Since I was six I wanted to draw and paint. As a small child I was always creating my world on paper. A fraction of what was in my head came out. I always had creativity to lean back on... I got older and moved onto sewing and was relatively good at that as well, I built doll houses and had fun with that as well I could not imagine leaving this facinating pocket of creativity behind. As I grew up and had more and more responsibilities and priorities my creativity disapeared. There was a huge black despairing whole in my life, I became wooden and learned to modulate my creativity to what others thought it should be. When I entered into college I thought yeah my life is mine and I have a chance to dig it out of the back of my closset and discover it again... Allas my journey took a downturn as there was much pressure on the home front to use my education as something that would turn into a job and art was clearly not a steady income. I burried the dream shuttled my art into medical illustration and tried my best to produce what my teachers and parents thought were "good" peices. They were not mine and I felt like a fraud doing research and needing to copy other artists so that I had the recognizable anatomical positions for my layouts. Occassionally I found information that would turn my pictures into my pictures and I could argue a new angle. I lived for these moments the discussions and arguements wrapping myself in my research remembering books, quotes and page numbers. I did find a pallet I loved, way to bright for the pastels that at the time set medical illustration apart from a lot of other kinds of illustration. When I graduated I felt like I had been through hell and back and it was all pointless because I had lost my creativity again...
I discussed going back to school and began a program for being a resource teacher for children with disabilities. I began working with adults with learning disabilities. I met my husband a German engineer working in the United States. He headed to Germany shortly after we met and with what felt like nothing better to do I moved back with him. I had hoped in Europe away from the oppression of so many companies closing down that my creativity would re-apear. Allas I was lost liturally between translations. My partner and later husband moved me from a city which I had thought much to small at a meer million poeple to a village in the deep parts of southern Germany in the land of the Schwaebians. I learned fast that I could speak all I wanted in Hoch Deutch, but it did not fly because people speak there a deep interlaced dialect that they are not happy to share, every couple of Kilometers peoples dialects begin to vary, as they do not tend to move far from their homes. I spent many hours walking feilds and talking with the cows, who were quite hospitibal and had been so well cared for that any time people walked by they walked along with them. It was sweet and the country side was gorgous. If you got up in the morning when the mist covered many of the feilds and only the Roman recreated towers would poke out you could imagine how it must have looked when the romans really were marching through this country side some six hundred years before.
We moved again and I thought my creativity was definately dead. I started to teach English which at least got me out of feelling so stupid with my German. We moved again closer into the city with a University. I finally felt like I was maybe going to servive living here. I have a close knit varying group of forigners that move through. We have two children now, shortly after number two came along I became officially a Hausfrau. I take care of the children, entertain, clean, decorate and paint. Since Louis my first arrived I got a babysitter and painted. It felt a little forced and I wasn't always sure what to paint but it was my time. When Madeleine my second was small one of my friends stole away with her and I had the morning to myself. I tried painting it was mechanical. I couldn't seem to get to my creativity. I discovered this program on the internet called the inner mean girl school of reform. I discovered I was self sabataging and slowly I began to release and create a world were my creativity could have the potential to live.
One of the things we were supposed to do was seround ourselves with like minded people. As I was feelling life was a bit bleak and deserty for creative people I thought I'll put it out there, but I've nearly been here ten years and I've yet to meet like minded people. So I cleared the cobwebs got the image as close to clear as possible and left it. Wouldn't you know along came my closest freinds both imersed in home projects. One a successful belly dancer who had gained her fame through hard work and the internet. The other very busy mother of two who always had time for a little knitting. It was wonderful to be packed in by two people who know how to find their creativity. Really different, but they both know how to reach for that sweet creative space which I was desparetly back to searching for...
I started a blog as Martina said that is the place to start. It was SCARY to think about writing on a subject when I wasn't sure how I was going to find and keep my creativity flowing. She kept saying keep it going the creativity will just come and burn just be ready for it. So I started you can read my first blogs. Then I began another internet course called the Mindful Artist with Michele Theberge that was this summer of 2012. Finally someone who knows how to reach creativity. She described her journey offered books and references to other artists who were one with their creativity. Her last class had mostly focused on technology issues but I lucked out as this course most people were interested in developing their creativity. She set up assigments. The one that for me was so pivital was her assignment that we produce a complete peice each day for a month no excuses just hook into that creativity and see were it goes...The first time I saw this I thought this is crazy I can't do that I don't have time and my stuff is all too big.
Light bulb in the middle of the night somewhere between wake and sleep it hit. Make an I can kit. So the next day I hit the studio dug out my conte case made a mini watercolor color case out of a pencil box with my tiny brushes underneath and the tray above holding dry paint, along with a small water bottle that holds less than a shot of water. I have this plasticky net bag that holds A4 paper with a zipper pocket that I had with the off chance that I might need to transport small peices. Stuck in A4 Bristal cold press paper and archibald cold press block of paper ca. 14cm squared. While my children played at the park I sat under the trees and made art. I drew just what was at the top of my head. No models, just layed back on all that information I have packed away about color and layout. I reached deep down past the fear, past the self riducule and grabbed those ribbons of creativity and road the rapids. It was is delicious, fulfilling and freeing. My whole world has changed around. When I find myself thinking life is going too fast, too mechanical, too boaring I carve five minutes out and disapear with my I can kit and feel my toes, remember to breath with my diaphram and ride the creative flow. Facinating, no?
So here are the fruits of my labor in no particular chronological order and I have not edited anything out as I think the volume is more important than the individual peice that were completed each day...
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