Snippets and Snatches

I was out of space in my studio/writing room and the longer it took me to accomplish its reorganization, the more it was bugging me out of my mind.  It was a long time coming and though a previous picture of my partial progress encouraged me to finish, it still took awhile this summer.  Here is the other half of my sanctuary, all the piles gone, the space I’ve been enjoying beyond words the past few weeks.  Finally, my creative side has fertile ground in which to be inspired!

This quest for a room of my own is a process that has taken years, really. I went from a desk in the livingroom of our first home when the kids were babies then toddlers, to claiming the intended formal diningroom in our current home during their school years, to this spare bedroom turned studio with a door that actually closes to keep the noise out.  Ironically, there isn’t much noise now that the nest is empty, so I don’t necessarily need it now like I needed it then.  My creative space was always in the midst of the hullabaloo.  Nevertheless, I will enjoy this room of my own since I have wanted it and waited for it for so long. I still have two dogs and a cat causing hullabaloos that make me glad I have a door to close when the time is right and the creative juices are stirring.

 

Illustration, pen and ink with watercolor for Tilly the Churchyard Cat.

I wish I could toss a penny into a pond like this and have my wish come true.  I wish I could draw a cup of cool water from a healing spring and give it to someone special who needs to be healed.  I wish and more importantly, I pray.  Both are my heart’s cry for God to stir the healing waters with His Spirit and bless my dear, sweet mom with a drink from His cup of Life.  She is in the hospital again, fighting the battle of her life against cancer.  I hope she wouldn’t mind my writing this and asking for good wishes and prayers for her restoration.  Many people think their mothers are the most special, the best of the best and that is a true blessing if one feels that way about their mom.  My life has been blessed beyond measure by her unconditional love, constant support, positive outlook, her faith in God, her strength and will to live and her giving nature that cares more for the good of others than herself but in balance with taking care of herself.

I can’t know God’s will in this situation but I do pray for His will and perfect timing in all things.  I know she is held in the palm of His Hand and I do hope that her time on earth will be prolonged so we can enjoy her presence in our lives for as long as possible and so she can meet my grandaughter who will enter the world around Christmas!  Sweet Jesus, please have mercy, bless and heal our mom, grandma, your daughter Lois.  Her five children (ten counting devoted sons’ and daughters-in-law) and their families that include nineteen (soon to be twenty-one so really, totaling twenty-seven counting spouses) grandchildren and six great grandchildren (soon to be seven) are all praying for her healing and trust in Your good will no matter what.

“The Shepherd knows what pastures are best for His Sheep, and they must not question nor doubt, but trustingly follow Him.  Perhaps He sees that the best pastures for some of us are to be found in the midst of opposition and earthly trials.  If He leads you there, you may be sure they are green for you, and you will grow and be made strong by feeding there.  Perhaps He sees that the best waters for you to walk beside will be raging waves of trouble and sorrow.  If this should be the case, He will make them still waters for you, and you must go and lie down beside them, and let them have all their blessed influences upon you.”  Hannah Whitall Smith

Art therapy provides breakthrough for autistic students.  This is a great piece on how art therapy can help kids with autism.  I miss working with kids!

VanGogh   Whoever created this wonderfully inspiring display of  Van Gogh’s work set to the haunting voice of Don Mclean should know that it has uplifted my spirit countless times!  Enjoy!!

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Some years ago my husband and I led a youth art project at a local arts festival called MOJA.  We called it We Are All Pieces in the Puzzle of Life and it was a very engaging and interactive community arts project.  I have been thinking about the many ways the arts have the power to inspire creativity in children and to build self-confidence. I am in the midst of summer arts camps at work and as the kids painted their sets for a play I remembered the puzzle art project.  I am enjoying the kids, even if I am tired from all the messy fun of making art!  While I don’t think I could teach children all day long, it sure helps me appreciate those who do!  The joy of watching children learn and the adventures that result from their boundless energy is the reward.  It’s not just a trite saying that children are the future, they truly are!

Children Before the Ravaging.  This is a powerful article that I hope you’ll read, a reblog from Image Journal by Tony Woodlief.

 My question:  Is organizing good for the soul?

In my full-time day job as an arts coordinator I am always organizing art materials, artists, and details ad nauseum to help provide arts programs, mostly for kids.  While I love this work my patience does wear thin at certain times of the year that are overwhelmingly busy and I realize it is because I have little energy left over to take care of my artist self and my creative space.  I am always striving for balance, good Libra that I am, but I believe it is very possible to obsessively over-organize and thereby squelch creativity by constricting the free spirit with an imbalanced need to control.   I am happy to say that I am making progress in my studio after having combined two rooms of my art and writing stuff into one!  This side of the room is the art corner.   The other side is for writing but it isn’t done yet.

Yesterday, tired as I was, cleaning up after week one of visual arts camp for kids, I thought how much I am in my element being around kids and art supplies.  I loved doing art with my own kids on the kitchen table and working as an art therapist.   However, the struggle to balance giving to others with taking care of the Self is something I have to work at every day.  I have lost sight of that balance so many times in my life.  Nevertheless, organizing the art supplies at work inspired me to go home to my room of my own and finish making it an irresistible place for me to be and to create!  If I can organize at work, surely I can organize at home!  You’d think so, but for a few months I’ve just been overwhelmed by the piles I didn’t know what to do with and just didn’t have the energy to face.  It has done my soul good to tackle one pile at a time, a little bit at a time, and though I am not finished yet, I am getting there.  I hope the unclogging of my creative space will open up the unclogging of my artistic soul!  I hope it is the beginning of a rebirth of a long suppressed desire to honor the artist and writer within; to give her space and time to work!

