Category: Creativity / Art / Design
Creative Market’s Freebies of the Week!
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Creative Market’s Freebies of the Week!
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Lift Your Spirit with Some Creativity
It’s the facts. Our creator made us to be creative. No matter who you are, you are creative, regardless of what you may think. If you think you aren’t, then you just haven’t found your niche yet.
It can be difficult to find time for creativity in today’s hectic pace, but when you force yourself to slow down and take the time, what a difference it can make. This week has been a crazy one for 
me, and I almost didn’t make it to this class at Art Centric Studio in Lakeland, but I am so glad I did. An evening spent creating and socializing with other creatives was just what the doctor ordered. I can’t begin to express how good I felt when I left this class.
If you aren’t familiar with Art Centric Studio, check out their website. They are partnering with Randy Glotfelty of Jen-Ken Kilns for these Mug-A-Month classes (the mugs will be fired and glazed for us at Jen-Ken too!), and they also offer painting classes for adults and children.
Jen-Ken also offers classes, in glass (I have enjoyed a class there myself and am blessed to have a Jen-Ken glass kiln), as well as pottery throwing. Looking at their current offerings, I could keep a smile on my face for a long, long time! Now if I can just add a few more hours to every day …
Shalom!
June 10: “A Nook of Your Own”
“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.” Virginia Woolf
Sara tells us that in 1928, Virginia Woolf taught that women, in order to create, need privacy, peace, and personal incomes. Sara’s 
chapter today has so many aha tidbits for me.
Five years ago, my husband blessed me with the opportunity to quit my office job and stay at home full time to create – to write, to play and record music, to paint. There was just one problem: I never seemed able to take full advantage of it. It seemed no sooner was I home full time, then I was plagued with one health issue after another, and I never found my way to making my dreams a reality. Eventually I went back to work.
Since that time, Danny has created an art studio for me. A bedroom in our home was transformed into a place of my own where I could create art and jewelry, paint, write … anything my heart desires. With my own space and a door to shut out the world, I have finally found my ability to focus and be creative as I had once dreamed of doing. Continue reading “June 10: “A Nook of Your Own””
What a Wonderful World It Would Be …
I pulled up an old Super Soul Sunday episode last night. It was Oprah interviewing Steven Pressfield. A prolific writer, he was exactly who I was needing to hear from as I work at getting myself in my studio to write on a more regular basis.
Steven talked about what keeps us from doing whatever it is we are meant to do – whether you are a writer, an artist, or an entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter. When there is something that you know that you know you were put on this earth to do, why don’t you do it? Why are there so many miserable people out there, working in jobs that they know they don’t belong in? Steven calls it Resistance. I call it the enemy. The closer we get to being in the zone of where God put us here to be, the harder the enemy works to keep us from it. Continue reading “What a Wonderful World It Would Be …”
Rediscovering One of My Past Loves
Tonight’s dinner was so delicious, I feel guilty for eating it alone. When I first embarked on my quest to eat healthier a year ago, I thought I would never enjoy eating again. Thank goodness for Wildtree. With the help of Wildtree, I have learned that you don’t have to eat unseasoned, boring food in order to put all natural ingredients into your body. Through the journey with these products, I have also rediscovered my love of cooking and creating new recipes.
Tonight’s recipe was inspired by some recent online classes I have enjoyed. I want to not only offer my Wildtree customers a catalog of healthy products; I want to offer them knowledge and fresh ideas for their families. Apple balsamic salmon over a rich tomato sauce, paired with zucchini Carpaccio and gluten free gnocchi, is what was on the menu tonight. Continue reading “Rediscovering One of My Past Loves”
February 20: “The Authentic Dig”
“Sometimes a person has to go back, really back – to have a sense, an understanding of all that’s gone to make them – before they can go forward.” Paule Marshall
If I think back to when I was young, to when I was a teenager who allowed herself time to just be, it is easy to see the common threads between the girl I was then and the woman I am now.
“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order.” Eudora Welty
Though I have 52 years’ worth of memories, the ones that come to the forefront if I stop to think back are the passions that I had as a teen and still have today. I can still see and feel the thick, light green, spiral bound notebook that I used to do my writing, the poetry and short stories coming to life on those lined pages. I can see its tattered cover and smell the pages of that book that I held so close to my heart, carrying it with me so that it was always available when I was inspired and had the opportunity to write. I regret to say that I no longer have it and have no idea what became of it. But what I do have is its memory, still dear to my heart, a reminder that writing is indeed an integral part of who I am and what I was put on this earth to do.
“What you are searching for is a pattern of personal, authentic pleasures and preferences.” Sarah Ban Breathnach
Close behind the memory of that notebook is a memory of the hours I spent at the piano, so many hours in fact that my poor family would ask me to please stop practicing, as the piano shared the living room with our television. I practiced with joy, never growing weary of it as I worked to perfect the song I was learning. My passion for it has waned somewhat in adulthood though, with the life and responsibilities of a wife and mother getting in the way. After having lost so many years of playing, it is difficult to get the skill level back that once was there. I still enjoy it though, especially since Danny bought me a beautiful baby grand a few years ago.
It’s funny how things start flooding back as you go through this process, memories that you had entirely forgotten. I used to buy graph paper and draw layouts for houses, my passion for architecture starting at a young age as well. I had forgotten about those drawings until just now, and it makes me smile to know that I have come full circle to those things that came naturally to me when I was young. Here I am at 52, working in the real estate business to work with architecture that I have a passion for, and writing more than I have since I was a very young woman.
The transformation has truly begun my friends, and it feels good. I hope that yours has begun as well. I would love to hear about it!
Shalom!
February 8: “You Are an Artist”
“Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about … Say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.” Jalai Ud-Din Rumi
I’ve known it. I’ve known it for as long as I can remember. But like Sarah says, I felt uncomfortable thinking of myself that way for most of my life. I was a quirky, insecure kid, always afraid to be myself, afraid of being different. I always had creative passion. In high school, I really wanted to take shop and art. I didn’t have the confidence to take an art class. I was afraid I wouldn’t be good enough. And back then, shop wasn’t a requirement for girls, and in fact, no “cool” girls would have dreamed of entering that dirty, greasy world where the “burnouts” hung out. I didn’t understand that participating in something like that, something that was considered far from mainstream, was cool.
“With every choice, every day, you are creating a unique work of art. Something that only you can do. The reason you were born was to leave your own indelible mark on your personal world. This is your authenticity.” Sarah Ban Breathnach
The beauty of growing up is learning that our uniqueness is cool. It takes some of us much longer than others. I finally took a painting class when I was in my late 30s, and discovered I wasn’t half bad with some guidance on how to get started. But it wasn’t until my late 40s that I really began to appreciate the coolness of my uniqueness. I may be a bit quirky, but I have discovered that I am not so unorthodox compared to my business contemporaries as I once thought. I think we all have a bit of quirkiness inside of us, and I know I for one really appreciate – no, enjoy – the quirkiness in others. It is so much more entertaining than someone too straight-laced, isn’t it? Your unique work of art may not be art in the way we think of it, but whatever your unique gifts are, they are art, for they are something that exists only because of you.
“If you are willing to step out in faith and take a leap in the dark, you will discover that your choices are as authentic as you are. What is more, you will discover that your life is all it was meant to be: a joyous sonnet of thanksgiving.” SBB
What are your special gifts? Are you using them to become your most authentic self? If not, 2014 is a great time to start!
Shalom!