happy holidays 

dusty books and handmade objects.

I have cleaned house.  I have brought out the old, not used, the not loved, the guilty items (hanging on because so and so gave it to me) and the without a place items.  I am having a garage sale. 
This lesson is so freeing for my children.  Don't hold onto things too tightly.  You don't play with it anymore.  You don't really need it.  Someone else can have joy in it.  Let it go.  Powerful, it's powerful to be unattached to stuff.  You can travel light and be - just be. 
What about the art?  What about some of these things that are just worn out...i am tired of seeing again and again in the studio.  They no longer give back.  I think they would serve someone else somehow.  With the art....the handmade....it's a little more difficult to let it sit between the barbeque set and the dusty books.  For sale with a bright orange $3 sticker.  Placed up for sale with the other oddballs.  It is no longer sitting in the studio with a classy price tag and correct lighting.  I actually plan to give it away today if it doesn't sell for $3.   There is more merit in that anyway.  Giving away, surrendering the stuff...cleaning out so we can welcome more in.  I welcome it all in.

Love Wins.

Love Wins.

Fear loses....not hate, but Fear.  The opposite of love is fear.  For the second year in a row, on Valentines Day I have left messages of love in random public places to help people hear that message....that love wins.

 Little clay tiles on a piece of twine.  Tied somewhere obvious.  Hopefully not to only be admired, but to be captured and brought home as a stolen prize.  My hope is that a deserving viewer who understands that this tile was made for them, would take it.  They deserve it.  What I know about love is that it is not the opposite of disgust or despise or even of disagreement. Love is the opposite of being timid, of being unsure, love is the opposite of "Don't Do That!" it might hurt!  Love is the opposite of being closed off from the world, taking no stand on anything.  Love is the opposite of choosing to call yourself an introvert, being ok with sitting in routine, even though you really feel like you might like to be with people and take a ballroom dancing class.  Love unveils, love uncovers, love is truth and real TRUTH does not have fear.  Love has safety and hope.

I thought about the use of clay as a medium for this.  You have such a permanent material, something small, sometime you can slip into your pocket.  Clay lasts a long long time once it's fired.  It's a magical thing to see something that seems out of place, but is claimed by no one. 

Sitting there, waiting for you to claim it.  Or do you just enjoy it?  Claim it without taking the prize....take the message.  Love Wins.  I think about who might need it at the moment....who might be down on themselves, feel unloved, feeling like nothing works.

I hope that the messages were helpful.  The kids sure liked to play cupid.  They wanted to wait in the wings and see if someone took the prize.  No one in our presence did, but I am sure...almost 5 days after Valentines Day, they are gone.   The process of being in the Love instead of Fear state is simple.  Just believe that love always wins. 

wasting and waiting

"The world is too much with us....getting and spending we lay waste our powers" - Wordsworth

I found that in an old book that I love called Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach.  Sara talks about people being so spread thin that they can not find their authentic self.  That got me thinking about when I create with people, that I feel like the place where they are "making" art they are actually being "made" themselves.  The very act of being creative stirs a powerful healing to the maker not just the tangible of the art which was made.  The potter on the wheel creating a pot from nothing to something...made.  The painter who comes into the studio to make something with their children, leave the studio more sewn together.  The choice to sit and knit on a very tired afternoon, will give life and energy rather than put someone to sleep.  People leave the studio more connected to themselves than when their frazzled ends came in.  Let's face it, life unravels us.  Spending, getting, striving, meeting, driving, figuring, deciding, disciplining, cleaning up all the needs of the world...leaves us spent.  Wordsworth was talking about the world's demands bringing us to a place of depleted empty but POWERFUL beings.  The powers we have to create and love and be in this world are pulled apart by the demands.  Our call, as we try to live in this world, is to own our power and own who we are.  

How could you spend your time so that you feel more "made" and more powerful?

What are you wasting that is powerful within you?

Building Beliefs

When you make a clay box, it takes a couple days.  Ideally, you let the clay slabs (aka large clay pancakes) that you roll out sit for awhile.  You let the soft clay that so easily twists and turns - become harder and less mobile.  The reason you do this is so that the walls of your box will stand firm, and not droop.  No one can work with droopy walls.  The clay becomes what is called leather hard and it's really a beautiful state for clay to be in.  I actually like it best...it can be carved, painted, shaved, cut, and handled with ease.

I was thinking about how building clay walls is sort of like building belief systems.  A belief system is a set of core values assigned by yourself to yourself for living in a way that works best for you.....a sort of road map of safe places and not so safe places.
Beliefs are built by experiences in the world, experiences in the world are built by trial and error, your interpretation of experiences and people, and "bumping into" everyone else's beliefs.   Some of these experiences are not what you think they are.....and a wall goes up.  A belief takes shape.  No one can get in.

It takes time to build beliefs.  You core values take life experience to solidify the list.   Beliefs - and clay's shape - will not be instant, it will be a string of moments....and I want to enjoy every moment.  

What beliefs have you built that are UNchangeable for you?
What beliefs have you built that might need breaking down?

Collage College

Lucy's 4th Birthday Party

Art Life is really a special place for birthday parties.  One of the things I love about it is we get to make some really BIG messes....but it's not the kind of mess that comes with loud bangs, and high pitched screams, and kids making messes just to see the kind of face the grown up might have when they see it.  It's a real mess, the kind where you are so involved with what you are doing that you don't realize that an entire plate of glue has just dropped on the floor...or confetti is stuck to your cheek.  In fact, one of the things that children often do is sort of get upset if they make a mess, thinking I might get upset.  It's not often you hear an adult say....don't worry about the table....the more paint on it the better. 
I don't say that to challenge the average parent who says..."keep it clean"  I tell my kids that in our main house, it's just that an art studio doesn't follow those rules.  An art studio says....don't worry about the results....just create.  I titled this post "collage college" because of the collage work I did in the studio this weekend with a great group of kids.   I also had my first discussion about what college is all about with my 6 yr old.  He wanted to talk about when "he goes to college"  The things I have told him about college (on a 6 yr old level) are things that only college can teach you...1) you have to show up to make it 2) things won't get done unless you do them ( i.e. the laundry) 3) you are free to make the experience what you want it to be, a good one or a miserable one.
College is kind of like working with the confusing medium of collage.  So many choices, you better decide quick, look at your neighbor to see what they like, think fast!  I literally put about an acre of raw random materials on the table for the parents and kids....and they DUG IN!  As any 4 year old would do...if it's shiny...it's mine!  I appreciate the unbridled zest they have for experimentation with art materials.  It's easy for a 4 yr old to show up, do it so it will get done, and to create an experience of freedom in the art materials as only the little ones can. 
Granted it was supposed to sort of look like this when it was done....and resemble a dog.

or this

but most of them looked like one big "piece of glitter-beaded-pom-pom-mosaic-collage"

no more dog.

Just as they wanted it, because that's what being 4 is all about.

Happy Birthday Lucy.