I’ve been fortunate not to really have experienced any rejections or roadblocks except for in my own mind. Whether it is my inherent introvertedness or a lack of self-confidence, either way it has kept me from “putting my art out there”.  Maybe that is why one particular quote from the 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women means so much to me. Gail McMeekin wrote “putting yourself out there and sharing your work qualifies as an act of courage and tests your fortitude.” In the past I have mostly put myself out there through swaps, gifts, and donations to my sons’ school silent auctions. Even though I’m still taking baby steps, they have gotten bigger. I have just completed a piece that I created for a fundraising auction for a local public radio station.  I wanted to post about the auction separately, but you can find the info and a picture of the piece here. One of the things I found beneficial from this chapter were some of the suggested exercises. Recently I wrote about what I envisioned as a perfect day for me as part of reading Walking in this World by Julia Cameron. I used the exercises in this chapter to turn that journaling into a list of goals and steps I can take to acheive them. Even though I may be taking baby steps to work on my goals, at least I am moving toward them.

To celebrate, 33 1/3 years on-the-air for WORT and Rockin’ John McDonald, WORT is having a benefit party on Saturday, April 18th at the Crystal Corner Bar in conjunction with International Record Store Day. The party will include a live auction and silent auction of record platter art created by local artists and celebrities.

When I heard about the call for artwork, I thought it sounded like fun since the only requirement was to use any size vinyl record in the piece. I forgot it about it until I happened to be at St. Vinnie’s one day and started looking at the records. When I saw this Bossa Nova record, I was so inspired that I couldn’t resist (although I will admit that I didn’t commit to the auction until I saw how it turned out). I hope it does well in the auction since I listen to WORT when I’m in the studio. This piece layers three images with acrylic paint, acrylic medium, oil pastel, and ink. If you are interested in bidding on it but can’t make it to the party, please let me know. I’m sure arrangements can be made for a proxy bidding.

Since I’ve been taking my time acknowledging myself as an artist, I haven’t had many opportunities to form partnerships or alliances in that capacity. The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women specifically defines partnerships as a business arrangement which shares profits and risk and alliances as a close association with a common objective. I do believe that it was my alliance with my friend Melynda that made me realize that I needed to take my art to a level beyond just scrapbooking and card making. What began as a working relationship (I met her when she hired me as a design team member for her online scrapbooking kit club) later turned into friendship that I like to think gave us both inspiration. I was always available to her to brainstorm business ideas and the art techniques her kits introduced me to opened a whole new world to me. I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if our paths hadn’t crossed. One of my most recent alliances has been with several local artists that found each other through Meetup.com with the intention of working through The Artist’s Way together.  It has been over two years and there are several of us that continue to support each other and our creative goals. My other current alliance that to me is invaluable, is the friendship I have developed with DebMarie. We met through a Yahoo group and found that we live fairly close to each other. We have become wonderful friends and I’m thinking it would be fun to do a collaborative art project with her.  Next week we are going on a “fieldtrip” to some antique and second hand shops so maybe we can come up with some idea for the future. Because she does mixed media work as well, I feel she understands me better than many other people.   I believe this quote from the book offers the best advice:

“the vital foundation for a solid relationship is self-knowledge on the part of each person involved and a commitment to joint abundance.”

I hope the future holds more opportunities for collaborations.

This chapter of “The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women” asked us to identify who influenced us early in our life. I immediately knew that my sister, Kathy, had been one of the most influential people when I was young. I think I had a predisposition to all types of arts and crafts but I remember being in awe of her when she left for college, majoring in art. I often wondered if it I interpreted her changing majors to Occupational Therapy as a subliminal message that a career choice should be “practical”. In every book I’ve read about creativity, the question always comes up as to those instances in your life where you were discouraged from following your dream of being an artist. I never felt that anyone said “you can’t make a living being an artist”, but when it came time for me to go to college, my interest in business and computers prevailed. So fast forward twenty years, I’ve experienced the corporate world and am now a stay-at-home mom with two boys (who are growing up much too fast) and I am recreating my life to include my need to be creative. I only wish I could share my experiences and my creative passions with Kathy, but unfortunately she died from cancer over seven years ago.

In the last two years, I have been actively seeking out other creative individuals, some who I consider as guides in the journey and others who are traveling companions (I have found this a bit ironic since it feels like just yesterday I was giving my nephew grief for his “networking” mindset). Having these people in my life has been such a blessing. They have instrumental in identifying my dreams and giving me the confidence to go after them (and if you are reading this, then you are one of those people and I THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart).

And now….on to the Crusade part of my post…

In keeping with Michelle’s play on traditional new year’s resolutions, she titled GPP Crusade #28 as “Portion Control”. I didn’t use my shape from Crusade 27 but I did use the technique in a couple of recent projects. The challenge was to use partial images or shapes to add visual interest. The first canvas, my angel project, uses only a partial image for the focal point and also incorporates part of the angel stamp I carved. I also made a combination mask/stencil of a pair of wings. I used part of it by dry brushing over the mask and also glazing inside the stencil. My original image transfer of the angel head was much more distressed but it was a little “too partial” for my tastes and I ended up doing a second image transfer. My second canvas, with the buddha, includes partial stencilling of the words “purposeful life”. Both of these canvases were made for a challenge that my friend DebMarie and I do every two weeks. We have been meeting for breakfast every two weeks since school started for our kids. Although we always seem to be on a creative high afterwards (don’t you just love talking to people who get you ), we decided that we would also pick a challenge so that we could each see how the other interprets it. Week one was the color red and week two was to incorporate a map (the base of my buddha piece is a japanese map). Don’t forget, if you click on the image, it will bring up a bigger size in a lightbox so you can get a better look at it.

Well, that’s all for now but hopefully I will soon be showing you a piece I’m making for a charity auction AND since it is for a public radio station it had to include some type of vinyl record…have I piqued your interest?