Tag: creative process

learning

by susanbradfordart, posted in Learning

On Tuesday, I took a class at my favorite bead store and learned one of the many variations of the peyote stitch. What a wonderful way to spend a day. Figuring out a new technique. Hanging out with friends. Talking. Beading. Talking some more. Surrounded by the colors of all the beads hanging from every wall and in all the small bins surrounding the room.

These hundreds of seed beads may not look like much right now, but they will soon become a bracelet.  And if all goes well, it will be adorable!

And aside from all that, when I learn something new, I always learn a bit more about myself as well.  This time the mini-lesson came in the form of taking time for breaks and to get up and move and to stretch and to breathe.  Now you’d think all that would be second nature, but sometimes with something like needing, I get so intent on doing the project and so determined to finish it before I go home, and so determined to keep up with the other students because I know that I work slowly that I can sit for hours and not pause for anything.

But this time, I knew that I wouldn’t come close to finishing, and I was keeping up, and there was a flow and a rhythm to finishing a section then taking a break and then doing it all again.  Learning, remembering, creating, all one.

a start?

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

I have been thinking and thinking (probably thinking way too much) about what Stillness looks like. Challenging enough to feel into it, even for an instant. But having decided to do a mandala about it, I am determined to figure out what it may look like. So with a tormented muscle in my right knee and the weather once again rainy and gray, I am slowed down enough to concentrate on Stillness.  Can I feel into it enough to see it?

Stillness…the Ah of it…the breath of it…being enclosed in the safety of it…the womb…the softness…nothing too bright…nothing too loud.  Quiet, stillness, Ah….  A sense of movement, yes!  Something so very dynamic about it.

A sketch.  A start?  A kind of,  maybe, beginning of a start?

how can this be?

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art
Iris Shoots, February 2, 2012

I look forward to winter for many reasons. And one of the main things I look forward to is the opportunity to have everything stop for a while. And even though I recognize that this is a total illusion, I pretend anyway. Winter seems to give me more time to still my busy mind, to spend lovely days at home, listening to the rain and the wind, letting the beautiful gray tones of the Northwest sky wash over me. In this stillness, I feel that my creativity and my spirituality are being renewed. And in anticipation of this special time, I decided to make a Stillness mandala as my next project. To commemorate the coming around of this wonderful time of year.

But something is going terribly wrong this year. True we had a little snow two weeks ago. But where are the wonderful winter rain storms? Where is the intensity, the opportunity for cleansing, the chance to stay at home, and to snuggle up inside and be warm. To read books, to make soup, to work on mandalas.

Aside from the huge implications for Global Climate Change, how can I be still when the sun is shining?  How can I pretend that things will stop long enough for me to have my winter experience when I go outside my door and see things like the photo I took this morning.  On February 2nd, no less.

 

So Quickly Now

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

Amazing!  I wrote that title just now thinking about how fast time seems to be going.  And only then remembered that I had used the same title for a painting I did last summer.  So Quickly Now is a flower form and to me felt full of movement and growth, but was also symbolic of how short-lived everything is.

January of 2012 is proving me right about that.  It is almost half over already and I am feeling my own internal pressure to have accomplished more.  My quiet (productive) winter time is vanishing before my eyes.  By now I should have painted much more, created a new mandala (or two), made many beaded bracelets, worked on some unfinished baskets, finished knitting a scarf I started last year, read five books, lost ten pounds, organized my office (for real), and cleaned my house.  I am “so quickly now” going to try to set aside my unrealistic goals, have some fun, make some art of some kind or another, and figure out that it’s all OK.  Really!

My letter is…

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Visual Art, Writing

I am always a bit sad to miss the monthly Trance Dance, and especially so in January when everyone sets their intention for the year and dances it deeply into their bodies. Still, for the past few years, I have been participating from afar and that has been good as well.

So when I read Anita’s post on Tuesday, I asked her to pick a letter for me from the ones that had not been claimed on Monday night.  In her email sent to me yesterday, I learned that my letter for the year is “B.”

Now don’t get me wrong.  “B” is a perfectly good letter.  It is even the first letter of my last name.  But in my heart of hearts, it wasn’t the letter that I wanted.  I was sending out for a “C” (Creativity, Communication, Courage, Compassion – all things I want and need more of).  Or maybe even a “P” (Paint, Play, Pray/Meditate – which have been my standard resolutions for many years now).

But no, I got a “B” and had no choice except to embrace it.

Here is what I wrote, after quickly going through the above mental process.  Oh 2012… that was the year of going Boldly, Beginning once again, and Being true to myself.

I still want all those other words as well, but the “B” words should help a lot.  And while I was writing this, I thought of so many more lovely words.