Tag: art

Thirty Day Thaw Out: Move Along, Dear!

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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.

by honigjq

Thirty Day Thaw Out: JUMP!

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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.

by honigjq

Got Art Anxiety?

ART ANXIETY COMMON FEATURES:

  • Avoidance of art making
  • Frozen by fearing how others will perceive art
  • Disengaged from a true self, uninspired by current tools that exist
  • Excessive pressure on any one artistic project or point in time
  • Stuck in standards for a specific artistic genre or memory of past performances
  • List shoulds rather than actions or thoughts that do
  • Unproductive negative beliefs of self as a capable artist

 

Stick with the Reframe Your Artistry community and prompt by prompt, moment by moment, take back your artistry.

Begin again with a reframed outlook:

  • Playful approaches
  • Laugh at yourself, often and whenever possible
  • Try on new artistic genres
  • Show-up
  • Try, try, try, again
  • Pause
  • Begin again

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by honigjq

Thirty Day Thaw Out: Early Bird Strong.

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.

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by honigjq

Tool #2: Generate with Tension.

 

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It’s always the beginning and ending of something. I believe we are constantly evolving and devolving, while rotating around nature and other humans and other animals. This can be overwhelming, curling us into a ball of vulnerable. But like the wise Dr. Brene Brown has delivered, vulnerability also makes us amazing.

“Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” Dr. Brene Brown

Today, let the fresh page feeling, just as you are, inspire. Allow the tension of beginnings and endings, evolving and devolving, sense of stillness and perpetual motion generate a thing or two of beauty. Like Earth to Sun, we are moving faster around our light source than we realize, though we hardly give thought to the energy. Today, create something from the tension point of beginning and ending, evolving and devolving, motion and stillness, vulnerability and bravery. There, my friend, I will meet you…

“Artists are right on the origin, left out of the box. Mapping our destination and showing up for the journey is the real magic.”  Me

Free yourself to Play with whatever scraps or creative energy you are drawn to today; Frame Yourself Just as You Are…that is beautiful.

Submit inspired photography, sound, or writing for the Mindful Art portion of this blog. Please send work to reframeyourartistry@gmail.com. If you wish for further exposure, include a brief bio and any links to your own art making platform. Emailed information and art work, unless specified, will be assumed material for exposure on this blog.

 

Photo, sidewalk Boston, Mass. And credit due to Jessica Hoffmann Davis, delightful human and founder of the Arts in Ed Program at Harvard, who taught and inspired her students, like my fortunate self, via “Generative Tensions.”

 

by honigjq

Tool #1: JUST BE.

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As artists leading dynamic, busy and demanding lives, it is important to return to our source – the self, just as we are.

Let that be enough, let that be inspiration in whatever creative energy you share today.

When we allow ourselves to just be, we connect to the human side, the part less tainted by how complicated our schedules have become and standards – which are really just abstract ideas humans have created to judge and create hierarchies.

True artistry runs along a subjective wave, riding the ups and downs of life as it is.

“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling – this is the activity of art.”
Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?

Be. Be that whole and healthy artist, just as you are, recognizing thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, just as they are. Integrate yourself, just as you are, into artistry.

Take a minute now to just be; prompt though do not force steady breathing, expand your spine to invite fresh energy flow. Next, take a few minutes after that to apply this fresh energy into art making. Prioritize quality of mind leading the way rather than quality of skill with any particular artistic genre.

Hold the charcoal. Grab some scraps. Type without looking down. Frame yourself just as you are…that is beautiful.

 Submit inspired photography, sound, or writing for the Mindful Art portion of this blog. Please send work to reframeyourartistry@gmail.com. If you wish, include a brief bio and any links to your own art making platform. Emailed information and artwork, unless otherwise specified in the email, will be assumed material for exposure on this blog.

 

 

 

by honigjq