Using Creativity To Make A Difference...

Sometimes, life events and disasters happen that make us feel completely overwhelmed. It is much easier, we tell ourselves, to hide from reality than to face something seemingly hopeless face on.

But Creativity whispers to our hearts that anything is possible, as long as we try.

Illustrator Kelly Light has found an incredibly Creative way to deal with the Gulf Oil DIsaster.  Artists from all over the world are donating tiny original paintings, drawings or digital prints to be sold to anyone who makes a $10.00 donation to two organizations helping to tackle this disaster. "Swan Song" (shown above) and "What Greed Can Do" (below) are two of the images that I will be sending in to Kelly for this cause.

INHALE:  Never give up hope.  Something beautiful or creative can come from almost any disaster or tragedy if we keep looking for possibilities.  Just look at the infinite variety of how different artists of all ages and walks of life have felt moved to contribute.  It may almost take your breath away!

EXHALE:  If you can draw, paint or doodle, consider creating a piece of artwork for this worthy cause.  If you prefer to appreciate art rather than create it yourself, browse through this blog and keep an eye out for an image that appeals to you.  Follow the blog, spread the word and make a difference.  The card I bought arrived in the mail a few days ago and now graces the wall of my office.  Remember that you can always use your Creativity to make the world a better and more beautiful place.

I FORGOT...

The thing about taking on an ambitious project and doing it in front of the world is that when you fail, you fail spectacularly.  It sometimes makes picking up the pieces more difficult.

Just over 9 months ago, I began what I thought would be a fairly simple adventure... take one year of my life to explore how to add more creativity to each day...a 365 day adventure.

The funny thing about thinking of each day as including an INHALE and EXHALE activity was that somewhere along the line as our lives got more and more stressful, I wasn’t just gasping for air, I literally forgot how to breathe.

Stress makes you do funny things. 

I would wake gasping from a dream of being smothered with my heart racing and then be unable to get back to sleep.

I found myself getting lost in simple, mindless things like watching odd TV shows or playing Farmville on Facebook after a long day of substitute teaching instead of picking up a pencil to sketch or a needle to stitch.

So to those who were waiting for me to offer some guidance along the way in this adventure, I apologize for the huge gap in this blog.

I didn’t even journal through this stretch of darkness, which is really odd for me.  It was as if I wanted to have no proof of this dark time and my black thoughts anywhere.

While I went out and smiled when I was teaching, meeting with clients or doing Zoomba classes, at home I curled up, hid and just tried to keep my lungs working, even as my mother-in-law had to have a whole section of hers removed. Nick and I were each trying to comfort the other when we didn’t feel strong ourselves, hoping to keep things as normal as possible for the kids.  I am sure they saw through some of our cracks.

After a very long stretch, almost 15 weeks, my mother-in-law is home from the hospital, weak but on the mend.  Nick is wrapping up a school year that is ending with chaos and uncertainty as his school gets downsized to move students to a new school as boundaries get redrawn.  The girls are ending up their year on a high note with Erin earning a spot on Team NB for volleyball, the elite provincial team along with an academic award for Grade 9.  Bethany’s awards ceremony is this week and she is hopeful about her marks earning her some recognition as well.

As for me, I have spent enough time in the quiet to realize that INHALING CREATIVITY could never be a single year’s adventure.  It is going to take me quite a few years to put together a daily creativity adventure to follow or share.  I am starting to feel as if this is not just something to try for a year, but rather a way to live and keep breathing on a daily basis for the rest of my life.

Through all this chaos, I still found myself doodling, rummaging for wool, staring at floor tile patterns or looking for shapes in clouds.  I even found heart shapes in watermelons and bits of discarded plastic.

Maybe this isn’t anything I can turn off.  

Maybe choosing Inhalations and Exhalations was the right image after all.

It’s time to take a deep breath and begin again.

Join me tomorrow for the first new breath of this adventure.

Creativity in Prayer...

When your child is hurt, even if it is minor, you become VERY creative in your prayers.

“Please spare my child this pain...”

“Please let it be me instead...”

“Please help me make her see that she has more than one dream and more than one option in life...”

I feel selfish wrestling with this when there are parents tonight out there watching their children starve to death slowly... parents who are sitting by a hospital bed wondering if they have to say goodbye tonight or not... parents who do not know where their children are tonight.

This is just a wrenched knee and preventative medicine for an overeager athlete who thought she was a bit more indestructible than she proved to be.

But as she cried last night in Emergency, fearing suddenly that her dreams of a volleyball career or University scholarship (I must point out that she is only in Grade 9 but comes from two type A personality parents) were shattered, I wanted to do or promise anything to just be able to make it better.

