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!

Remove Your Obstacles and Do What You Do Best!

I admit my studio has been a source of pain and confusion.  At the end of last semester, I took on a huge project and created four pieces of art in 9 days.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, as a creative, creating under a tight schedule can lead to overwhelm and anxiety.

When I finished my project, and left the studio and didn’t return for a couple of days as I recovered from the frenzy of creating.  It was an exhilarating time, but now the aftermath of the creativity was chaos.  It has looked like a tornado went through my studio, dislodging and displacing supplies, fabric, and tools.  Unfortunately, that chaos had a lot of negative energy and delayed my return.

Organizing in the house I decided to buy a new piece of furniture.  Previously I had my tools like scissors and rotary cutters hanging from hooks.  It worked for a while until I didn’t return things to their rightful place and scissors disappeared into the abyss.  I was on the hunt for something that would appeal to both my sense of style and function.  Lo and Behold, I found it!

The piece works because it has drawers that are like trays.  I can lay things out and see them all at once.  I’m not digging through drawers hoping to find the needle in the haystack, sometimes I mean that literally.  It has also allowed me to take an inventory of what I have and what I need to continue on my creative path.

It doesn’t matter how you create, finding ways to make creating easier will be a catalyst for your inspiration.  How many of you musicians have sheet music in boxes, in the piano bench, in boxes on the floor?  Painters and colored pencil artists have an abundance of raw materials, canvases, pads of paper, often stacked up in the corner of a room or under the bed.

Your organization levels will free your energy to be directed where it needs to be, focused on your art.  I find this important because telling your story is crucial to our ongoing need to contribute to the world in which we live.  We all have a piece of the “quilt of humanity” and if you’re piece isn’t there our world will be incomplete.

I watched the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards last night and the message was clear, “everyone’s story deserves to be told.”  How will you tell your story?  What can you do to free up your energy from clutter and disorganization to free flowing creative ventures?  I’d love to see what you’ve created to release the chaos and engage your creative energy in an open and fierce way.

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.

Is Your Art Filling In the Gaps?

Why do you create? At first you’ll respond with, “I create because I’m an artist.” That would be true for many but not all. However, I’d like you to take it a step further. Why do you create? Is there a story to be told? Did you have an experience that is seeping out of your pores and your art expels it from your body? Is it a celebration you want to share? There is something beyond just the fact that you’re an artist. We spiritual beings having a human experience; we’re all artists.

Romare Bearden shared, “An artist is an art lover who finds that in all the art he sees, something is missing; to put there what he feels is missing becomes the center of his life’s work.” The mind is powerful and is in a state of flux when there are gaps in experiences. We want wholeness, completion, and resolution. Our creative energies are expansive and strive to fill in the gaps. In fact, according to Bearden the gaps are our motivation and inspiration. The truth is that we can all spend the rest of our lives filling in the gaps.

The great thing about filling in the gaps is what we’re never without a catalyst to create. Art can serve as a means to making the necessary connections between ideas or feelings that are floating out there on their own. In London, when traveling on the tube, stenciled on the ground is “mind the gap”. What if you applied that saying to your own work? Being mindful of the gap brings awareness to your work. It allows you to share your inner healing and wholeness with the world and the Universe.

Bearden’s insight was profound. Exploring the gap allows us to develop a plethora or opportunities. We’re looking toward the future. The gap is a roadmap on your journey to bountiful. What will you do with your gap?

Diagnosed with a chronic or life-threatening illness? Looking for education, support, and inspiration when facing a health challenge? Visit www.survivingstrong.com

Does Wonder Lead to Creative Expression

I’m always looking for inspiration to spark a creative experience. Inspiration can come from stories, viewing other artwork, and the media, just to name a few. I spend a lot of time at the bookstore in the magazine section viewing artist magazines from a myriad of mediums. Art is great because we can translate the work from other mediums into our own medium or be inspired to try a new medium.

Art, for me, is an expression of my human experience. The art I create, and that created by others is often an expression of an experience. There is something to creating a piece of art that reflects our inner experience. I equate creative expression to dreamwork because it allows us to bring to consciousness those thoughts, ideas, and experiences that may be of the subconscious realm.

The other component to creating works of art in the process of healing and expression is the sense of wonder. I’m working on a couple of pieces and find that I’m continuously drawn to the idea and images of bridges. I’m looking at pictures online, talking about bridges, and asking myself what is it about bridges in this time that’s so important.

Wonder can also be a community experience. “The Artist’s Magazine” has a cover story titled, “Women Painting Women”. The article speaks about how, in the past, women have been passive subjects in works of art. The idea of women painting women is serves as a message of empowerment and a shift in the consciousness of women, art, and meaning.

When we pay attention to the questions that keep arising we’re drawn to digging deeper into our consciousness and our soul. These questions help us extract healing principles through creative expression. Resolution brings a sense of peace. Ultimate self-expression allows us to be seen and heard and that’s paramount to living a life full of possibility.

How does wonder manifest itself in your creative expression? I’d love you to share your experience in the comment section below. For more information you can visit http://www.survivingstrong.com.