trying to open up and learn about. Finally I addded the words “Success” and “In every possible situation” to complete the piece.
So I guess what this piece tells me is that I’m trying to find my center to guide me to success in every possible situation.
Meanings for Orange
Orange is a blend of red and yellow. It symbolizes stimulation, success and attraction. Orange is associated with orange fruit which symbolizes fruitfulness and fecundity (capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful; marked by intellectual productivity.) Orange is the color of the sacral chakra which is associated with nurturing, receptivity, and emotions.
Orange is often used to depict the sun. It symbolizes happiness, socializing, abundance in career, projects, and matters needing an added push.
