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November 1st marks the beginning of Art of Everyday Month! I have never participated before, but was intrigued this year after listening to Leah Piken Kolidas, the founder of Art Everyday Month in an interview with Britt Bravo for the Arts & Healing Podcast. The premise is fairly straightforward - do something creative everyday for the month of November - no matter how small or what the form. It need not be serious Art with a capital A, but rather any creative process you choose. For example, one woman kept it simple and purchased an itty-bitty sketch book and put at least one line on a page per day.
If you like, you can share the resulting art online. Leah offers options to sign up on her web site as a participant, to share your daily art on a Flickr page, or to track your journey on your blog. You can also make it a private commitment and just work away at it knowing that many others out there are engaged in the same practice this month. If you get stuck, Leah has a great advice in the her "Art Everyday Month Survival Kit."
For me, my life is so full right now that finding the space to be creative has been challenging. I am taking inspiration from Art Everyday Month to add some little doses of creative expression into my life. The first step today was to set up some art supplies (pictured here) in my sun room where my daughter and I could work together, playing with colored paper, scissors, glue, and more.
It is that time of year again - time for the Bolinas Museum Miniatures Exhibition. I spent the day framing some diminuitive prints made exclusively this size for this show - Sanctuary #8, Sanctuary #6, and Sanctuary #4 (pictured in this order here). It felt so good to be working with my tools in hand - rulers, cutting knife, framing tape, and more. As someone who has always loved small things, I really enjoy this exhibition. All work must be 6 x 6 x 6 inches or smaller, and 50% of all sales go to the support the Museum. The show opens next week with a reception on Saturday, November 22 from 3-5pm at 48 Wharf Road in Bolinas, CA, and it will be up through December. While cutting and framing today, I kept myself inspired by listening to the Creative Mom Podcast. I just discovered it this week by doing a search in iTunes for "artist mom" - seeking resources on how to balance art and motherhood. You don't need to be a mom to appreciate Amy's insights about the creative process. Today I listened to the 9/14/08 episode called "Slippage" - which was a great reminder to be gentle with oneself and give oneself a break. Nice words for me to hug close as I worked today.
I have been thinking a lot about what inspires me lately and making sure I fill each day with a hit of inspiration. This word is also on my mind because I am going to be on a panel on this very topic on the evening of November 14 for the SPE West Conference in San Francisco. Today, I share a short list of things that have inspired me in the last 24 hours.
- My five month old daughter waking me by singing little coos in the morning. She makes her own form of music at this age that is spontaneous and uninhibited.
- The linear beauty of the fields at Green Gulch during my morning walk with Trinity. The alternating shades of green vegetables and bright flowers growing side by side in rows looks like someone painted the field with plants.
- Andrea’s interview with SARK on her Superhero Journal blog. I just love it that SARK responded with images and colorful handwriting, rather than simple black and white text. Her answer about how to move through creative blocks was so playful, it lightened my heart.
- Listening to Britt Bravo’s podcast with Cami Walker of the 29 Day Giving Project. This made me feel hopeful in a way that I have not felt recently because of the current financial craziness. She reminded me of the power of gratitude and generosity to heal and transform our world.
- And Keri Smith’s sweet story of generosity. Within 24 hours, she raised enough money from her blog readers around the world to finance the purchase of 120 copies of her book, Wreck This Journal, for students who couldn't afford it. Then she held a drawing and gave out six free books to those who donated money - letting her adorable son pick the prizes.
Image Info: This is a detail of a photo by Alec Soth that is on the promotionsal materials for the SPE West Conference. Alec will be the conference's keynote speaker on Saturday, November 15. For more info on the conference, please click here.
I woke up feeling blue today and so I spent the morning feeding myself good books. I started with SARK’s A Creative Companion – a loan from my friend Britt – who just interviewed SARK for the new artheals.org podcast. I took comfort in SARK’s whimsy, her affirmation of her readers’ creative potential, and the invitation to dream. It’s a playful, and at times very light hearted book, possessing some keen insights, such as “Creativity adores solitude. Provide quiet creative time for yourself. It can first fit into the cracks of your life, and as you nurture it, it will expand into a glorious interior garden.”Then I turned to two new books from the Fraenkel Gallery – The Book of Shadows and Eye of the Beholder: Photographs from the Collection of Richard Avedon (pictured above). Both books are wonderful objects. The Book of Shadows is covered in a soft dark blue velvet that felt so good under my fingertips – perfect for comfort reading. It is a book comprised of anonymous snapshots in which shadows play the significant role of indicating the presence of the photographer. It reminded me that photography is at its essence about light and shadow, and that you can’t have one without the other. The Richard Avedon book (pictured above) is a delightful boxed set of five separate folios – each dedicated to a different aspect of his personal photography collection – Diane Arbus, Peter Hujar, Irving Penn, the Countess of Castiglione (fascinating 19th C woman), and the final one called Etcetera. I enjoyed pondering how these photographs may have effected Avedon’ photographic vision. I can only guess that they expanded and inspired him as they did me this morning.
The Legion of Honor in San Francisco always makes me feel like I have been transported to Europe. My father and I traveled there together this week to see “Rembrandt to Thiebaud: A Decade of Collecting Works on Paper.” It was a treat to wander the marble halls with my father because his knowledge of printmaking combined with mine of photography allowed each of us a more complete understanding and insight into the works on display. In the first room, I fell in love with an intimate etching by Rembrandt of a puppy (I am always a sucker for dogs), and my father gave me a crash course in print media, such as the distinction between a mezzotint and an aquatint. In the next room, I was struck by the illusionistic beauty of a drawing by Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype – it was certainly not a lack of drawing skill that inspired him to become one of the inventors of photography. If I could take one thing home with me, it would be the Tina Modotti photograph of an interior mural in Mexico – the way she photographed it turns it into a sweeping dreamlike experience.Walking back to the car, I snapped this photograph of Rodin’s The Thinker. The next day, while listening to Anna Halprin on the artheals.org podcast I was touched to hear her say that it was a visit to the Musée Rodin sculpture gardens in Paris that provided an antidote for the deep horror she had experienced just prior in visiting a concentration camp – that it was art and beauty that truly have the power to heal the soul. I had a moment of inter-rushing connections – Rodin’s sculpture in San Francisco that I just saw and the ones that populate the Musée Rodin that inspired Anna who then inspired me…and it made me all the more grateful that I took the time this week to let art speak to me.
It’s official. The Arts & Healing Podcast has launched! Britt Bravo and I have been working to birth this new feature of artheals.org for the last several weeks. It is very exciting to see it go live. For the first two podcasts, Britt interviewed Alli Chagi-Starr who speaks so eloquently about art and activism, and Britt also interviewed me (as the director of artheals.org) about my life as an artist. You can tune in and listen to the podcast on your computer, or subscribe thru iTunes by clicking here.
Here are some of the other podcasts I listen too. In listening to these, I experienced the enlivening power of hearing people’s voices online, and it inspired me to enrich artheals.org with audio interviews.
November 1st marks the beginning of Art of Everyday Month! I have never participated before, but was intrigued this year after listening to Leah Piken Kolidas, the founder of Art Everyday Month in an interview with Britt Bravo for the Arts & Healing Podcast. The premise is fairly straightforward - do something creative everyday for the month of November - no matter how small or what the form. It need not be serious Art with a capital A, but rather any creative process you choose. For example, one woman kept it simple and purchased an itty-bitty sketch book and put at least one line on a page per day.