Finally, I just might be ready to read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.  When I picked it up years ago it was smothered under the demands of working and  mothering and ended up on the bookshelf.  Virginia Woolf’s book title is a metaphor on what it would take for women writers of that era to achieve their potential in the male-dominated literary world of 1929.  Even now in 2012, it is still a struggle to find the time and space in the midst of working and mothering to devote full-time hours to writing or art.  She said, “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”  And that is really just the tip of the iceberg for her thesis written at a time when women had just been granted the right to vote nine years earlier.  We’ve come so far in some ways and yet I have so much to learn!

It has been quite awhile since Queen Callie has made her presence known in my blog. I live with her every day and see her as part of the house like the same green couches we’ve had so long we barely notice them. But the Queen will not be ignored! She darts in front of me when I first wake up and walk bleary-eyed down the hall to put her food bowl within reach before I go to the kitchen. If I don’t listen right then she meets me at the glass paned door between the dining room and kitchen and meowhines while I’m making the coffee until I obey her and give her the food bowl. By the time I’m ready to land carefully on the green couch with my coffee in my  big black souvenir mug from New Orleans, she has taken her place on her royal throne above my shoulders on the back of the couch to look down on me and glare over my shoulder at my computer screen or my journal pages, watching my fingers type or my pen scrawl across the page. If I don’t pet her soon enough she lowers a paw to my shoulder and flexes her claws INTO my skin, snagging my white robe, and hurting me like shot needles demanding attention.

Of course, the world revolves around HER and I am her servant here to grant her every wish. If I just give in and put my hand up to stroke her head and scratch behind her ears the world is a beautiful place and she purrs her contentment loudly. But when I stop petting she starts jabbing and poking until I pet her some more. I don’t mind loving her, really, but sometimes she irritates me or hurts me too much and I have to scream at her to get out of the room just to get some peace or finish a sentence. I know some people like this, too, so demanding and self-absorbed that even the sound of their voice sets me off (remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer hears Mary Hart’s voice on the tv and goes bonkers?).  Like a cat under threat of attack I arch my back in anger, the hairs on my spine stand on end, and I either pounce first or scram out of the room to hide. I think it’s called the fight or flight response and since I don’t like to fight I’d rather run away.

Anger is a signal of an impending threat, perceived or real, and though I don’t like to be angry sometimes you just have to respect yourself and stand up to the demanding queens of the world throwing their piercing jabs at whoever will stand there and take their poison. When I regain my composure I remind myself that hurting people hurt people and that I’m not perfect either. That doesn’t excuse their behavior, offensive as it may be, but it helps me forgive and have compassion. Queen Callie may THINK she rules me but I will play her game only if I decide to and no matter how deep her claws dig into me she can’t draw blood unless I stay there long enough to let her.

There are few things more enjoyable to a book lover (okay, I admit it…book addict) than to be in a room full of books and authors, where even the booksellers are usually pleasant.  While this transplanted Yankee to the deep south often feels like a fish out of water, this is one place in South Carolina where I KNOW I belong!  I also admit that I’m a cheap reader on the prowl for bargain books, not the true book collector willing to pay hundreds for rare finds that are mint condition signed copies.  I’m sure that’s a relief to my husband who stayed at home with the animal children so I could escape to get my fix in the literary world for the weekend at the South Carolina Book Festival in Columbia.  I spent the afternoon in a sea of hundreds of people all with similar goals that revolve around books and their mysterious creators.  My first stop was to be Pat Conroy’s talk but when I arrived the only seat left was on the back row in a room packed with at least five hundred people.  I sat there for a few minutes and just before the talk was to start I had a brilliant idea…if this room is FULL then the exhibitors hall (where all the books are for sale!) is probably EMPTY!  I had a change of heart and slipped out against the tide of people coming in before I even got a glimpse of the beloved author.  Sorry, Pat, I’ll catch you on ETV sometime.

It was a good decision because it was possible to navigate the aisles and linger at booths without bumping into folks or diving for the books I wanted.  I did find Pat Conroy’s new book (The Water is Wide) which I had on my mental list to buy and several others that seemed to be calling my name.  A few were calling others’ names like Pedro and the unborn first grandchild of my youngest child whose name we don’t know for sure yet!  That was an exciting feeling thinking of spoiling a grandchild with books!  I knew it was meant to be when I opened the page to “F is for Frankie…” from the book My Name Is by Alice Lyne (Frankie is, of course, the father-to-be!).  Later, when I got back to the hotel I opened it to “P is for Pedro, my best friend’s name is Pablo, we live in Puerto Rico, and we sell parrots.”  (And Pedro is, of course, my husband and grandpa-to-be from Puerto Rico!)  I MISS reading to my babies and I can’t wait to read to my grandchildren!!! 

This get-away comes at a perfect time on the heels of working the nine day arts festival which ended last week and was so exhausting I barely enjoyed Mother’s Day.  This feels like a retreat and I plan to savor every minute, including this wonderful hotel room where the book festival treasures await me and hopefully some writing too…I’m working on a story that has been simmering for years!  Who knows what tomorrow’s day at the book festival holds?  I did enter a drawing for a Kindle…wouldn’t that be an amazing surprise since I have so far avoided buying one?