Quick sketch in between learning lines...did not have any good pencils in the house and the ones I had were dull..ran around actually yelling a sharpener, a sharpener my kingdom for a sharpener!!When worlds collide...
One of my all time favorite movies is Mary Poppins, I always thought the bird lady was so lovely and so melancholy..I made up a story that she had a good home to go to and was well loved so I would feel better when it came to her part. I just saw the Tippi Hendren Barbie from the birds, so I had birds on the mind..

gotta go learn those lines

Re opened my etsy shop!!  Why, I imagine you asking me, if indeed you would, why did you let it close???  Because I never made that many sales??  Because you are an untalented wanna be??  Because someone may find out you are an impostor?? Or you were lazy..or you thought what is the point??

D. All of the Above

But guess what-I don't care any more..because bottom line I have a blast doing it AND when I do sell something (which I do) I often get the best responses to my work and it warms my heart...
To that end whipped out some fun fairies today, these are really, really small (2.5 x 3.5) and its a challenge to work that small.  So onward and upward!!  And tomorrow, who knows what I will come up with!!!

Uninspiring day..one of those days where one starts to look at the want ads and wonder why keep trying. Would a steady paycheck make so much difference that I could leave all these art thoughts behind? Thats okay, this too shall pass, I know that now, but when my ideas outweigh my skills I sometimes want to pull the covers over my head instead of plodding on..sio I made myself sit and just play with pastels for a while......

Working on a really cool idea that has me excited-to do with trains and this new notion (to me) of Ombro Theatre. I stumbled upon it accidentally and now I am waking up in the middle of the night with all sorts of ideas that were sparked by this simple yet amazing technique. I love when all seemingly scattered pieces of all the things I love to do come together and I just do it without worrying about how GOOD it will be.....onward and upward

What if all your fears were knocked down and you lived in the moment,choosing what makes you happy, rejecting the old ideas the old crazy rules you imposed on yourself.  Started acting as if those old rules were nothing, wondered why they ever kept you in a prison, one you made for yourself and then remained miserable in.  I am having those moments and it is exhilarating and scary in a different way.  I wish I could bottle this so when I have doubts I could reapply this self awareness....
What if you choose to surround yourself with only the people who lifted you up and engaged and challenged and cared, and those that you run after begging for a crumb of friendship or notice became so unimportant....I am going to remember this, this is how I will live...and as I do..it is unbelievable what shows up in your world to support you

There is no finish line, there is no end, its all about process and growing.  I keep thinking there will be a moment when you WIN, when you hit the point where everything from here on will be golden.  When you decide who exactly you are, what it is that you do, and where you are going.  For me, these are dangerous illusions.  I am learning you just have to be,right here, right now . There is no shame in continuing to go after your dreams.....even if you never get to where you thought you wanted to be, if you are lucky,you see all the things you are gathering along the way..........PROCESS-with a nod to KH who is wise.... 

Still in a creative funk but determined to keep working, despite that lack of confidence.  So I went up to the loft and worked on an altoid box project and then, finding myself cruelly judging , took a breath walked away and went back to my charcoal. That helped, and I wrote a bit and THAT helped....that and the knowledge of how lucky and privileged I am to have time to worry about things like this.  ONWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More pencil on garbage bags.....trying to draw even though I have no inspiration.  Maybe this is a good lesson for me.  Doing it despite feeling like a fake.  So weird, some days everything comes almost too easy, others you wonder if you ever ever HELD a pencil before.  I try to figure out why that happens.  Are the gods with you one day and not the other?  Was it more or less coffee??   Did you eat well? What changes-nothing I can put my finger on...and so you keep doing, bless the days when it flows, detach when it does not....not a bad way to live your live......

I texted a friend last night who recently lost his brother,as I did mine.  His brother was in my graduation class.  I like to just make sure he knows someone is thinking of him and his brother.  Its important, this is probably the only thing I am truly certain of, it is important to be seen.  It is important to reach out. He sent me this Sufi poem:

 May the meaning of your life continue to unfold in me.

It took my breath away.  How beautiful. I will carry those words with me. For me and for all of us....

May the meaning of your life continue to unfold in me

I think I just may be opening to the idea of FOLLOWING a dream...or of the PROCESS of it all. I used to just see the end...if I am not making xxxx by xxx then what good is it? I put no value on the doing of it, but only on the end product.
 A wise friend asked me why don't you share your process when we were talking about my art,we need to see process, she said, so we are reminded what goes into doing something. I had dismissed process,it is messy and imperfect and uneasy and scary and sometimes so damn awful that you wonder if you ever had a creative bone in your body. Other times you lose yourself in an amazing wonderful world of your very own making ...
Today, you can get anything you want almost immediately. The concept of waiting for something, having to drive to a library for information, having to wait for The Wizard of Oz to be aired near Halloween (man, I miss that-it was such a wonderful thing...we would count the days down and plan out the whole night...)is foreign to most of us.  We only show the best of us -even 'selfies' are carefully edited -and dear lord, if everyone is as happy and fulfilled as their facebook pages show, we would have no self help movement! Maybe its time to show the mess and then we would all heave a huge sigh of relief...because we are all messy and unsure and just making our way.....to what???  Maybe its time to enjoy the way and forget about GETTING there-on all levels

I need to clean today and fold laundry and re calk the shower and  hang the closet doors which all seem to have run off the rails at the same time.  But instead I cleaned my studio sketched and painted-do I feel quilt????  NOT A BIT.  How many times do we do what we want instead of what we HAVE to do-and where do the haves to actually get us, in the long run?  A cleaner home and a more resentful soul.........

When we moved to out present house I gave away a ton of my books.  Bill had been reluctant to move them all and I thought I should de- clutter and clean out my life ( as they say) to make room for new things.Once again I SHOULDED all over myself. I have missed every single volume that I gave away.  I have been in love with books since I first went to a library and discovered the magic.  I like having them around to dip into, to revisit my adventures, to be taken away when the world gets over whelming.  I went to Paddington 2 by myself last night and was reminded how much can be given, what worlds come alive, from one persons story, from ink on paper that sears its way into your heart and becomes part of you.  I have found myself re collecting old volumes, and finally FINALLY dragged up an old bookshelf from the basement to the living room and started filling it.  Carl Sandburg, Marge Piercy, Shakespeare, Paddington, Jane Austen, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan.......the old 50s girl books that I cherish.  De- clutter?  Why should I de -clutter-it made me lost and sad and lonely.  Every time I come down the stairs I see my books, and my Little Prince stuffed toy, my Winnie the Pooh, my Paddington and my heart is whole. 

On Dec 17th I woke up for the first time since my younger brothers death over a year and a half ago and felt I was part of life again.  Felt that I could breath and that the world was once more in focus-never the same, never as joy filled, never as bright but in focus again.  And with that came such great relief and ease of spirit.  Until that moment I think my spirit had died with his, although in grief you do not see that.  You do not see much, all you do is feel , and the feelings are something I would not wish on any one.

But that ease has given me a new outlook has shown me to DO WHAT I LOVE-regardless of outcome. To not care if it brings in income or that others may praise me or that I can label myself by my accomplishments. I now do the things I love because they fill me with joy, because when I am acting, creating art, reading a play, singing doing voice work I am whole, I am ME and that is, I think, the best we can wish for.

So here is my fav subject-old slavic women,working and living ordinary lives and leaving extraordinary marks on all sorts of lives-in humble pencil on a garbage bag....and I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May you do something today that fills your soul, may you realize the blessing it is that you just ARE.