Moving right along deserves to be a natural part of one’s day.
Treat your art and your anxiety with that same attitude. Instead of emphasizing any one opportunity, rise to many little ones throughout the day. Instead of fixating on a rejection, redirect into authentic creative energy, for you. Instead of entertaining the critic inside your own mind, lower that volume, and dance to the beat of your body exactly as it is.
We cannot grow our artistry if we do not give it time, space, and compassion.
Fumble, get back up. Change happens, reinvent. Obstacles are assumed, spontaneously problem solve. Fully embrace your art making by showing up and pay attention in a mindful way.
Thinking about jumping? Believe in yourself (when you’re ready).
In the spirit of taking risks, following through, and being true – my intention this week, join me as I – JUMP! That’s right, one word this week, JUMP.
Merriam Webster (love to look up definitions, don’t you?), well, Ms. Merriam defines jump, “to spring into the air.”
Jump made me reach for an elixir with fresh, idealistic-twentysomething-grad-studentyness. So, I skimmed back through my Maxine Greene’s Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts and Social Change and opened to page 14. Maxine Greene is a New Yorker’s NY’er, I suppose; part academic, part artist, part avant-gardist, part anarchist. Most any page in her masterpiece is quite quotable. Page 14 she wrote, “It takes imagination… to perceive openings…”
The…here she refers to as imagination in young people. But I like to think … holds space for anyone with young at heart capabilities. She goes on to encourage teachers and students alike to consider energy that honors what can be taught as well as that which is interpreted and perceived from a fresh angle. Even as I summarize her concepts, I can only own my own personal reading of her material…and goodness knows I’m so locked inside my head, so in love with being in love with being off the mark that I’ve either misrepresented her here, or perhaps I have offered her to you, exactly as she has asked…somewhere in between a lesson and a rebellion.
This week, digest an audacious intention: Jump in whatever direction, then go up and down and all around, and flow with the momentum. It will set you free.
Reminder – catch podcast episodes, share art, and continue the conversation on the Reframe Your Artistry Facebook Page. Also, accepting submissions for art inspired by mindfulness practices via email to reframeyourartistry@gmail.com
And please, free yourself to JUMP into whatever scraps or creative energy you are drawn to today and this week. Frame yourself just as you are…that is beautiful.
Go forth, find something from your past or some scrap at work or so-called trash that swam into your yard. Below, inspiration from my Grandmother who once stitched together napkins from her native country to form a table linen in her new world. Then, I took the linen and used it as the covering for my chuppah. What’s next?
Welcome to a fresh week. In honor of the Thirty Day Thaw Out, consider what makes you most productive? My secret to success seems to be waking an hour before the rest of the family as often as possible. I find my favorite position, cozy beside our living room window. And write! Whatever your approach, make it a routine. Stay productive, friends.
She walked into the office the same time I did, we’re both – usually – running behind. A chorus around us said they’re as different as any coworkers can be.
They said they seem so different, they will hate each other.
Together, we found true love.
Eight years later, I celebrate the longest standing (office) marriage of my life. Boisterous to my stoic, dark skinned to my blotchy light, and takings turns – optimistic to the other’s dread, we have sat beside one another to produce a product of care; social workers continuing the good fight.
I woke this morning, as I am on the brink of changing jobs. I thought about my coworker true love. I see her heart of gold, it is the stuff that transforms people. I see her determination, and in difficult times, it is the stuff that keeps going.
I see her beauty. And I am inspired. She will forever be a muse, for me, of genuine goodness. Her laugh lingers long after I leave her, her heart radiates so boldly I want to do the right thing too…even if it means, I cannot sit beside her right now. Though she can’t always be right there with me, going forward, the image of our love is in my heart.
Take a moment, in my coworker’s honor, to envision a person who has inspired you.
Take that energy of love, or pretend to wear their shoes for a moment, and allow this inspiration to spark a work of beauty for the world today.
Frame yourself, frame your relationships, just as things are, for that is beautiful.
Frozen? Join the thirty day thaw out. Intend for one spontaneous or random act of art each day in August.
Reframe Your Artistry 