A Dose of Inspiration

"Let the critics spot trends.


Let reviewers concern themselves with
what is in and what is not.


Let us concern ourselves first and foremost
with what it is within us that is
struggling to be born."


- Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

I guess this is the dose of inspiration that I needed upon receiving yet another show rejection.  It was for a group show called "Small Works" at Harper's College.  I really thought I stood a shot, but when the results were posted this morning, my name was clearly not there...I ran over the list three times checking for my name.  No Dice.

Oh well, I guess I'm just one rejection closer to a "Yes!", and that's some good news!  Get these rejections out of the way early.  I'd rather start slow and end brilliantly.  I want to be a comet invading the atmosphere- gaining speed, rather than fading further away.

The point is this- do the rejections in life hold all the weight of our decisions?  Do we let obstacles bully us into taking the easy path?  No, we don't.  We are who we are for a reason.  We do what we do because it is simply what we must do- to be more of ourselves and fulfill our duties in this life.  We rarely know why.  We only know about the driving forces within all of us and it is our choice to listen to it or not.  We have the responsibility of becoming more of ourselves everyday- this is a simple idea, though it is not always easy to do.  I'm still trying to get off of my training wheels, but it certainly helps when I see others off of theirs and being true to themselves despite the judgements of others.

This is not unlike when I actually did get my training wheels off of my bike- thank you Amy Grandin for the extra push I needed!  Without your inspiration, I do believe it would have taken years for me to have the courage I needed to shed those squeaky things!

Chapter Nine- Recovering a Sense of Compassion

This chapter in The Artist's Way had a scary little exercise in it.  It was found on page 159, and I looked at it with fear.  It was found under the destructive title of "Blasting Though Blocks".  The exercise involved listing resentments and anger about projects, fears, and what to gain by NOT doing the project you are currently working on. 

I was scared because I am so sensitive to negative energy- once my mind gets into the negative, it is difficult to pull it back into a healthy attitude.  A definite flaw within myself, once things get tainted I want to just discard it.  I was fearful that if I allowed the negative feelings to have a voice I would see only that and just stop.  This would then only serve to CREATE a block, instead of DESTROYING a creative block.  I was right to be scared given my past habits.

After some thought, I did the exercise.  I'm not blocked in my current project, but I thought that perhaps I could gain something through this exercise.  It did not create a block, but I'm not sure that if I had one that it would help...well, maybe it would.  It helped to get it all out on paper- but seriously, as one who has kept a journal since age eight, I know of those benefits of bitching through a pen.  I was still scared that my angers would gain in strength and destroy my flow for the project.  It hasn't.  It gave me a bit of a jolt to establish mini-goals for the project and see the strength of the benefits of doing the project.  I was able to look at the awfulness and opportunities lost as a result of NOT doing the project.  THAT was scary! 

One of the tasks this week was to look back through all of my morning pages to check for patterns and issues.  While I did not get to this, I will over the next week as I go on to Chapter Ten.  I will probably write a post dedicated to the Morning Pages sometime within the next week or two since they play such a central role in this twelve-week program.

Bring it on, Chapter Ten!

Week Eight: Moving Towards the Ultimate

Week Eight of The Artist's Way was pretty much a focus upon ultimate goals.  I struggled to try to establish my ultimate goals in writing within my journal.  Afterall, where do I want my art to ultimately take me is not an easy question to answer, unless I were to say "The sky is the limit!", but of course Julia Cameron was guiding her readers to establish some concrete goals with concrete markers of progress.  In a nutshell, it was about establishing what success means to the individual.

That's difficult, because there are so many options of how one can measure career success.  Is it a certain number of publications or reviews?  Is it a show with all of my works selling?  Is it being able to support myself financially through my art?  Is it through recognition of being a respected artist within the community or world stage?

I actually chose pretty much all of these, but with more detail.  Afterall, why not shoot for the moon here?  What is the harm?  Afterall, I'm already disappointed with all the rejections I've been recieving lately that it is pretty much the norm to be let down, so why not?  Despite of the rejections, I keep looking ahead and keeping my chin up, so don't worry- I'm taking it as it is making me stronger and will make success so much sweeter! 

Without a rollercoaster of disappointment and triumph, life would be dull like a lukewarm bath.

One benefit I have found already within this goal writing exercise is that I have more fire under my keester for the past few days.  I kept hearing RuPaul in my head say, "You better WORK!", and who would dare to disappoint RuPaul?  Not this gal.

It has made me connect the ultimate goal with what I can do today.  It has helped me to focus a bit more on getting things going earlier in my day, and working for longer periods of time.  "What can I do today" seriously needs to be my mantra from now on.  With only one question, I am motivated and getting out materials.  Hallaloo!

Now it's your turn!  Do you have any words/sayings/people who inspire or motivate you?  What helps you to create a sense of focus?  Let RuPaul serenade you while you are thinking...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2wrU2tkl38

EA Turner, NOT EA Sports- Finding Lost Family History

As stated in the entry prior to this, I did some family researching this past week instead of my morning pages...oops.  I have to say though that it was time well spent and found a person that I have been looking for ever since my Grandma Booth first mentioned him- Ezekiel Ashley Turner(1954-1999), my Great Great Grand Uncle.


I grew up looking at the paintings created by my Great Grandmother, Louise (Turner) Smith, of landscapes filled with the ocean tide, or rolling hills of trees.  My father and grandmother have often told me how much I remind them of her, not only because of my passion for art, but also because of my curly hair and temperment.  Due to the stories about her, I have always felt that I shared a special connection with her, though I never had the pleasure of meeting her.


