Tag: inspiration

My Four Seasons

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Healing, Learning, Mandala Art, Visual Art

The idea of creating a mandala for each of the four seasons came to me last January, at a time when I had been feeling pretty sure that I was finished making them.  And then, the concept just popped into my head, complete with subtitles for each of them, so I felt that I had to go through with the project.  Each one was worked on and completed within its own season.  Much to my surprise, it turned into a labor of love, and has been an amazing and healing way of learning about myself and how I feel, as each of the seasons revealed their sweetness to me  and yielded its position to the next in line.  Four circles (cycles) sitting inside the larger cycle (circle) of one year.  Perfect for a person like me who loves looking at almost everything in terms of circles and time passing.

Winter (Stillness) was about finding the quiet place inside myself, wrapping myself in a cocoon of silence, of safety, of protection.  Finding imagery to echo Stillness was quite a challenge.  But the most important lesson was to discover how much movement there could be within the Stillness of the winter months, how much opportunity for growth and change.  How bright it all really was.

Spring (Tolerance) held a kernel of an idea that somehow everything and everyone could work together toward growth and cooperation, toward the promise of blossoming.  But in reality, nature is messy and free and wild.  There is an unruly aspect to Tolerance.  Things are popping up all over the place, yet they all seem to know when and where to grow.  My lesson was strong and clear.  Get out of the way and let it happen.

Summer (Trust) became a way of finding renewed strength and confidence.  I always love summer, since  I was born at the end of July and feel my happiest during the heady part of summer that Leo rules.  This year, I learned to Trust my body more and to be more grateful for it.  In return, it allowed me to garden and to be creative and to keep learning about life and love, about getting and giving support.

Fall (Vulnerability) took me totally by surprise.  Originally, its subtitle was Surrender, but I realized that Vulnerability was more appropriate for what I was feeling.  It was supposed to have a leaf in the center, but that changed to a Falling Figure (a motif I painted many years ago).  I tried to turn it back into a leaf, but the figure demanded to be seen.  It is about everything being revealed in the Fall.  As the leaves fall, we see and are seen.  Both make us more Vulnerable.  I mourn for what I have lost.  I rejoice for what I have gained.  It is a bittersweet time.  And what I have learned is that being Vulnerable is okay.  Maybe not always fun, but always okay.

Summer Mandala (Trust)

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Learning, Mandala Art, Visual Art

 

I finished the Summer Mandala just a few days ago, and it signals the end of many summer tasks. I am not quite ready for it to be September. I’m never really ready for September, but this year it seems especially difficult. I want the sunny bright colors of the mandala to last longer. I want the flowers to stay around. I want the garden to keep growing.

I do love Summer! And I am working on Trust in so many areas of my life right now. Learning to trust that the strength and sense of flow that summer brings me can last into the Fall, even when it is rainy and gray.

I’ve completed three of the seasons.  One more mandala to go in my version of the four seasons.

a nice moment

by susanbradfordart, posted in Basketry, Creative Process, Learning, Teaching

I have been making baskets for about five years, and I still think of myself as a beginner. It’s not that I haven’t made some nice baskets or that I lack the basic skills.  I take a lot of basket making workshops, and for the most part, I am pleased with the results (with a few disastrous exceptions).  It’s just that I lack confidence as a basket maker.  Each time I start a new basket, I feel challenged.  I wonder if I can really do it, let alone do it well.  This is part of my basic nature in starting new things.  I’m always wanting to try new things, but then all my insecurities and fears keep cropping up.

And then there is the issue of creativity.  I so want to be a creative basket maker, not just a technician.  To bring the element of art into it.  I keep feeling that I am close to doing something unique, but then it eludes me.  It doesn’t come out right or it’s just not good enough.

So when I sat down yesterday afternoon to try to figure out a project to teach at the San Juan County Fair this year, I was not feeling very sure of myself.  So imagine my surprise when this cute little basket emerged.  There is nothing really difficult about it.  It is designed to be taught in an hour to someone who has never made a basket before.  But I made up the pattern.  I decided how many spokes to use, to twine the base and use white fiber rush for it, to add a spoke so that the sides could be a continuous weave, and to make a stripe halfway up the side. 

It is a cute little basket.  Art it is not.  But it feels like my basket.  It was a nice moment.  And it feels like a step in the right direction.

Taking a Holiday

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Learning

I had a great holiday weekend! I didn’t go anywhere at all.  Friends came over on Monday, so I cleaned a little and cooked a little and we all had fun.  Just stayed home and wandered from the garden to my studio to my computer to the kitchen.   Despite the lack of activity in my life, the feeling that it was a holiday was somehow still in the air, and I gave myself a vacation from stress, from haste, and from the need to cross things off my constantly growing list of things to do.

On Sunday, it was especially beautiful out, and I found myself picking up my camera and just walking around the house, down to the studio and back, and all around the house, down to the meadow, and back around again.  I took a lot of pictures on that sunny day.  For some reason, I wanted to fix that moment in time .  It felt important to document the house where I live and the flowers that I nurture.

It was part of my holiday, like going away to an exotic place, and taking a million pictures to capture all those memories and visual treasures.  But I didn’t even have to get in my car to have the holiday experience.  I just stayed home and started looking at things with a fresh eye.  Discovering the brilliance of the azaleas as if I had never seen them before.  Watching the bees swarm around the chive blossoms, I felt like I was on a wildlife expedition.

It was too much fun!  I picked out a few of my favorites to put here.  Normally, I play around with photos trying to make them better, adjusting the light and the color to get what I want (or think I want).  But this time, I just left them the way they were.  No cropping or changing them in any way.  Snapshots.  Postcards.  From my holiday at home.

I think that I’ll come back to this place again.