Growth…The New Frontier

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past year.  My library is mostly comprised of podcasts related to art, art and business, and spirituality/meditation.  I find myself listening to particular categories of podcasts depending on my activities. I listen to spiritual/meditation podcasts when I’m creating my daily collage (see my Instagram page @drfiber).  I listen to business-oriented podcasts when I’m organizing my office, setting up meetings and virtual retreats, and I listen to art podcasts when I’m working on an artistic endeavor.

When I find a new podcast for my library, I go back to the very beginning of the podcast and listen to the work in order.  I do this for two reasons, earlier work may represent foundation principles and newer work may be more evolved thoughts.  The other reason is the more we do something we develop mastery.  Interviewers get better, the questions get better, the impact of the podcast becomes stronger.

For me, podcasts have allowed me to mature in how I run my business and upped my confidence level in the art I create.  I’m a mental health/health humanities practitioner.  I’m continually looking for new and inventive ways for health professional both practicing and students to stretch their wings.  It doesn’t matter what field you’re in, learning new coping skills, increasing your joie de vivre, aligning your values with your work is important for survival.

During these uncertain times, how will you creatively protect your physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness?  What do you want to say but you haven’t been able to thus far?  If you could create anything knowing no one would see it or hear it what would it look like, feel like, sound like, taste like?  We all have creativity residing in our bodies and minds so let’s use it to capture and expand our resilient nature.

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Reboot, Renew, Revitalize

Have you noticed the growing number of entertainment reboots currently making it to the big and small screen?  If you listen to the radio, you’ve not doubt heard Weezer’s remake of Toto’s Africa.  Broadway is always reviving musicals and plays with new spins.  I figured I would join the crowd and I’ve just become the president of Front Range Contemporary Quilters (www.artquilters.org) for the second time.   I was president ten years ago, and now it’s time for a reboot.

What is it about a reboot, or in my case, a new term that’s so appealing?  First and foremost, I’m familiar with the job.  There is a minimal learning curve.  I know when the newsletter article is due.  I’m familiar with the recruitment practices for membership. I understand the selection process for speakers.  On the flip side, over the past ten years, the membership has changed.  The use of technology has skyrocketed.  I’ve gotten older.

I believe any organization, business, even our own lives need revitalization on a regular basis. Boredom is one of the key components to sadness, lowered productivity, and the numbing of our emotional lives. It dulls our creativity, and as artists, creativity is our lifeline.  I’m not suggesting throwing the baby out with the bath water.  What we know has been working we keep.  Those ideas, practices, and themes not bringing joy to your life gets sent to the trash, literally and figuratively.

I’ve spent the last year regrouping and revitalizing my educational goals and my art practices. I recently completed a graduate certificate program in Health Humanities and Ethics.  This program gave me the energy and impetus to get focused about the art I want to create.  I’ve been in health and healing for thirty years.  Now, with further study I’ve become entrenched, engaged, and energized by the possibilities of the stories I want to tell.  I’m more focused.  My art has a sharper narrative.  My studio time is about storytelling and spiritual practice.  The two combined allow me to serve my community by speaking my truth about the gaps I witness in the world.

My creativity is a way for me to stay connected to my heart and soul.  If I hadn’t delved deeper into my interests, my passion, my purpose, I wouldn’t have achieved this new direction in art.  I feel renewed, I feel revitalized, and I feel reinvigorated.  I believe you will too!  Give it a try and let me know if I can help.  Renewing your vows to yourself improves your creative process!

I Have to Tell My Story

I’ve currently enrolled in a graduate certificate in Health Humanities and Bioethics.  The students in the class are from all areas of healthcare: physicians, medical students, physical therapists, nurses and nurse educators, and me a visual anthropologist.  Our class this week focused on “the gaze”, the way we view the medical community and their interaction with their patients.  We read works by William Carlos Williams retelling his account with a child who was suspected of having diphtheria.  The conversation switched to the visual of medicine; paintings capturing doctors performing autopsies, and then paintings showing doctors caring for their patients.

Williams has written many books of poetry focusing on his experience as a physician.  He captures the struggles he experienced being a physician, and simultaneously flipping to express the perceived experience of the patient.  He’s honest in his accounts, not trying to sugar coat the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a physician.

We moved on to other depictions of illness and disease and on the screen, was a self-portrait done by Frida Kahlo.  Kahlo had polio as a child.  She then was involved in a very bad accident and was bedridden for a long period of time.  It was during that time that her parents put a mirror under the canopy of her bed so she could see herself.  It was during this time that she drew/painted many self-portraits.  Throughout her life she was her most prominent subject.  Her honesty shows us her determination to tell her own story with truth by painting in-you-face self-portraits.

Kahlo’s work punctuates the desire, even need to tell one’s story.  She shared her life and a visual autobiography.  Her paintings showed what’s possible following a life challenge by depicting strength and vulnerability.  It’s clear that she was motivated internally to get her message out to the public.  Her works are an inspiration to those who are facing life altering events.

What do you need to tell us?  How will you use your internal creative instincts to share your truth, the story of your life?  View some of Kahlo’s work and see what moves you and works you.  It’s an interesting way to see what serves as a catalyst for telling your life story.