When we came home and I got her to bed, creeping in to my own bed later after getting my work done, I was very creative with my prayers every time those dark fingers of fear curled their way around my heart. 

I thought about pointing out all her other gifts to her.  

I thought about the “wherever God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window” line.

I prayed pink clouds of healing surrounding her and her knee in the night.

I remembered the most important lesson that I have been learning along this journey.

Just breathe.  Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

INHALE: Sometimes we are most creative without holding anything in our hands.  No crafting supplies, no paintbrush, no pen.  Sometimes we are most Creative with the stirrings of our souls and our dreams, our prayers and our wishes, our plans and our possibilities.  As long as we remember that we always have choices and that there are always new options we might not have thought about, the curve balls that life tends to throw at us won’t be so bad.  That is SO much easier to type than to live out!

EXHALE:  Pick one worry in your life right now that feels overwhelming.  When you lie there trying to fall asleep or take a moment for yourself to journal, explore all the possibilities in your head.  What would be the worst thing that could happen?  How could you cope with that?  What might be a solution that you’ve overlooked as being too “out of the box”?  What have you got to lose?  Erin was given the choice to rest her knee now and see if it heals or know that she will miss out playing in the Easterns in 28 days.  Sometimes waiting and healing is all we can do.  Be Creative in your prayers and in how you face your fears!

The Seven Month Itch...

A funny thing happened since my last blog post... I forgot how to breathe.  As life threw one curve ball after another at me, I felt as if I was sucking small gasps of air through clenched teeth instead of nice, deep inhales and exhales.

I felt as if the only thing I had to say was a scream or a sob... and I felt crushed.

I’d had such grand plans when I dove into this experiment 7 months ago.  I had wonderful visions of filling each day with more joy and creativity than the day before.  I envisioned the wonderful, enviable person I would become as I shared this wonderful adventure with an eager, waiting world out there in cyberspace.  It was like a honeymoon!

This past month has definitely been more like a couple who have been married at least 7 years... the sparkle was starting to wear off as life kept crashing down around me.

I started to resent my Creativity when it whispered that I should take a bit of time out of the chaos to just breathe.  It was like a partner suddenly pointing out an annoying habit of leaving the cap off the toothpaste or socks on the floor.

As I threw myself into the colouring book illustration project with all the changes and approvals, the shift in personnel and the inner demons of self-doubt, my Creativity waited patiently, like a faithful lover waits on the couch on a Friday night for their partner to come home from overtime at the office.

As I scrambled to finish a knitted afghan for a member of my faith family struck down suddenly only to have them die before I could finish it, my Creativity hugged me in comfort and whispered that there would be someone else to appreciate the gift in time.

As I drove my hands, eyes and body to the brink with multiple deadlines, my Creativity chided me to find a better balance the way a spouse would point out that too many cookies is bad for the waistline.

I tried ignoring Creativity’s voice reminding me to just inhale and exhale, to imagine a bit, to dream a bit and to just ride this rough patch through.  I felt I had nothing to say to it, to myself or to the world.

Now with some of the deadlines passed and a crop of new pressures on the horizon, my Creativity and I have entered a new, deeper relationship.  I have learned that I don’t have to justify this adventure to myself or make it live up to some impossible standard, I just have to go through the process.

One breath at a time.

Inhale...

Exhale...

Repeat 

As I look back on what I did during the past  41 days of my life and the silence here in cyberspace, I can see how my Creativity prodded me, encouraged me and pestered me into living this adventure despite myself.  Here’s how I know.

• the lap quilt that would have been for Betty if she'd survived the stroke and heart attack...

• the scarf I finished for Erin just as the last of the snow melted...

• the ornament I designed and stitched for next fall's JCS ornament issue... sorry, you only get a tiny peek!

• the denim blue moss stitch scarf that only worked in the car and not at the volleyball games.  I kept forgetting to K or P!

• the logo designed for a friend's family reunion this summer...

• a glimpse at two of the quick sketches I did on my tablet hooked up to the smart board during a school visit where

Paul Burns (author of Owen & the Dinosaur) and I did an enrichment workshop where they created stories as a group while I illustrated the panels.

• the pink wool I picked up to knit a baby blanket for my cousin's little daughter who was just born a few weeks ago.  It is half done thanks to a 2 day tournament in Halifax as well as the drive there and back...

No Inhale or Exhale tonight... just the whisper "I'm Back!"

Be Creative In Your Failure...

