I signed up for an e course on a whim. Trawling the Internet, as one does, I came across someone called Jani Franck who charmed me into doing one of her courses for arty farty types. The one I chose to do is about accessing and unleashing your creativity. It also usefully provides a community of like minded people by connecting the students via a Facebook page.
Through a series of downloadable materials and online videos there are prescribed exercises to do. Before I say anything about those
let me just state for the record that these kind of things are apt, in my opinion, to bring out the preciousness in folk, myself included.
So when I say we are encouraged to identify and describe our inner artist I do so all too aware of how this sounds and what it may provoke.
However! There has been some benefit.
I now know that My Inner Artist ( hereafter known as Mia) needs chocolate!
And she needs an organised friend.
For organised friend read moi! The thing is I discovered that all the chores that create order and structure to my life and my home,that I do with reluctance and little commitment, actually fuel my creative life rather than keep me from it!!!! Which enables me to do housework with gusto. Who'd have thought?
When I say discovered I suppose I mean I have had a shift in my perception.
I think shifts in perception is what this course is all about.
On instruction I have written a letter to myself. Weirdly enjoyable. Can't divulge the contents.......
....and been documenting the everyday.
I thought my biggest challenge here would be to document the walk from the car park to my place of work where I use ' those skills that pay the bills'. A short distance that often feels like the slow walk to the gallows because it is so far removed from where I really want to be. Tad over dramatic.
My heart sinks every time.
Though again it's all about perception.
I feel that on these days Mia languishes like some unstrung puppet back in my studio while I go about the "serious"stuff of making a living.
This parking meter has a terribly solid, sentinel, quality that silently pronounces the Monday doom.
Like a mean school prefect that says 'there will be no fun from this point on".
But when I looked and bothered to record what I actually saw my heart lifted.
The sun shone down creating some wonderful shadows that under other circumstances would have been overlooked.
It isn't just the noticing the details that is important. You can notice and so easily let the fleeting image slip away. Locking it down, recording it in some way or perhaps just noticing and being fully present in the moment seems to change the colour and feel of the day.
I realised that Mia comes with me wherever I go. Yay!
Getting precious now. And borderline schizophrenic!! But I am comfortable with that.
The course is linked heavily to Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey so references to archetypes abound. I do find this way of thinking immensely helpful.
Alongside all of this 'homework' I have been continuing to accrete
And making another doll.
And filling sardine tins.
And generally having a jolly good time. Hope you all have enjoyed the week and will enjoy the week to come.
Xx
