January, 2023
This #thankfulthursday art teacher shout-out is to Roben-Marie Smith (@robenmarie) for all I’ve learned as a member of Makers Tech U.
The doors are closed now as Roben-Marie is moving on/moving back to other artsy-interests but her #techsavvyartist advice has been tremendously helpful to me, and I’m sure to many others.
The only tricky part of this post was figuring out what image to use, because there are traces of her influence in many places in my digital eco-system. This time it’s not about creating art, it’s about the art of creating the ways your art can be seen.
January, 2023
Dry spells happen. Sometimes I know why and sometimes I don’t. My usual strategy if I’m just not feeling it, or if it feels like I just don’t have time, is to let go of any time goals and just sit down for a minute. A minute or two and a few deep breaths might be all that happens, or it might be just what I need to settle in.
It’s kind of like other forms of exercise, once again. When you miss a day or even a week, we tell ourselves we blew it and talk ourselves out of starting again, because we feel we’re starting from scratch. You aren’t climbing a mountain, you didn’t fall all the way down and have to start all over, you just have to start again.
December, 2022
See this little girl? When I look at this picture of myself at a long-ago family holiday, she seems a little, I don’t know, stunned and overwhelmed. Not unhappy, just in some kind of shock. Apparently the holidays have always been a bit of a mixed bag for me emotionally.
In the run-up to Christmas in my house, my role is to supply the sweets. It started a while ago when the person who used to do it, my brother’s mother-in-law, was “lost” to us through divorce. Plus, I’m the only one from out of town, so hosting dinner isn’t something I can contribute.
I take a lot of satisfaction in it, which is good because it’s a lot – about 50 dozen in total this year, 9 different varieties. It’s a big family, and at least in my mind, different people have different favorites. Then, some year ago as in most families, we added the gluten-free crowd, and I learned some new tricks. Plus, every few years, I just get bored and throw in something new.
Again, because I’m the one from “away”, I usually travel for holidays – in fact, the pandemic years were the only years in my adult life I woke up in my own house on Christmas morning. So this year, which is either a “revenge” travel year or an “on the bubble” year depending on your point of view, we made the decision to have a family of two Christmas in our own house. Turns out, it was also a blizzard year, so it’s doubtful our car trip would have gone well anyway.
But the cookies still made the trip. And I think a picture of me this Christmas morning would have been a little less stunned-looking. A gift from sixty-something me to that little girl.
December, 2022
After upcycling and recovering a bunch of flip top boxes, I had a huge stash of beautiful papers and a craving for something a little different. Lucky for me I came across Nancy Akerly (@libertygrovepaperarts) and her online offerings. My favorite structure so far is this magic box. I’m getting a little more precise with each try, and they’re great little gift containers.
I say this every #thankfulthursday – the photos I show are student work, if you want to see what an expert can do, take a look at Nancy’s work
For more of my work, click for a video montage:
December, 2022
I rarely achieve “empty mind” when I meditate. Maybe like you, my mind seems to default to use this time to “plan”, which is a nice word for obsessively reviewing my to-do list and my worries. One day this phrase came to me: Breathing IS planning. I “plan” because I think it will improve my reaction later when something happens. But it probably won’t happen exactly like that anyway. What will always be true, though, is that whatever happens, taking a breath before reacting will improve my situation. So, the best planning I can do is to plan to breathe.