My Grandma Booth then told me of Louise's Uncle being an artist in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and told me that he actually had a painting at the Louvre.  I knew that his last name was Turner, but I wasn't sure about anything else.


The television show Who Do You Think You Are helped to respark my interest ( FASCINATING SHOW!) and the search began all over again.  I was excited to find his work online, but have only found a few pieces so far.  Three of them are at the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, Michigan as they were commissioned by Charles H. Hackley.  I found that Mr. Hackley actually paid for Ezekiel to study art in Paris as well!  What an opportunity!


It was difficult to find images of his works, but here are the ones that I have found so far-

I found this one as being a part of an online art auction recently in Ohio titled Summer Landscape.  It was auctioned for $422 and I wish I would have known about it!!!  The following are details of this painting:

The following portrait is of Charles H. Hackley and was found in horrible condition (holes through the canvas!) in the boiler room of a nearby school.  Thankfully it was restored in 2008.

This last work was downloaded terribly from the Hackley Library flickr site- but I wanted an image so badly of it to share!  So many people in this work!  I believe that somehow I will acquire a better image of this in the future by contacting them, or ordering it.  It is still on display at the Hackley Public Library and is the Dedication of the Library.


Thank you for taking the time- I felt that I needed to share this, as I cringe at the idea Ezekiel or any of us being forgotten in the folds of history.  Ode to our ancestors for making our lives possible and inspiring us to overcome the challenges of our own lives by looking at their examples.

Holding Myself Back in 8th Grade...Er, Week

This last week I was in week eight (A Sense of Strength) of The Artist's Way, and have come to realize that I need another week for this chapter.  To put it bluntly, I didn't do the work.  I slacked on my morning pages and instead jumped either into illustrating or looking up family history.  I avoided the morning pages like a plague.


The weekly task list looked daunting from the get-go...so I avoided it, when it probably means that I need to do these the most out of all of the weekly tasks I've done so far. 


SOOOO, I've decided to hold myself back for a week.  I'm going to stay in week eight and work on it this coming week.  I'll post about week eight next Sunday, so stay tuned!

Jealousy is Divine!

Week Seven of The Artist's Way:  Recovering a sense of connection

I thought an interesting point Julia Cameron made this week was about jealousy being a good thing.  Often we think of jealousy being a pointless and detrimental energy drain, but actually it can be helpful.  It lets us know what we would like in our lives and sometimes how to do it.  She presented the idea of creating a jealousy map in order to learn from this awful emotion in a constructive way.  Here is an example of a jealousy map:

Who              Why                               Action
Tony             He writes amazing stories  Try writing some stories
Ruth              She has an art studio        Create your own space in your home
Margaret       She is bald & beautiful    Shave your head and wear lots of makeup

LOL- you get the point.  It can be used as a guide as what you want to come into your life that you possibly have not realized before.  I know that through doing this exercise, I was forced to admit some jealousies and pinpoint why.  It was a great learning tool for me.  Try it out!  It may even be a good laugh when you realize the stupidity of some jealousies and will make them less powerful.  Very interesting exercise.

There was of course more than this in chapter seven, but I found that this was the thing that really peaked my interest about this week.  I really did learn from it, and in a weird way it was a blast to create a jealousy list...of course my real list is for my eyes only.

The following link is a funny mash-up of two black and white films with the theme of jealousy that I found on the internet.  I did not make this, and it is not for the easily offended as it makes fun of a serious issue.

It takes an unexpected twist, and I love it! 



http://www.viddler.com/explore/wideeyevideo/videos/20/

The Powerful Fear of Jinxing It

I can officially tell you that I am now illustrating a book of historical fiction written by Ben Tanosborn, and I couldn't be happier or more excited about this opportunity!  The publishing date is set for June of this year.  CHEERS!  This has actually been in the works for the past three weeks, but I have told only a few of my loved ones.  I stopped myself from shouting it from the rooftops.  Not because I wasn't elated- because I am- but because I did not want to jinx it. 

I recently recieved a phone call from one of these close friends.  He was originally calling me to find out the final outcome, and as we were talking it came out that he had officially entered the dating scene.  He now has a girlfriend...and has had this girlfriend for two weeks now!  He and his girlfriend were hesitant to just declare it upon the start, one of the reasons was the fear of jinxing their new relationship.

Why does the fear of bad luck prevent us from declaring things when they happen?  The part of us that wants to celebrate is overpowered by the other part of us that is filled with fear of jinxing the occasion.  Is it belief in superstition or is it a learned behavior through experience?  I mean really, who hasn't been completely let down immediately after announcing something of importance?  Have we all been burned that bad to consistently greet happiness with silence? 

The idea that came to mind in deciding not to post anything on this blog about the illustration opportunity was about embarrassment.  I felt that if I were to post something on this site as it was happening, I could possibly be setting myself up for the humiliation and embarrassment of explaining how things went wrong over and over to different people if things went wrong.  I didn't want to give this type of nightmare a chance so I took a vow of silence until it was official.  Now it is OFFICIAL!

Maybe the fear of jinxing something gives us time to get used to a new idea, a new opportunity, or a new person, and get comfortably prepared.  Ultimately, upon the moment of declaration we are taking responsibility for success or failure.  Have you held yourself back because of the fear of bad luck?  Do you think this originates from a personal supersitition or from personal experience?