It was a rough week.  I filled in for a resource teacher at my daughter’s high school again this week which meant that I was not only filling the new SEP information (Specialized Education Plan) into the computer systems for the new terms that just started, I could also be pulled out for any emergency supply work in the building.

Part of that included shepherding a group of 14 students down to a conference at a downtown hotel where they were fed lunch and then became test subjects for a new pilot program to help Grade 10 students determine their career paths, their dreams, their goals and their FOCUS.

As someone who has tried to live my focus for 33 years now, I found this both inspiring and incredibly depressing.  

Inspiring, because there are so many more choices for young people than there were in my day going through high school and anything that helps them figure out where their gifts, talents and passions lie is a good thing.

Depressing because I have tried to be true to myself throughout my whole career path in all the ways I have juggled Creativity with other work, motherhood and daily tasks... but I watched my income from something I had built up over 16 years crumble to almost nothing thanks to the Internet and people who felt no guilt about scanning in my cross stitch patterns to share illegally with others. 

Sometimes, in the darkest moments of the night, I wonder if I have somehow let my family down by not having a “regular” job that would have built up more job security, benefits and pension over the years and just done my art as a “hobby”.

Then I take a deep breath and remember that working from home gave me time with my children that no money could ever buy back.  I see the proof of those years in the young women they are becoming.

I exhale and remember that I have had the joy of seeing my name in print in magazines and on bookshelves.

I inhale and realize that I have tried more often than I have failed...

and that is what being Creative every day as a way of life is all about.  It is supposed to be as easy as breathing. It is supposed to be something we just do without thinking.  It will probably take me the rest of my life to learn how to do this without my own daily worries, frustrations, criticisms or failures getting in the way.

So be Creative in everything you do... even the moments you think of as failures.  If you look at them from another angle, you’ll probably discover a new perspective.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas Edison

INHALE:  Remember not to judge yourself by the current world standards.  I see kids who think that they have to be “discovered”, become as famous as Miley Cyrus or as wealthy as the Olsen Twins before they become adults.  They dream of being on television, in movies and of taking You Tube by storm.  Adults think that they must live in huge homes, drive flashy vehicles and have all the outward trappings of SUCCESS... in order to prove that they have lived their lives right.  They need all the right things and logos in their lives or  need to become brands in their own right for the world to stand up and take notice.  The recent disaster in Haiti and other world events keep reminding us that we need far less than that to stay alive, far more basic things to truly be happy and that the basic human, creative spirit is a powerful, creative force in its own right.  Take a deep breath and just take each day at a time.

EXHALE:  Today’s exhalation is in honour of the Olympics underway right now in Vancouver and the overwhelming Creativity displayed last night during the Opening Ceremonies.  Find a quiet corner and take some time to think about areas in your life that you are truly satisfied with.  Not all successes can be measured in monetary means or by the world’s standards.  With Fimo, tinfoil, glitter, ribbon, Photoshop or anything else that inspires you, make a medal or a trophy to celebrate at least one achievement that you are proud of and tuck it into your keepsake box, sketchbook or put it out on display.  Be proud of the ways in which you’ve been true to yourself, your beliefs and your Creativity!

Finding Creativity in the Mundane...

I faced my fears today and drove to France for some afterschool activities with my niece and nephew... surviving roundabouts and mopeds, narrow lanes, delivery trucks and unmanned border crossings. I did not have to resort to chocolate in triumph and the worst moment came as the sun suddenly cleared the clouds to shine on one mountain in particular. I found myself contemplating pulling over suddenly into the farmer’s field to take a picture... luckily, common sense won out.
Yes, today, I finally saw the mountains! The local Swiss probably think the tall person in the burgundy coat is as mad as a hatter. I went up to the top floor of the shopping centre and out into a courtyard between buildings to shoot one picture of Geneva with the mountains behind it. I am sure that tourists with cameras never go there, only smokers, but I might not have had any other proof of Alp sightings! Images are stuck in my camera for now since I am using my brother's computer, but I will alter these posts once I get home to include the images I intended to put here.


Today’s inhalation actually came from the more mundane tasks in my life today as lived in someone else’s house.

INHALE: Chores are pretty un-fun no matter what age you are. Encouraging children to help out can sometimes try your patience on the best of days. Being the visiting Auntie, I can actually coax things out of my niece and nephew because it is something novel, but I truly believe that kids should learn to help out in a family as they grow. When a bit too much of supper landed on the floor under the table tonight, I asked them to show me where the broom hid and once I had the pile of crumbs and meal remains swept into a pile, they took turns "dustbustering". I asked them to clear their plates to the sink from the table by being waiters or waitresses and we got toys put away by asking them to show me where they went. This works because I am visiting... but it at least plants the seed. I am, however, pretty exhausted. This is like looking back in time 6 years at what my own kids were like and trying to remember what tricks worked and what didn’t. The neat thing about young children is that you get instant feedback!

