Excited and eager to consume ideas
2/25/2007 at 5:41 AM
This is my disclaimer. LOL
For those of you who I have posted comments about your work...
If I seem excited at times. I am.
I am eating up all the good stuff everyone is posting.
I love art. I adore looking at and reading all kinds of work. I have BROAD tastes in music and art.
I am in ART FEEDING MODE.... let the mange fest begin!
<< Burp >> --- excuse me.
Art gas. :-)
For those of you who I have posted comments about your work...
If I seem excited at times. I am.
I am eating up all the good stuff everyone is posting.
I love art. I adore looking at and reading all kinds of work. I have BROAD tastes in music and art.
I am in ART FEEDING MODE.... let the mange fest begin!
<< Burp >> --- excuse me.
Art gas. :-)
Finding My Creative Soul
2/25/2007 at 5:20 AM
There will be a day in everyone's life when you realize you may have strayed to far from the path you should have taken. For some there are many such paths. For others there are few. But for everyone there is a path to be taken that leaves you a fulfilled and whole person. Some people use religion or other spiritual pursuit as a guide, others drugs, meditation or any number of "guides and influences" and still that path may be elusive. And there are those of us that find artistic approaches to seeking your spiritual center. For everyone this means something different and it has many interpretations. For everyone the means to an end or beginning will be different. Nothing is always as it seems through the hearts and minds of others. Perception, life, emotion and experience is a very personal road for each person.
My soul mate, my wife, and I have at about the same time come to similar conclusions about the paths we have taken as apposed to the ones we should have taken. Money and peers are powerful influences, not always the best and not always to be trusted. We will leave it at that. Anyway my wife Celeste is a writer and I am an artist. We met in art school. We had dreams and visions of our paths in each field that, well, did not end up where we had hoped. I actually strayed so far from my creative center I stopped producing entirely. This has left me largely unfulfilled and confused as to why I could not find personal satisfaction or happiness in what I was doing over the last few years. My creative child starved and withered as a neglected garden in the heat of summer. I had given up my key to self expression.
As mentioned in a previous post I abandoned my career of the last 7 plus years, because I finally realized I had taken the wrong path for myself. I'm not full of regret and self loathing but this realization has left me in a sort of mid life crisis. Even a spiritual funk of ugly proportions. I realize I have a lot of catching up to do. I have to make up for my past regressions. (Read as you like but I am not talking religion here)
Celeste is taking a class based on the teachings of the book "The Artist's Way". This is part of how she is changing the direction she set out on to one she hopes will re-kindle here creative flame in creative writing. I read some of the book myself. I found it said some things that reflected how I feel and where I am in my life right now. It is an interesting book. It strongly describes the belief that you must find and nurture positive influences internally and externally. We artists can be our own worst critics (enemy of the creative soul).
I have decided to act on my own need to unlock the creative that lived inside me. The class my wife is taking asked that each person write "morning pages". Basically you get up each morning and just write 4 pages stream of consciousness in a journal. I thought this would work well in an artistic approach. So I am sketching everyday for a short period. Nothing specific, just whatever strikes me at the moment. Spontaneous, stream of consciousness sketches. I decided it might be therapeutic to post some of my "morning pages". I started with the first post to my "Morning Pages" this morning. I will keep doing this from time-to-time. And hopefully together we will see the fire burn brighter in my creative soul.
Thanks for all the supportive comments I have received already. It really does make a difference.
My soul mate, my wife, and I have at about the same time come to similar conclusions about the paths we have taken as apposed to the ones we should have taken. Money and peers are powerful influences, not always the best and not always to be trusted. We will leave it at that. Anyway my wife Celeste is a writer and I am an artist. We met in art school. We had dreams and visions of our paths in each field that, well, did not end up where we had hoped. I actually strayed so far from my creative center I stopped producing entirely. This has left me largely unfulfilled and confused as to why I could not find personal satisfaction or happiness in what I was doing over the last few years. My creative child starved and withered as a neglected garden in the heat of summer. I had given up my key to self expression.
As mentioned in a previous post I abandoned my career of the last 7 plus years, because I finally realized I had taken the wrong path for myself. I'm not full of regret and self loathing but this realization has left me in a sort of mid life crisis. Even a spiritual funk of ugly proportions. I realize I have a lot of catching up to do. I have to make up for my past regressions. (Read as you like but I am not talking religion here)
Celeste is taking a class based on the teachings of the book "The Artist's Way". This is part of how she is changing the direction she set out on to one she hopes will re-kindle here creative flame in creative writing. I read some of the book myself. I found it said some things that reflected how I feel and where I am in my life right now. It is an interesting book. It strongly describes the belief that you must find and nurture positive influences internally and externally. We artists can be our own worst critics (enemy of the creative soul).
