Make things to know yourself

Here's a new little sketch from my sketchbook. I won't bore you with much to say about it because I don't know what to say. 


In Austin Kleon's great post about "How to Steal like an Artist", he says you don't have to know who you are before you create something. He says make things to know yourself. So I'm hoping some larger picture forms from all the disparate pieces.


Hope everyone is having a good Monday. We are on the mend here from last weeks rain and fevers.

Fancy Dad

Here is another drawing of my dad. I did this one and the one from Monday's post probably about 7 years ago. I made up some fancy clothes for him to give him a aristocratic look, just for fun. 

Anyhow, the creativity isn't flowing this week. We have a girl with a summer virus and seem to be surrounded by cranky calls and bosses (for Matt). So we are all a bit on edge this week. "Tangled" is starting for the 4th time in 2 days and the rain is still coming down... wish us luck and sunlight.

Happy New Year

So on my last post I wrote about adult fairy tales: all the movies and books that tell us there is a special destiny out there (in these tales the soulful career is the treasure, but true love is a close second). The problem, I think. is that they set us up for disappointment. Just like Cinderella, we all want to be princesses (or best selling authors).

But let's back up. Not long ago I was taking to my dad about my daughter. I was telling him how our activities together are mostly about bonding and playing and that I am not too worried about teaching her skills and such. I said I am much more interested in her being happy than I am in how smart she is at three years old. And she is a happy kid. In my dad's infinite wisdom, he said "being happy is smart." (Isn't that great?). And being happy happens when you don't take yourself too seriously, right?

I see these thoughts as related and related to New Years. This year: no resolutions, no goals and no struggles. This year I'm not going to look for some soulful destiny the adult fairy tales are full of. I'm going to be the kind of happy my dad was talking about. Come on, let's get on with it!

Oh, I almost forgot- Happy New Year to you!

Fairy Tales

I think that I have written in an earlier post that I am knee deep in fairy tales and princess stories these days. I have seen Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty countless times in the last six weeks. So imagine my surprise when I put L down for a nap and settle in to watch my own movie, "Eat, Prey, Love" and find another fairy tale. The thoughts I had about the movie were similar to those I had after reading "Traveling with Pomegranates" by Sue Monk Kidd (see earlier post). There seems to be a theme here that involves self involvement, angst, wallow, travel and find your destiny. Yes these are true life stories and the writers find bliss, a best selling book and get booked on Oprah, but can we really expect that our self obsession and focus on our sadness will lead to happiness? Listen, no one looks more beautiful suffering than Julia Roberts, but these stories set us up for disappointment. Personally, I am ending my relationship with wallowing and suffering. What can I do today that makes me happy? And not a kind of happy that is spilling out for others to note and envy. A kind of happy where you forget yourself because you are interested in other things.

Enough pontificating for one day. I have some more to say related to New Years, but I will spare you for now...

Have a good one.

Carving out our frontier acre

So there are two influences for today's post. The first is a quote from the Sue Monk Kidd book I wrote about earlier. She says, "I start to imagine the hearth not only as a place of being, but of creativity. Why couldn't it stand for tending to the present moment and also for the fiery combustion of creative work." The other influence was a book I was flipping through on early american homes. The introduction described the settlers who were confronted with the frontier and had to carve out a way of life. They brought with them cultural biases of their European heritage and could decide which ideas and conventions they wanted to preserve and which they wished to escape.

I am on a domestic kick at the moment. And I think tending to our domestic (for lack of a better word) lives can have more influence than we credited it with. The financial, social and emotional habits that get started in the home have a huge influence on the world at large. So let's draw up to our hearth- get warmth, nourishment and a fiery source for creativity. And let's carve out our acre. What will we preserve? What will we escape? And how are we to live? Any one in?