EXHALE: If you are going to find more time to be creative in your everyday life, you have to stop being a martyr and doing it all yourself. This isn’t to say that 4 year olds are capable of complex chores or that 8 year olds can handle doing loads of laundry, but it starts with baby steps. The first thing is to be honest with yourself and know the areas where you can and can’t accept help. I am pretty particular about both washing dishes and washing laundry, but I will always welcome help drying and putting things away. Finding ways to be Creative about how you teach the need for each and every member of a family to help in some way goes a long way towards keeping your own sanity. Think of one or two chores that you could use some help with around the house and some Creative ways in which you could make even the mundane a bit more interesting. Sock fights anyone?

There is Nothing Creative about Death... Except how you Celebrate Life

Did I ever dream that when I began this adventure that almost 2 weeks would get swallowed up by pain and grief?  My father passed away the day after my last blog entry and we got the news in the midst of volleyball championships and the night before our church pageant.  I’d planned to blog about the backdrop I’d painted, the massive cookie icing we had planned as a family...  and all of that just disappeared in the rush to book a last minute plane ticket to Tulsa for his funeral.  I traveled as light as I could, left the laptop behind and wrote my thoughts out in my journal instead.  From a blogger’s point of view, I fell of the face of the earth.  From a daughter’s point of view, I went to honour my father’s life.  From a dragon’s point of view, I crawled into a cave to lick my wounds.  Time to step back out into the light.

Though I didn’t come up with an activity for myself each day, I still found that some of the key things I am learning on this adventure will now kick in automatically.  There are three things that I can count on to help me relax no matter what life throws at me.  The first is taking deep even breaths as I think “Inhale, Exhale, Inhale, Exhale” to myself, picturing the little green and blue icons I created for this site.  The second one is finding any random patterned surface and looking for images.  This worked well with tiles on airport washroom floors,  stucco on hotel ceilings, carpet in church waiting rooms and clouds over unfamiliar cities.  The third one is to open my sketchbook that travels everywhere with me and just let random words or images flow out through the pen and onto the paper. Sometimes it will start with an object I want to sketch and other times, the images are more iconic, drawn from memory rather than real life.  All three of these automatically calm me down or give me something creative to focus on as an anchor.

This past week also taught me a lot about Celebrating a person’s Life even as you mourn the loss their Death creates.  It was hard reconciling my memories with the person who meant so much to so many people in a city far away.  It was important to be there to support his newest family as they grieved with the fresh loss but also the peace as Dad’s physical suffering ended.  It was comforting to hear all of the stories of how my father touched the lives of the many families into which he delivered babies in a caring and prayerful way. It was healing to be able to hug siblings and spend time with them when we are usually scattered so far around the globe, sharing memories of Dad that were private to us.

Creativity surrounds us no matter where we go and what we face.  We just have to look for it, reach out for it and draw it close for comfort and inspiration.

INHALE: Living Creatively teaches us to be better prepared for every adventure, even Death.  Every project has an end.  No project is perfect as we always seem to point out to those who compliment us.  Creativity sometimes carries us to create things that are very different that what we first sat down to make, just as our lives sometimes take turns in directions we didn’t expect. Through it all, despite it all, Creative opportunities linger joyfully around us, hoping that we will chose to MAKE something, JOIN in the dance, WRITE to inspire ourselves or others, SING rather than remain silent and GIVE to the world instead of just taking. The choice is always ours.

EXHALE:  Go looking for a photo of someone you loved who is no longer with you.  Find a quiet spot and write down words or memories of what that person meant to you, how they helped you to grow, what you miss most about them and what special memories give you comfort even though they are gone.  Celebrating someone’s life and how it touched you doesn’t just happen at a funeral or a memorial service... the very best of what someone brought to your life carries on within you for the rest of your days.  Celebrate that gift.

Why Does Creativity Differ From Day to Day?

There are times when Creativity just seems to flow as easily as breathing and other times when it moves slower than molasses on a -30 degree January night.

I fully intended to have the overhaul of my websites done during November... and yet every time I  got a few minutes to work on the basic organization of it (as well as the look), something would happen or interrupt me.

Today, I finally got everything updated and even posted a contest on my Doodling Dragons blog .  I put the best of my sketchbook pages on flickr so that I can link a slideshow to my websites.  I mailed out an order to a distributor after batching everything.  I am working on some Biology sheets with little drawings to help the struggling students.

