Notes On Affinity

Finding Time

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Abalyn

My work with the Artist’s Way has been turning “weeks” into long periods. I’ve been languishing in Week 8, “Recovering a Sense of Strength” that is about consistently getting yourself to do art through small actions.

The idea of little tasks is very freeing. Even on busy days I can fit in a few moments. Recently I had continual work over six days except for one morning for grocery shopping and errands. However, I decided I would do something art related every day. I did things like reading a relevant book for 15 minutes or knitting. It really helped me stay involved in my artistic process and inspire me when I got back to the studio. It didn’t feel so hard to get back into the process of making. I also felt more excited and happy about life because I had something outside of the daily grind to feed me.

This can also work for days I just can’t get myself to go to the studio. On one such day I coaxed myself into browsing at my local library. I found a few great illustrated histories and started sketching from them. I fell into right brain mode, discovering fascinating forms from old photos and models of ancient sites. I realized I could take the old forms I was finding and make them with the found modern materials I have, thus integrating old and new, something I am searching to do in my art.

I am excited to move on into Week 9 about recovering a sense of compassion for yourself as you explore your inner blocks. I am still feeling a lot of fear of my studio.

Posted in Artist's Way | Tagged artmaking, small changes, time | Leave a comment

Visual Musings on Light

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Abalyn

I made this postcard earlier in the year for a postcard exchange I was part of, but I felt like it would be appropriate to share now. It is a visual/verbal musing on light, including sources and fuel. It fits right in with the winter solstice, Hanakkuh (festival of lights) and Christmas which celebrates the birth of the Light of the world. Yet I also make reference to some of the sources of fuel humans have used to make light. Getting light can be complicated. Are all our methods always good?

Posted in Artwork | Tagged artwork, light | 1 Comment

Dutch Domesticity

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Abalyn

I have been really fascinated for some time with the Dutch Golden Age: 1600-1660 or so. According to the book Home: A Short History of an Idea, the Dutch were one of the first groups post-Middle Ages to create a real sense of domesticity. The word cozy comes from them. One of the Dutch painters that perfectly portrays this is Pieter de Hooch. I love his paintings because he captures the essence of interior intimacy without being at all cheesy (a hard undertaking–many modern attempts to me feel very contrived). This is a painting of his at the MFA Boston where I work. I don’t have a great camera, but hopefully you can get the point.

I have written a longer post about Dutch domesticity at Mormon Perspectives, which I also write for.

Posted in Books, Paintings | Tagged deHooch, domesticity, Dutch, painting | 2 Comments

Abundance

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Abalyn

Since week six deals with the ever-present hang-up of money, I stretched it out over two weeks. Cameron explains that it is really important to feel a sense of abundance and luxury. She writes, “All too often, we become blocked and blame it on our lack of money. This is never an authentic block. The actual block is our feeling of constriction, our sense of powerlessness. Art requires us to empower ourselves with choice. At the most basic level, this means choosing to do self-care.”

I am always not doing art projects or other adventures because I do not feel like I have enough money. Also it is a big emotional trigger; the fastest way for me to a meltdown is to have a financial problem. Ironically, week one of my two-week stint I had a major financial crisis. The new boss at my work had delayed the paperwork for the new pay process, and I was going to not get paid for an extra two weeks. I had rent due and no way to pay it. All the emotions that I associate with financial disaster came crashing down on me: guilt, helplessness, self-anger.

What was different about this time than before was I managed to pick myself back up faster. I told him it was an emergency and managed to get a check out of him by the next week. I paid my rent. I came out feeling proud of myself for speaking up as well as feeling more faithful that God would help me since prayer was also an important part of the process.

I am also finding small ways that I can say yes to myself when wanting to do adventures. Time can be a luxury and also allowing myself a few dollars here and there pays off more in the long term than allowing myself no money spent. I have greater faith too that God is going to find money for me and help me get the things I need and want. Just that feeling of openness and hope dispels the constriction Cameron mentions. She also explains that being rich does not necessarily mean that you enjoy luxury. Abundance might come in the form of a bowl of raspberries, one Gerber daisy on the bedstand, a box of crayons, or a magazine subscription. I have decided to allow myself to buy a song on iTunes now and then as music is one of the things I’ve never felt like I had money for. Something about a small allowance makes you more happy and inspired. Try it.