I have decided to act on my own need to unlock the creative that lived inside me. The class my wife is taking asked that each person write "morning pages". Basically you get up each morning and just write 4 pages stream of consciousness in a journal. I thought this would work well in an artistic approach. So I am sketching everyday for a short period. Nothing specific, just whatever strikes me at the moment. Spontaneous, stream of consciousness sketches. I decided it might be therapeutic to post some of my "morning pages". I started with the first post to my "Morning Pages" this morning. I will keep doing this from time-to-time. And hopefully together we will see the fire burn brighter in my creative soul.
Thanks for all the supportive comments I have received already. It really does make a difference.
Hi My Name is ....
2/20/2007 at 5:34 AM
Hi all. Especially HELLO to the 5 friends I picked up only minutes after joining. Woot. That was fast.
Yeah my name is really John. Hard to believe I know. Nope I am not a lurker and I'm certainly not some weirdo pretending to be me. Well at least I'm not pretending. I have recently entered into the mid-life crisis portion of my life. Don't know who I am or where I'm going. I quit my Job, tossed aside my career of the last 15 years and done gone off on a voyage of self discovery. Maybe I should be scared now. To be honest I am. Any who. Long story short. BFA Ceramic (BA "Almost" Communications Arts Graphic Design) in 1991 after 7 years of Fine Arts School and chemical stimulation. Worked in Ad biz for several years. Hated it. Got into web graphics. Loved it. (Or so I told myself). Moved onto graphic and programming. Made more money. Got into programming and management. Made LOTS of money.... Have not so much as sketched a single thing in at least 5 - 7 years.
Now I realize I have lost my soul. My creative child has done starved to death and died. All in the name of $$$$. Bad call on my part. But wait I'm still youngish. And I still got Mad skeelz. So yes September of 2006 I really did give up my career completely to resurrect my creative soul. Money is not everything. I am once again breathing the creative life I should never have abandoned. Got me a sketch pad and some conte to force myself back in line. I even got my guitar out of storage. It is REALLY HARD! I can still draw. My mind knows I can somewhere deep inside, but my muscles ain't cooperating. So I am gonna exercise the creative muscle daily till I get back on my feet. I really want to find a studio where I can get my hands dirty as a studio ceramic artist.(Let me know if you know of someone here in San Diego who need a $$tudio partner.) I love clay and I can do wonderful things with my hands. My wife is excited about that! My Wife in fact is on a similar path. Career shift and all. She is taking a creative writing class in line with "The Artist's Way". She needs to evolve her self expression as much as I. We are starting to feed off each other. And that is a good thing. She has always been a writer, she just never pursued it creatively.
As you might can imagine all this dramatic change is cause for some discomfort and fear of the unknown right now. I try not to get to weirded out and she tries not to get to freaked out. With a little luck, determination and cashing in of some karma deposits we will find our paths. Should be an interesting ride. May the re-birthing begin!
Yeah my name is really John. Hard to believe I know. Nope I am not a lurker and I'm certainly not some weirdo pretending to be me. Well at least I'm not pretending. I have recently entered into the mid-life crisis portion of my life. Don't know who I am or where I'm going. I quit my Job, tossed aside my career of the last 15 years and done gone off on a voyage of self discovery. Maybe I should be scared now. To be honest I am. Any who. Long story short. BFA Ceramic (BA "Almost" Communications Arts Graphic Design) in 1991 after 7 years of Fine Arts School and chemical stimulation. Worked in Ad biz for several years. Hated it. Got into web graphics. Loved it. (Or so I told myself). Moved onto graphic and programming. Made more money. Got into programming and management. Made LOTS of money.... Have not so much as sketched a single thing in at least 5 - 7 years.
Now I realize I have lost my soul. My creative child has done starved to death and died. All in the name of $$$$. Bad call on my part. But wait I'm still youngish. And I still got Mad skeelz. So yes September of 2006 I really did give up my career completely to resurrect my creative soul. Money is not everything. I am once again breathing the creative life I should never have abandoned. Got me a sketch pad and some conte to force myself back in line. I even got my guitar out of storage. It is REALLY HARD! I can still draw. My mind knows I can somewhere deep inside, but my muscles ain't cooperating. So I am gonna exercise the creative muscle daily till I get back on my feet. I really want to find a studio where I can get my hands dirty as a studio ceramic artist.(Let me know if you know of someone here in San Diego who need a $$tudio partner.) I love clay and I can do wonderful things with my hands. My wife is excited about that! My Wife in fact is on a similar path. Career shift and all. She is taking a creative writing class in line with "The Artist's Way". She needs to evolve her self expression as much as I. We are starting to feed off each other. And that is a good thing. She has always been a writer, she just never pursued it creatively.
As you might can imagine all this dramatic change is cause for some discomfort and fear of the unknown right now. I try not to get to weirded out and she tries not to get to freaked out. With a little luck, determination and cashing in of some karma deposits we will find our paths. Should be an interesting ride. May the re-birthing begin!
