Presenting: Creative Living Experiment - The Sequel

blossoming

It's time.

I'll miss this space, but I bought the URL and I've been paying for Squarespace since January. Please come join me at my new digs: www.creativelivingexperiment.com.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Post-Vacation Blahs

morning sun at Cap-des-Rosiers
(across the road from our motel)

It seems my trip to the East coast has left me in a tender space. After a week that brought soul-filling moments of peace and contentment I've slipped into a space of envy and dissatisfaction. It happened after last year's vacation too.

Maybe it's Mother Nature's doing, she brings me back to my core and sometimes she invites me to stay a while and entertain Life's Big Questions. Or maybe it's just my disgruntled reaction to a return to work and schedules vs. the freedom of a summer road trip.

Whatever it is, my intuition is telling me to scale back to my list of proven Basics and that means a little less time at the computer and a little more time taking care of myself and my home.

My intuition's pretty smart that way, I think I'll listen to it and see what comes.

See you soon.
xo

Belle Gaspésie

view from lookout on the way up to Mont Saint-Alban's
observation tower - Forillon National Park, QC

I'm back from my trip to the East coast and easing into post-vacation activities like work, chores and even writing here. I still marvel at the scenery taken in during our five days in Quebec's beautiful Gaspésie.

I'll be back with a trip report and a few favourite photos soon. In the meantime I thought I'd share the one above, taken on a climb up Mont Saint-Alban in Canada's Forillon National Park. It still takes my breath away.

Belle Gaspésie, I am smitten.

After the Flow, The Creative Ebb

work in progress - untitled

After the creative high comes the inevitable crash.

June was all about doing: setting up a new Web site, taking flying lessons in creative entrepreneurship, expanding connections with like-minded people, busting through artistic comfort zones and producing new paintings, conjuring up, planning and scheduling new projects for the fall. It was a full-on trip of creative momentum and energy.

Enter July.

July surprised me with a considerable shift in energy and is whispering to me about being: sitting, writing, observing, experiencing the present and letting go of to-do lists and expectations. It's also shifting my thoughts from the outward matters of business, networking and creativity to more inward matters like the home, roots, family and nature. It's a slowing down, a return to the core after a flurry of external activity.

I won't lie, there's a part of me (most likely an irrational one) that's afraid I've lost June's creative flow forever; luckily another part of me is practicing trust that this creative ebb is all part of the process and necessary to replenish the well.

Maybe it's simply time to embrace flow of a different kind for a while. I'm choosing to run sit with it and see where it takes me.

PS - I'll be away from this space for a week or so as I take a break to soak in some salty sea air, but I'll be back the week of the 19th - maybe even with that new Web site I've been promising! See you on the flip side. xo

Sweet Summer

lace

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." ~ Sam Keen

It seems a stretch of hot humid days is upon us; today's creative momentum manifested into a burst of of morning activity that gradually transformed into blissful afternoon slumber.

Sweet summer. Bring it.

Heeding the Creative Call

splash
(12" x 6" on canvas)

I am bursting with creative inspiration. New ideas, ideas revisited, ideas in the making... they're all coming up in the form of insights, dreams and journal entries. It's creative momentum at its best I tell ya, exhilarating and scary all at once!

I've been here before, but this time I feel a renewed energy and optimism - a whisper of belief that maybe, just maybe, I can make some of these ideas happen.

It's time to heed the call.

What whispers are calling you?

A Work Complete

Midsummer Blooms - a work in progress

I show you many works in progress here, but I realized that I rarely show you the same piece once it's finished. That's probably because most of the time it never reaches that point.

Up until now if I didn't finish a piece in one paint session the chances of it ever being finished went from slim to none. Why? Because I was afraid of screwing up what I had.

Last week I took my unfinished Summer Solstice piece (above) to my art class and decided that with the intrinsic support of the group and my teacher I would walk out with a finished product. My frustration of having unfinished paintings sitting around the studio outgrew my fear and I decided to trust the process.

Turns out it really didn't take much tweaking for me to pronounce it complete, but the experience of pushing through and the satisfaction of getting it done were tremendous. Here's the end result:

Solstice in Bloom - a work complete
(see how I even changed the name in the process?)

How do you create? Do you usually finish a piece - whether it's a painting, a sculpture or a short story - in one session or is your work spread out across time? Do you find it difficult to pick up an unfinished piece for completion?