Facebook brought to me this week a wonderful opportunity and I had to play along and pass this one on to you guys who may have not seen this yet. She asks you to participate in her creativity project.
Ronna Sarvas Weltman
http://www.facebook.com/#!/ronnasarvasweltman
Ronna was inspired by Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way and she highly recommends reading it.
She asks of you let her know how it worked. I am letting her know and I want you to consider committing and responding to her as well. She wants details? Okay details it is. This is going to be a long one I can feel it. You may want to go get a beverage and a snack if you plan on reading the whole thing lol. Please do enjoy some of her designs throughout the article.
I want you to stop reading if you think you want to commit to this exercise. I do not want my opinions to make you treat this exercise differently because of my views. My blog will still be here next week when you complete your journey and then we can share together.
SPOILER ALERT STOP READING NOW SPOILER ALERT STOP NOW!
So I went to the beginning of the creativity project after my five days of exercises and extra credit and began reading to try to answer any questions that she may have for me the guinea pig. I also gave a brief summary of the day’s exercise and what I felt that day I had accomplished.
I know that she is doing this to help us move the cobwebs and get at creativity. It can and will show on the pages if I am committed to this project.
If you take journaling seriously this is a great tool to get creativity flowing. I think that is why I have grown so much in the last year focusing and committing to this blog almost every week. I did my journaling at night because there is no way it was happening at my house in the morning. I have to be at work by 8:30 and I have a son who is 15 and does not want to go to camp. He fights me each and every morning all morning until we get to the bus stop. To top it off I am not, have never been or probably ever will be a morning person. So every day after work either right before or right after dinner I sat to do my journaling. There was one day I missed (life stepped in the way) but was able to make it up the next day leaving me one day behind in the project. In my eyes it is okay I completed the task and had an okay time doing it.
One of the things I truly loved was that she shared from her journal the day before. She showed me and others that it did not have to be about my art it could be life, dinner, dirty dishes whatever was on my mind at the moment. I wonder how long she has been journaling for and how committed she finds herself with the task? I also wonder how she feels when she misses a day and how she gets herself back on the journaling wagon? Sometimes no matter how we plan things happen and we just can not keep to our daily routine.
Here are the daily journaling recaps.
Day 1 Here is what I want….
I really do not want much I found. I want my son to be a healthy, happily married, adult and father. I want world peace ( I know I know it will never happen). I also want hubby home because I miss him. He can leave the clothes on the floor and for a few weeks I will be happy he is home to do it. Then I will get over it and it will start annoying me that he can never pick up after himself. Most of the other writing is me getting off track for art but not that way for this exercise. I learned I am my worst enemy and my biggest obstacle is me but hey I already knew that from the Art & Fear focus.
Day 2 Today I need to…..
I need to clean more, cook more, be calmer and I feel I need to make sacrifices to get where I want to be with my art. I am not sure what they are but I know I need to do it to be successful. The really funny one I wrote was one telling myself I need to stop being so excited. I had some wonderful news that day so I was on cloud nine and very very positive. I also noted I need to devote time every day to art or creating even if it was just touching clay to condition it.
Day 3 Aug 3 2011
I swear there was a prompt for day 3 but for the life of me I could not find it. The only thing on the top of my page was the date (which I sure hope was the right date) so I gave up looking I am sure it was right there but I could not see it. So I settled on this
Short Line Or Long One??
I have a super short line to hubby coming home (gone since June 26th)he will be here next week. I have a short line to the clay swap mailing that will be Friday morning. And then I started focusing on the project from Ronnas side and what she could gain from this. As I see it she has a lot to gain. Just the satisfaction from helping one person gives you the juice you need to go for a long time. Positive feedback just makes you want to create more and go further.
As the writee if I do not commit to this daily journaling I will get nothing from this exercise. Well I will get something but the reward will be greater if I journal daily. Focus! Final sentence for the day is “See I am focusing this is cool”.
Day 4 You can not create if you are afraid of making mistakes
I thought it very funny that I kept to clay this day guess I did not feel like having a life moment. Many many mistakes but I also listed some of my favorite pieces and one of my favorite quotes “Your style comes from your mistakes”. As artists to learn a particular technique we must try to replicate other artists in some way but our style comes from us making mistakes along the journey. Made a lot of mistakes and had some wonderful stylish moments with them as well.
Day 5 My constraints/freedoms/new path
Day five went the way I guess it was supposto that day in my life. I thought I knew what the answers were. I had it all planned out retiring next year at 44 giving me time to focus on my art and craft. One phone call from hubby before I left to work changed everything. Now I face working from two studios in two different countries. What time I thought I would have to focus has now just turned into something else as life often does. I am not sure what exactly the new obstacles are that are standing in my way but I got to tell you I am just going to knock em all down!
The more risk you take the more satisfaction you will get in the end. This experiment is a risk. Was I disappointed? Not really. I did question how the exercises would be able to help the average Joe. In preparing for the post I re read carefully what she is doing and realized that this would be like a warm up for a day focused creativity. I think this is a great way to start the day.
Too rigid? Not enough structure? If you look at how this will be used with day long focus on creativity I think this part is a great way to focus on the craft, life, loosing weight etc. Either way if it is life they are writing about they are moving the clutter so they can focus on art. If focused on art then you gain by knowing what your next steps are, ideas, what you want to do and where you want to go. You just kind of work through it while journaling. Or for that day maybe you focus on that 10 pounds you want to lose.
I now realize that is why she wanted this done first thing in the morning. She wants to make sure the average Joe can think like this in the morning, and I can just imagine the effect it can have on the rest of your day. She wants us to write. Some people write some do not. For me this was an easy task I love to write. I can not imagine if I had a writing fear how hard this exercise could have been for me. How blocked would I have been by the fear to write? In order for this to be successful you need people who are positive, motivated, and not unwilling to change. This is not to say that someone can not be motivated to change by your exercises but they have to be willing to go there in the first place. I did not really have any expectations going into this. I saw it as a wonderful opportunity to learn something that may help me next year when I retire. Something that would help me to better focus on my art. I really think that daily journaling can be nothing but positive and wish that is something I could commit to. Honestly right now in my life it is all I can do to make sure I continue to update my blog weekly.
She asks us what have we learned? I think she already knows how this works on teens and as long as she has willing adults she will get feedback from those she has helped. She will be able to change someones life. It may come in the form of an e-mail months down the road from a sender who she does not remember personally because it was a large group, but she will change someones life if she continues down this path I can feel it in my bones!
I think the hardest part of being creative is finding and committing to the time you need each and every day. Whether it is journaling or time in the studio each and every day.
She says that “It is a comfort because there is nothing more reassuring to me than realizing my own wisdom” she also says “Living your life that is your act of creativity”.
This week for us in the Northeast it has all been about hurricane preparedness. Everyone went crazy at the stores buying what they thought they would need and got ready to batten down the hatches for a monumental storm. In our house that meant bringing in the Gardenias. I walk by them every day and I never really notices how large the leaves were on this one.