Why does it still feel as if I am moving through quicksand?

INHALE:  Perfectionism is something that I have struggled with all my life.  Sometimes the voices offering advice were external, but mostly they are internal.  The past few years have finally started to teach me that it isn’t so much about doing something perfectly, it is more about just doing it.  Does is matter how fast a job gets done, how well a job gets done or just that the job gets done?  The answer can be different at any given moment, but the trick is to make sure that you at least make an attempt.  To do nothing does not help the world in any way.

EXHALE:  If you find yourself making lists and checking them twice or marking way too many things on your calendar as we flip the page over to December, don’t forget to add some Creative doodles to lighten the mood.  Your challenge today is to go online or into your local newspaper and find a cartoon that makes you laugh.  Print it out or cut it out and paste it into your book to make you a smile anytime you return to that page.

Creativity in Teaching...

When I first started this journey over 2 months ago, I never dreamed the many ways in which Creativity would show itself in my life.  This Monday, I began a substitute teaching assignment to replace a teacher 3 days a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) from now until the Christmas break.  This offers me some predictability in my schedule and also give me some consistency in terms of the young people I am dealing with.  I will be helping a student teacher cope with the teaching load for these classes and also working with struggling learners.

Creativity has its place in Education because we don’t all learn things in the same way.  I went to a French high school in Montreal as a french immersion student and learned most of my courses in a language that wasn’t my mother tongue, so I learned a variety of ways to help myself understand.  I drew pictures, made cartoons and graphed out charts or diagrams to help things make sense.

Tomorrow, I am bringing in our play dough so that the struggling students can BUILD a cell with all of the parts in different colours and shapes of play dough.  I have also come up with a truly dorky rap song about how to learn the chain of plants from algae to bryophytes and tracheophytes (which include spore plants, gymnosperm and angiosperm). It should be interesting at least...if they don’t fall off their chairs laughing themselves silly!

Being Creative in how we teach ourselves to absorb information or learn new things can only enrich the experience...

INHALE:  The more our society advances, the more we learn how different and individual each one of us is.  We are all UNIQUE creations and yet society continues to expect us to behave “en masse” (rough translation- as a group).  Maybe being 6’5” in my bare feet allows me to balk at being fit into a cookie-cutter, one size fits all mold, but I think we do ourselves an INJUSTICE when we expect everything to only go one way.  It might be easier not to have to push the envelope, think outside the box or try new ways of doing something, but that does not mean we shouldn’t keep looking for NEW solutions to OLD problems.

EXHALE: Do you know what your own learning style is (or styles are)?  Do you learn best when you hear something explained? See it done? Try it yourself? Take something apart and put it back together?  Spend a few minutes thinking about this and doodle, write or jot down ideas about what WORKS for YOU in your notebook.  The more you know what works best for you, the easier it is to be Creative within your own style of learning and share that with others to help them learn as well.  Just because something works for someone else, does not mean it has to work for you, so keep searching until you find the key to your own puzzles. That way someday, you can help someone else unlock theirs!

Savouring A Couple’s Creativity...

Last spring, our family got a terrifying call.  Our best friends’ barbecue blew up and engulfed their whole house in flames.  In one evening, their lives were turned upside down and their cats perished along with most of their personal belongings... but they had their dog and each other.

Tonight, our family took supper over to their new house, rebuilt on the foundations of their old one.  They moved in this past weekend and are slowly trying to unpack what was restored, put away what people donated and see what is left to buy.  Imagine starting over from scratch for every towel, every sheet... everything!

So we shared a meal in their new house which has echoes of all they loved best about the old one.  Everything is new, everything gleams, but what trials and tribulations they had to go through to get them and get to this point.

The house is a wonderful blend of their unique colour sense and love of textures.  They spent hours and hours pouring over every detail of their plans, took the time to select what they truly wanted and it showed.  From the amazing bar of lights and crystal prisms over the dining room table to the incredible fold out coffee table where we will no doubt spend lots of time gathered to roll 20 sided dice.

I am SO glad to see them back where they belong.

INHALE:  Creativity can sometimes be making something beautiful rise out of the ashes of disaster.  When life throws its very worst at us, there are still moments when we can celebrate what IS going right or just keep putting one foot in front of the other until we move through the dark times and back out into the light.

EXHALE:  Open your book and trace your foot onto the page.  I had to put my foot on the diagonal to get it to fit properly and I decided to leave my socks on to just get a basic foot shape.  Now, fill the shape of your foot with images, words, doodles, colours, scribbles, collage materials or anything that tempts you but move from DARK in the heel of the foot towards LIGHT in the toes.  Our lives are a series of steps from tragedy to triumph, night to day, challenge to victory and darkness into light. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other!

