On Being Brave

I haven't been making any art lately.  I don't know what's up with me. School has started, and I'm finding myself with more spare time than I've had in.....well.....ever.  But I cannot muster any art mojo. I can't seem to get inspired. 

I do remember that this happens periodically, though. There's an ebb and flow to my creativity.  I haven't figured out how to gather inspiration up and dole it out a little at a time.   I'm the same way with chocolate chip cookies.   I seem to have art binges where I'll go upstairs and knock out four or five paintings in a weekend. Then it'll dry up, and I'll be downstairs fretting about losing it for 3 weeks.  I guess it's just the way it's going to be.  But I need to find some creative outlets for these down times.  Maybe I should switch back to writing or poetry when visual arts leave me.  I don't know.  Anyway, I have done some things I needed to do during this time while I've been waiting for my mojo.  I've been brave.

AWESOME bracelet by my friend Kate at The Adopt Shoppe

I sent some work off on a trip in a cute box, which has been the only art I've done in weeks. I loved it.  I wish I'd gotten a few more photos of it before it went on its way. 

I took some other work on a little field trip to the fair.  That's right. I entered two pieces of artwork in the county fair.  I've never done anything like that before. Well, that's not entirely true.  When I was in third grade, I had artwork in the Brazoria County Fair when my entire class drew clowns on manilla construction paper and colored them with crayons, but that doesn't really count, now does it?   I don't really even know how it works. I guess I'll go visit them sometime next week and take my camera. I don't expect to win anything, but I'm trying to be brave and get out there in the public (where all those people are...eeek!)

I also wrote something creative and sent it off into the cosmos of the internet where, hopefully, someone will read it and like it.   I really don't know if anything will come of any of it, though......

Actually, now that I think about it, something has already come of it.

Last year, I printed out all the information for the fair, but couldn't muster the courage to deliver anything when the time came.  I didn't have the nerve to send any submissions last year.  Last year, I was even reluctant to let my coworkers and people in my community know that I do art on the side, that I have an Etsy shop where I sell it, or that I want to be an artist.

Maybe next year I'll be able to fully embrace that I already am one.

What is something on your list that you've been waiting for the courage to complete?  What's one thing you can do right now to get started on it?  Tell me about it!    I can't wait to hear how you were BRAVE!

May the good Lord give you courage to follow your dreams and lots of spare mojo.

<3 Lori

It's Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since I've been here.  I'm sorry.  I'm making things like a mad woman for the arts and crafts show I signed up to do in July, which seems far away on the calendar but is very close in my head.  So close it is sucking my breath from me.  When I take time to think about it, though, I feel pretty good that I now know I can create under pressure, something I was not at all sure of until now.

products piling up on the ping pong table

I've been posting some of the stuff I'm making on Etsy and on my Facebook page as a kind of bets- hedging method.  I'm sure all artists feel this way at one point or another..unsure if what they are making appeals to anyone but them (and their mom. :|)  I'm feeling some of that uncertainty as I pile up the things I'm making and when I go to Hobby Lobby for paint but come out with paint plus 10 new surfaces (albeit little ones!).  I really hope this works, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much in case it doesn't.  I'm trying to be brave.

And so we start another week and almost another month.  It's about this time of year that I get antsy for vacation.  We are not sure we are going to get one this year together since we'll have one high school graduate heading off on an as yet unknown adventure and another one entering high school.  Some friends of ours were headed off today to Myrtle Beach. I've never been there, but it's caused me to start thinking about a beach somewhere and to think rhyming beachy thoughts.

The Sea

I wish that I could 

See the sea.

And let the waves

Wash over me.

So very happy 

I would be

If only I could 

See the sea.

May the good Lord bless you until we meet again with things to do, people to love, and sights to see.


<3 Lori