Posted in Artist's Way, Books, Faith | Tagged abundance, faith, hope, money, self-care | 1 Comment

Reading Deprivation and Feeling Freer to Wish

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Abalyn

Week Four of the Artist’s Way was the dreaded week of reading deprivation. Cameron explains that if you are only pumping ideas in, you may not be allowing your own artistic ideas out. It was hard but I managed to do it for the most part. (The Internet is insinuating—I once found myself reading a blog post faster than I could remember I was on reading deprivation.) The effect was not as extreme as I was hoping, but post-fast I have found myself being more selective. Today I had so much that I needed to process that I knitted instead of reading on my super long T ride. Deprivation helped me recognize the head buzzing feeling that means I need to think and not stuff more in. I love to read and am a huge believer in books, but I am also remembering that some books are worth it, some are not. Last week I read an awesome young adult book called Cosmic in which a very entertaining main character tries to act like a dad and misses his dad a lot. Totally worth it. The retold fairytale/romance book I started was not clicking so I returned it. Similarly, I am trying to cut down on that half hour of goofing around the web reading junk.

Last week was on recovering a sense of possibility. I found myself able for the first time to write lists of daring things I want to do and my desires. I kept reading similar exercises in earlier weeks and not being able to do them. I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe trying to open up to play is finally starting to work on me. Making these things happen is a different story, but I am really going to try to finally cross country ski this winter and work towards living for a summer with my sister in France.

Last week I also made a sculpture and went on a short artist date. Not bad. I definitely feel ten times better since the beginning. I have become addicted to writing morning pages; they help me feel less agitated about all the things going on in my head. I am excited for this week; the topic is abundance and luxury and money. I know money is one of my biggest blocks.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Synchronicity

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Abalyn

The third week of the Artist’s Way is about recovering a sense of power through listening to anger, opening oneself to synchronicity and rooting out shame. I found it an incredibly emotional week, and it made me remember how Cameron said that part of recovery could include very turbulent emotions. The active feelings came in the form of a money crisis. On Thursday I learned that an art class I was going to teach had been canceled. My tutoring hours at another job had also been cut by three-fourths. I was suddenly terribly unsure how I was going to eat and how to pay for my new studio I had just found. I was trying to hold onto the idea of synchronicity, that when you are moving in the right direction, God makes things happen for you. Cameron explains, “I have learned that, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.”

I tried to deal with the situation by holding onto my faith in God and watching and calming my inner angst and deep anger. I prayed fervently to God for help and told him how hard I was trying to open myself up to creativity and hold onto my faith. I also decided I just needed to vent to someone. After two failed attempts, I finally got a hold of a friend. I gave into a long vent session. When I was done he offered me a job. Just like that! Amazing. He needs some secretarial work done on his start-up. I do not know how many people are reading this but I kind of want to shout and tell everyone about how wonderful God is. Who knew that having some faith and holding onto hope and trying would have such an effect? I have gone for years where hard event has followed hard event and all I could do was grin and bear it. I lost faith that God would do things for me, and I turned in and hurt. I do not know if I could have avoided all of that, but I feel this new sense of possibility, that really believing that God wants me to be a creator is actually what allows it to happen.

Posted in Artist's Way, Books, Faith | Tagged faith, hope, miracles | 1 Comment

Experience

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Abalyn

This is a passage from Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust that I read recently that I love. The context is the main character (who is a young man) is talking to an artist he has met. The artist, Elstir, is an older man with a great deal of vision, depth, and wisdom. The main character (he’s never named in the book which is why I can’t call him anything else) comes to realize that when younger Elstir was part of a group known for its frivolity and amorality. The artist explains (it’s long because it’s Proust):

“There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man–unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which the ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young people, the sons and grandsons of distinguished men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement from their schooldays. They may perhaps have nothing to retract from their past lives; they could publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that the picture of what we were at an earlier age may not be recognizable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we must not repudiate it, for it is a proof that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups–assuming one is a painter–extracted something that transcends them.”