Improvisational Creativity...

I'm home from a wonderful weekend of fellowship and cross stitch, but I did learn that sometimes, you have to improvise your creativity when you don't have all the pieces you need.

I’d fully intended to give away the Perforated Paper Castle ornament that I taught in Toronto, but the more people asked to see it and exclaimed over it, the more I decided it needed to stay on MY tree.  Stitchers will be able to get that pattern after December 1st on PatternsOnline.com , so hang in there!  Luckily, Jeannie had brought along some colours of perforated paper for me to play with.  Unfortunately, after a full day of teaching, picking up Bethany from volleyball practice, Nick from school and then rushing to get to retreat in bad weather, I forgot the sheets of blank graph paper that I usually bring along with me...

So I made my own.

Next year, I will remember to put that on my packing list, slow down and check what I have before I race out the door or end up bringing an entire ream of graph paper along just so I don't have to make grids like this again. At least I know I can make one without a computer!

FIrst, I sketched out the letters for JOY and stitched them in overdyed threads on the white paper.  Then, I flipped the paper over, borrowed a pencil from Mom and began to figure out how to create a geometric snowflake shape around the word.

I am not the most math gifted person.  There was much erasing and slightly colourful language used when I realized that I couldn't get things to work out PERFECTLY... but I took my own posts about perfection to heart.  So what if I had to fudge things a tiny bit near the end... I know where the glitch is, but I'm not going to point it out!   Eventually,  the snowflake shape was ready for me to cut out.  I LOVE perforated paper!!!

When I flipped the design to the right side, I discovered that one section had a bit too much white space for my liking, so I added a holly button from the shop.  I also thought it might be nice to add some braid and beads to catch the lights from the tree.

Then I made my own cording for the top then hung it on the tree for the ornament exchange!!

INHALE:  If we wait for the perfect moment when we have all our supplies around us and everything is just right, then we will have far less moments in which to be creative.  This is what I was trying to find more of during my year long adventure... ways of just jumping into the deep end and mucking about to see what I could come up with.  No, I didn't have everything I needed or hoped to have with me, but the Creativity didn't need them.  It just needed me to be willing to try and work with what I had on hand.  How many missed moments go by because we tell ourselves "Wait, I'm not ready!!" ??

EXHALE: Find another crafter that you trust.  Decide to try this challenge together and see what happens.  Set a date when the two of you can get together for some uninterrupted creativity time.  Mark it on the calendar and then get ready with this homework before hand.  Each of you should choose a variety of interesting craft items or items related to the hobby you both enjoy.  Limit it to less than 10.  Put the items in a bag that you cannot see through.  When you get together, exchange bags, settle down and see what each of you can create with these mystery items within an agreed upon time limit.  It doesn't have to be perfect or beautiful or even something you keep.  You just have to be wiling to try... and laugh... and enjoy each other's company while you see where your Creativity takes you.  I can't wait to see what some of you come up with!

Tearing Down to Create Again...

Today, one of the Creative women I admire most took the courageous step of announcing that she was closing down her cross stitch design business.   Sometimes you have to end something in order to create something new.

Teresa and I met through cross stitch just over a decade ago, but we quickly formed a friendship that went beyond just working in the same industry.  As cross stitch began to falter, she and I began to act as sounding boards for each other and talk about if and how we could take our Creativity in other directions.

Four years ago, we went to Dragon*Con in Atlanta to see if we wanted to transition into Fantasy artwork on the con circuit.  She also helped paint me green for my She-Hulk adventure as mentioned in yesterday’s post.  Last February, we went to the SCBWI conference in New York together to see if children’s book illustration would offer new possibilities.

The joy of having her as a friend is that we share some of the same hopes and insecurities, interests and insights as well as quests and questions.  While we have very different styles, we both feel called to continue to share our Creativity with the world... we’re just still trying to find the next way to do that!

I do know that the past 5 years would have been a lot more scary and stressful without her encouragement, support and sense of humour.

I stayed home today to take care of Bethany who is still running a fe er.  I also got up the courage to tackle a demolition of my own.  A year ago, I overhauled my Dragon Dreams website to reflect the change my artwork was taking as I honoured the 98 published cross stitch designs that I had created, but also tried to showcase the different directions I was heading in.  Then I created a separate website for illustration once I got feedback that Art Directors don’t have time to sift through intensive sites looking for your artwork.

