MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!

One of the problems with observing social distancing, it seems to me, is that we get antsy. Wanting, wanting, wanting...to see friends and family, to go out to dinner easily, to take a road trip and feel the freedom of the road, to not need to always have at the edge of things all the "worry."

So many of the days start to feel as if there is a sameness to them that we push against. Still, change does not need to be measured in big ways to still be change.  

If you want something different,

do something different.

"Same crap every day"

doesn't describe the day, 

it describes your attitude toward it.

Steve Marshall

For me, taking a different direction to a different place on a daily walk makes for a variety I like. Looking for new ways to cook things grown in the garden certainly calls for a change of attitude. I always thought my thumb was way too brown for this gardening stuff. Exploring to find new and often exciting authors to read has been a real pleasure. Reading back through old, old journals allows for seeing things in a new light. Trying my hand at new or even sometimes languishing art forms has been fun.

It just seems there is always some way to move away from that "same crap." And, while there is still a wanting, a longing for this pandemic to be past, there has to be for me an attitude adjustment of sorts. I try...and that's the step to doing it for me.

And too good not to share:

baby owls

WELL, NOT EXACTLY

A "sorta" poem

While this is not quite a poem, it also seems to somehow "fit" with our current situation. We certainly dream of how we would like to return to some kind of "normal," but the reality is not there...yet.

I'm trying each day to do some form of art and hope all of you are as well. Experimenting and exploring with a variety of materials and techniques helps to keep me engaged, often for many hours. As one of the "elderly" I am trying to observe strict regimens, though I walk each day (of course, social distancing), which helps also to keep me sane.

I hope all of you are doing well. This IS difficult (even for us introverts, by the way) and we SHALL see it end.

Stay well. Stay creative. Smile and be kind.

CREATIVITY STEW

Sawdust booth coming along

One might think from the title of this post that I am in a stew about the whole summer festival thing. Let me assure you that is not what this is about at all.

Instead, this stems from these Henry David Thoreau words: If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to lead a life which they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

So many of us have a plethora of creative ideas, but what is that has some getting results while others do not? I asked myself the questions--Why some and not others? What is the recipe for creativity? 

Aha! A recipe for creativity...perhaps that is what is needed. A simple add and stir and bake kind of thing. Why not? Here goes.....

CREATIVITY STEW

Take 1 dream, any size--stir until a clear vision is formed

5 tsp current reality (start with this amount and add to taste)

1 action (this action may or may not work; be prepared to take another one)

Add a dash of adjustments

Add a splash of learning

1 tsp evaluations

2 dashes adjustments

Stir the above until momentum is achieved for greatest effectiveness

Bake at level of desire until energy is formed and rises

Best served hot

Serves one or many

So, there you have it! This is pretty much the recipe I have been using for at least the past twenty years of doing the Sawdust Art Festival. I will be taking a leave at the end of the summer season this year to leave a space for the next thing to show up. I am pretty sure it will!

FULL MOON OF WINTER

Tonight's full moon has been called by native American Indians a "wolf moon."  When the cold, deep snows of mid-winter came, wolf packs howled hungrily outside the Indian's villages.  It was in this way that the name was given to the January full moon.
We have no deep snows here in the lowlands of Southern California and instead of wolves only coyote howls can be heard in the night. The light of the moon as we snuggle deep in our covers is no less entrancing however.  
There is something primal and creative about the fullness of the moon and I imagine ethereal and artistic beings playing by the light of the moon.
How about you?

DREAM...DREAM...DREAM

I'm beginning to think that the drifting and dreaming while driving to and from Santa Barbara placed me in a mesmerized state from which I have not yet freed myself. The piece posted here that I am currently at work on even has me thinking of sitting under trees and daydreaming the hours away.  Not sure what this is all about--the gray days, the overwhelming amount of work yet to do to mount the summer's art festival, sheer laziness, spring fever, what???
Onward I drift...readying for a workshop on the 12th (Is it already June?) and then on to summer!Life could certainly be much worse, right?