Posted in Books | Tagged experience, wisdom | Leave a comment

Week Two of the Artist’s Way

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Abalyn

What has amazed me most about this program is how much more often I have felt little packets of hope. My second week was the first time I had significant art-making time since starting. I made some art and was reasonable with my use of time though not as great as I would like (partly due to some marathon lesson planning). Yet there were some beautiful moments. I did a drawing of some of my art stuff—fabric draped over windows—because I had this suddenly realization while cleaning my room how beautiful it was. I had another mindful moment while wetting down some dry clay bricks; dry clay + water is miraculous. You can hear the clay breaking down; it fizzes and bubbles. Out of nowhere cracks appear in the clay until it crumbles apart. When I felt discouraged that I was not doing more and wondered if the plan would really help me, I remembered that Cameron said as you get better your inner critic gets stronger too in response. Over all, I felt more proactive in small ways and spent less time down emotionally, especially in the evening.

Here is a lovely quote from the book to think on: “Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities” (18).

Posted in Artist's Way, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Tagged artmaking, drawing, hope | Leave a comment

Security from Self-Knowledge: Artist’s Way Report

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Abalyn

Despite working six days this last week, I managed to keep my artist date and my three pages of writing (although one day I was foiled by my only pen running out when I was far from home). I really liked writing the pages. It is amazingly relaxing. I thought I would write more about the big problems in my life but instead I wanted to write about details—both internal and external. The author points out later in the book that being creative is all in the details.

As I began processing the week’s theme of security, I found when I tried to think of the book’s validations, they would bounce off my inner emotional blocks. This week in a separate experience I learned the strength of my underpinning unconscious emotions and that acceptance seemed the best way to reduce their negative effects. One day’s writing evolved into me mapping out all these emotions pairing off the parts that seem the most at war: the critical side versus the fun-loving side, for example. What I realized was that security was going to require my knowing and accepting myself and getting the different sides to talk to each other. Knowing yourself creates security. Interestingly enough, this week’s theme is recovering a sense of identity.

Posted in Artist's Way, Books, Spirituality | Tagged self-knowledge, spirituality, writing | Leave a comment

Beginning the Artist’s Way

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Abalyn

I’m starting a 12-week experiment today to improve my artistic practice. It’s based on a book called The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. The book is based on the concept that creativity comes from a higher power, whatever name you give it. Cameron says it does not have to be a God from an organized religion but can also be thought of as “flow” or “source”. “What we are talking about is a creative energy…. The point is not what you name it. The point is that you try using it. For many of us, thinking of it as a form of spiritual electricity has been a very useful jumping-off place.” The idea is to remove obstacles and let this power work through you to increase creativity and art production, no matter your medium. (Cameron has had lawyers use these methods with success.)

I’m pretty comfortable with this. One of the central ideas of God for me is someone that is a creator and completely aware of aesthetics. I also believe in daily revelation and the gift of the Holy Ghost—continual feelings and inspiration from one member of the Godhead.

Two things are important throughout the weekly practice. One is writing three pages a day of stream of consciousness writing. Cameron says to do it in the morning. I already get up early to read scriptures daily; I’ve decided to do it before I start my art practice, whether morning or evening. The idea is to get out all the things that are on the mind and blocking you. She talks about our logical mind as being too critical and getting in the way of our inner creative child who needs to be nurtured and tended. I am wary of calling any part of my mind bad; I can tell my left brain it is useful but not while I am trying to do art. The second component is a weekly artist date where you plan two hours with just yourself and your inner artist to play. You can do anything you want except it cannot be anything you “should” do.

I am curious to see if this is really going to work. Week one is all about positive reinforcement and encouragement, identifying past emotional monsters and dealing with them, and telling yourself over and over you are worth it. Here are a few wonderful affirmations from this chapter:

“I am a channel for God’s creativity, and my work comes to good.

My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.

My creativity heals myself and others.

Through the use of my creativity, I serve God.

As I listen to my creativity, I am led to my creator.

My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.”

I managed the first three pages today. Halfway through I realized I was allowing myself to focus a lot on myself. If I want to not use my left brain other times, then it is getting spoiled in the three pages. After this I felt happy enough to sketch, which I seldom do. I drew some tomatoes from the garden I am house-sitting at. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes. I am working 8-4 M-F for my day job this week, which is more than usual. We’ll see if I have much left at the end of the day.

(Thanks to School of Life blogger Lizzie Shupack for letting me know about this book.)

Posted in Artist's Way, Books, Spirituality | Tagged spirituality, writing | Leave a comment