I’ve limped along since then feeling very fragmented and slightly confused at how to make things better.  Today, I realized that the only way to rework the site was to start over from the very beginning, look at what works, get rid of what doesn’t and focus on what truly needs to be covered by the website while making it an informative place to visit.

I am in the middle of the destruction and rebuilding process, but I am actually pleased at how well it is turning out. I'll post on my blogs as soon as the new site is uploaded.

INHALE: Sometimes we have to rebuild from the ashes as friends of ours have done with their house, shut down a business to start in a new direction, crumple up a drawing that isn’t working or go back to the beginning and start over.  Any Creative person, crafter or artist has experienced this more than once.  I’m not sure it ever gets any easier, but I am finally learning to trust that something even better may come from drastic measures.

EXHALE:  I tried to explore today's topic in a fun way.  Find a few magazines for images or inspirational photos.  Instead of trimming them carefully with scissors, rip and tear them out then glue them into your book so that they overlap and create a collage background (you can leave white spaces).  Next, write some words over the images or around them that add to your Creative inspiration.  If this seems too time-consuming for your hectic day, try a simpler exhale: crumple a plain piece of paper and then smooth it out again then draw or write a message to yourself on the less than perfect paper as a reminder that we often set ridiculous standards for ourselves.

Creativity amid more Chaos...

The thing about knowing I am living this journey is that it sustains me even when life gets so chaotic that I cannot post.  I meant to post about our Hallowe’en creativity on Friday night or Saturday, but the weekend ended up being far different that we expected when Bethany began to run a high fever on Saturday afternoon along with her cough.  We’ve kept her in isolation at home and treated her with medicine to reduce the fever which seems to be working for now as we keep a close eye on her.  GIven all the fear about the H1N1 pandemic, we are being cautious and vigilant, hoping that it is some other germ in our house.

Thursday night, Bethany had  a Hallowe’en dance at her school.  She dressed up as a rock star and spent two hours dancing or talking with her friends.

Friday was a fun but tiring day.  I was teaching at Harrison Trimble for the 4th day that week and everyone was encouraged to dress in costume.  Erin went as a fairy GOTHmother and I dressed up as  a zombie, thinning out the make-up I used for She-Hulk and using the same wig, I ripped up one of Nick’s oldest shirts and made a very scary impression on a lot of the high school kids.  Imagine coming around a corner in a hurry and running into 6’5” of zombie teacher!  For an extrovert who loves playing up on my inches, I was having a blast!

After school, we went to pick up Bethany at her school and watch the last minutes of her volleyball tryouts.  She’d had a sock hop in the afternoon and then the tryouts, so she was feeling a bit tired as we headed home to change both girls into their costumes for working up at Magnetic Hill’s fundraiser that evening.  Boo at the School meant that the entire gym of Nick’s school had been transformed into a spook walk as a fundraiser for the Grade 8 class trip at the end of the year.  There was a bake sale, a BBQ, some other sales and the spook walk.  Erin was dressed up as an old fashioned school teacher in pioneer dress teaching a class of zombie children to repeat words like disembowel.  Bethany dressed up in her Dorothy costume and played hopscotch in the “graveyard”. Nick was the Frankenstein principal asking people for their hall passes and I helped a witch greet people at the door and break them into groups. For the first 2 hours, everyone was fairly enthusiastic, but in the 3rd hour, it got a little harder to stay “fresh” at their roles.  Bethany seemed especially tired, but I chalked it up to her busy day.  I drove the girls home as soon as things were over then came back up to help Nick and the parents take everything down in the gym.  She seemed fine when she posed for this picture after stealing Dad’s headgear...

By 10:30 the next morning, we were back at the school for a volleyball match between Erin’s 15U team and the 16U team in the Roofers club she belongs to.  It was great volleyball and each team won 2 matches, but Bethany seemed really tired and whiny.  We got her some soup for lunch and pot stickers at our favourite restaurant Happy Wok and then headed home.  She fell asleep for 2 hours and when she woke up, she was flushed and burning up with a fever of almost 102! Needless to say, my thoughts of writing everything up as the blog post went out the window...

The fever comes and goes, so she will be home with me tomorrow.  No doubt my creativity will be put towards keeping a sick daughter entertained in her room.

INHALE:  In our busy, modern day world, we sometimes feel as if we are expected to keep going no matter what.  If we are sick, we take a pill or something.  If this flu season is teaching us ANYTHING, it is reminding us of the need to listen to our bodies when they get sick or tired and grant them time to heal, time to get better and time to keep our germs to ourselves.

EXHALE:  One of the ways you can enjoy a bit of tasty Creativity even when you aren’t sick is to find a warm drink that you enjoy.  There are many wonderful herbal tea blends out there to sample, cider to warm with cranberries and cinnamon or a splash of orange juice.  My stepfather, John, has been playing with ways to make his own really chocolaty cocoa drink that has less artificial ingredients than some of the powders out there.  Sniff a few herbal tea boxes in the grocery aisles or delight in the artwork and creativity of the many Celestial Seasonings blends.  Their box artwork and creative copy are almost as lovely as the teas themselves.  Tazo ’s chai flavour has been another favourite of mine for a few years, especially with a splash of skim milk.  Miso soup is another wonderful warm drink.  Some cultures swear by a crushed garlic clove in hot water to fend of germs and there is always the traditional chicken noodle soup.  Whatever you choose as your warm drink, wrap your hands around a great mug and sit quietly for a few minutes to sip some stillness along with your beverage.  The world will still be waiting when your mug is done.

Battling with Boa... or Knowing When KNOT to Continue...

I have to laugh now and make this into a horrible pun.  Last night at midnight, there was nothing funny about wool wrangling. The yarn known as BOA to be exact.  It’s not wool and never will be. Think of it as a long string of pretty colours that looks ever so much like eyelashes.

After showing off my half completed scarf that absolutely dazzled non-knitters, the time came to change to the next 2 balls of yarn and complete the scarf.  The only problem was that the second ball of Boa did not lie placidly and cooperatively in my knitting bag. It did not blend beautifully and play nice with the other yarn... it turn into an evil tangle.

“Fine!” I thought to myself.  After a day of worrying about a friend and dealing with the oxymoron of Church politics, I was sure that Creativity was telling me to turn this into a wonderful blog entry about patience and persistence....  that when life got tangled, you were supposed to just take your time and try to sort things out.

So when my yarn began to do THIS around 9 pm and The Amazing Race came on, I wasn’t too nervous, I just began to try to sort through the tangle.

By 10 :15, I was making a bit of progress after the yarn decided to do THIS, but my  husband gave up and headed to bed.  The house grew still after I turned the TV off to sit alone with my thoughts.  I love the sound of a quiet house when my family is sleeping upstairs.  It reminds me of MANY nights I spent working from 9 pm to 1 am when the kids were young on designing and graphics because that was the only time I could work on the computer uninterrupted.

I did think a lot about life and how things can snarl up or get complicated to quickly.  I thought about how sometimes everything goes so smoothly and other times it become this incredible, impassible tangle that we begin to dread dealing with.  I had all kinds of lovely meditations planned as I sat there trying to unknot my yarn that kept snarling into clumps like THIS.

The problem with me is that I tend to get a wee bit.... hmm... STUBBORN, FIXATED and OBSESSIVE are probably the kindest words that I can think of.  You see, I’d basically decided that this would make such a wonderful blog entry as soon as I had a nice, neat, tangle-free ball of boa to show you.

The yarn had other plans... devious plans that increased in their complexity as the clock drew closer to midnight...

(OK... most of you would have gone to bed or played Farmville by now, but I did share that I can be a wee bit stubborn, right?)

Finally, as the clock struck midnight, I used some very colourful words and decided to salvage what I could of my yarn mess.

Tiny boa balls....

Tying them into one ball, knowing I can hide the knots in the scarf or keep them to the side and darn in the ends as I get to them, I took one last picture and headed off to bed just before 12:30 am.

What did I learn?  Next time, be quicker to pick up the scissors... or if Boa is on sale for less than a dollar, buy a third ball just in case one becomes uncooperative.  Let the cat have the one that refuses to play nice!

INHALE:  So often, we fall into the trap of wanting everything to go a certain way.  We get an idea in our mind of how something should unfold and leap merrily out into that adventure, even when Life, timing, circumstances or the Universe try to gently tell us that maybe we aren’t thinking things through.  Learn when to follow a vision and when you should adapt your great plan to get to bed at a reasonable hour!

EXHALE:  Inspired by my yarn disaster, this exhale is FUN.  Open your sketchbook or take out a blank page of paper. You might want to put a paper underneath to keep everything safe! Closing your eyes, scribble all over that paper in big, swirly, loopy tangles.  When you think you’ve made plenty of lines, open your eyes and check to see if you stayed on the paper.  Take out some of your favourite colours (or some of the ones you’ve been challenging yourself with) and color in any of the shapes in the tangle that catch your fancy.  You can try to see if you find any shapes in your scribbles or just enjoy colouring at random.  Think of me and the yarn as you color.