Fun Moves

 

My word of the year is Move. I picked it because with all the physical and emotional challenges thrown my way last year, I really felt the need to move on. Maybe the truth is I was desperate to move away from all the pain, shock, and fear that dominated my life last year. 

I’ve learned it takes more time to heal than I thought. I’m not a patient person. But looking back, I can see I am moving forward and healing is happening. 

Making is fun. 

I love to make things. Working with my hands is calming and centering and, well fun too. I’m grateful for the chance to create almost everyday. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, either. Baking cookies. Crocheting hats or blankets or pillows. Even making a flower arrangement is fun. 

My husband found his fun this week, too. He’s been building a radio controlled plane! I’m so happy to see him having fun putting together this complicated working plane. 

This week, I had a new idea I wanted to make out of clay. Don’t ask me exactly what they are because I’m not sure what to call them. I just saw it in my mind’s eye and let my hands do the work. I started out just making one but before the week was out, I’d make three. 

Moving from pain to play. 

I’ve still got some health issues to resolve but it’s moving along. At last, I see a bright, sunny light at the end of this difficult tunnel. And I think one of the most important factors in getting well is finding something to do that’s fun. 

Clay is play for me. It’s soothing and quiet and soft. And creating something new from a slab of cool clay is, well, just fun. 

Moving through change is a challenge

It takes time, day by day

To find a way to play

To discover some new fun moves. 

Flow

I love the Oregon coast. I haven’t been there in over 4 years. In fact, I haven’t been anywhere, really in two years. I’ve walked my beloved park. Visited local farms and wineries. Gone grocery shopping. But I haven’t really taken a trip or a vacation. 

I know I’m not alone. Covid, the Delta variant have kept us all close to home, worried and fearful. Add a death in the family and I needed to retreat or find a retreat to soothe my soul, breathe in deeper and let out all the surrounding sorrow. 

Waves

Just watching the waves move in and out. Foaming and folding and glistening. I could feel a deep calm rolling over me. The sound of the surf quieted my mind. The push and pull inside me gave itself over to the ocean. 

Gazing at the sun moving downward towards the ocean brought up so many feelings. Hope. Sadness. Love. Fear. Connection. Loneliness. Support. And joy. Yes, as the sun slowly lowered,    I could feel my soul filling up with warmth. 

Play

Taking my sweet doggy to the beach is always fun. But because he was trained from puppyhood to be a guide dog, he was always on a leash. This is his comfort zone. Ok, I’ll admit, mine too. We found a small, inlet beach area with only a few people. And I decided, it was time to take the chance. 

He loved it! He splashed. Barked. Met another dog. He ran back and forth between my husband and I playing monkey in the middle. He got lots of treats each time he ran to us. I was so excited to see him sniff the waves and run. Joyously playing. 

Mud

Art making is my therapy. I need to put my hands in clay to clean the mud off my heart and soul. This last week, I made a decision. Even though my kitchen is still a mess, I needed to make a mess with clay to feel better. 

So I threw. Even if these bowls don’t turn out, it doesn’t matter. Even if they sit on my studio shelf and dry and crack and never get glazed, it’s ok. Because just the act of wedging, throwing, pulling and shaping the clay is an act of hope. An act of balancing then with now. Centering me. And allowing the future to flow. 

  

Cookies & Crayons

 

Remember when all you wanted was a cookie fresh from the oven? Opening a new box of crayons? Smooshing play dough in your hands? When the joy of smells, colors and textures made your day, or maybe just the moment because you quickly moved on to another toy or taste or texture?

Your world was full of mystery and magic and motion that you probably don’t even remember now. Although that’s all part of the process of growing up and becoming, I know there’s a part of me that misses those simple joys. 

Playtime. 

One of the best things about being a parent and grandparent is reliving childhood fun. Getting to kick a ball across the room. Scribbling on a big roll of brown paper. Smelling fresh play dough and tempera paints. 

Yes, as an artist, I do get to create in my studio. But too often, the joy of play gets smothered by sales expectations, product perfectionism and business management. Questions like: Do I need a new website? How can I take better photos of my work? What more can I do to increase sales and visibility on my Etsy shop? What new items can I make and add?

Time for a cookie. Or crayon. Or both. 

Days with Cieran and Meyer not only bring back good childhood memories, they make me stop. Take time to not just taste the cookies, but lick the spoon, my fingers and the chocolate on the edge of my mouth.

Let myself smell the waxy scent of a new box of crayons and marvel at all the colors tucked in rows like a choir singing. I get to watch and remember dipping a paintbrush into the thick tempera paint and smearing it down the paper. Being just as happy with the paint on the paper as the water turning different colors washing the brush. The more muddy the water, the better. 

We say, it’s just child’s play but it isn’t. Watch a child play. Really watch. What do you see? It’s not just paint on paper. It’s the smell, the feel, the brush, the smoothness, thickness, color, in that paper world. Look and see that little person being in the moment. 

Spending time playing with little ones is pure joy.

But it’s also a reminder of the power of pure creativity. 

The power of pure Being. Here and Now. 

Happy Thoughts.

As I sit here on the window seat, a cool, sweet breeze flows past me.  The sky is blue.  The clouds are white and fluffy just perfect for seeing faces and animals and daydreaming about the stories of their lives in the sky.  

Do they know it's summer? Are they bored just floating up there?  Do they ever do anything?

As a child, summer was vacation.  Summer was riding my bike through the woods all day.  Skating up and down all the streets in my neighborhood.  Swimming all day in the neighborhood pool.  Going to the store to buy candy.  Summer was reading on my friend's covered patio from the stack of books I collected weekly from the local library.  Learning to embroider from my friend's mother.  Summer was playing ghost in the graveyard after dinner in the dark.  Or playing the Game of Life.  Little did I know that Summers for the rest of my life would never be the same.

Long, lost summer.

It's a slow process from child to adult and summer gets lost along the way with tricycles and stuffed animals and Nancy Drew mystery books.  We all go through it.  We go to work.  We have children.  We watch them play all summer as we fold the laundry and make sandwiches.  I loved watching my children play make believe in the backyard.  I helped them make pirate ships and castles to sail away to their very own wonderlands in the clouds of imagination.

Now, I want mine back.  But is it even possible?

As I sit on the window seat feeling the fresh, sweet breeze I'm curious.  And I wonder, why can't I have my summer back? Why not be a modern day, female Peter Pan?  Travel the world in my imagination where I am captain of my own ship.  Where is Tinkerbell when you need her?

Poof. 

I am captain of my own ship.  Yes, I am.  I walk in the woods everyday in my own neighborhood.  I still read book after book, usually at night.  Instead of embroidery, I throw and paint clay.  And every night, I sit on the window seat and watch the sun go down eagerly awaiting the time when the sky turns Maxfield Parrish blue with rose silhouetting the hills and trees in the distance.   

Think happy thoughts.

My summer isn't lost after all.  I can sit on the window seat and read and sip ice tea and look at the clouds and dream. Maybe what I need to remember is not my childhood summers but Summer's now.  And how easy it really is to just sit and be.

Happy Thoughts.  That's all it takes, doesn't it? And, maybe a little help from Tinkerbell.

Field Trip.

It was a dark and rainy day.  The bowls were still too wet to trim and the clay was turning to mush in my hands.  At the wheel in my damp, cold garage all I was getting was cranky.  After I gave up on clay for the day, I knew just how to spend my time.

Take a field trip.

On a rainy day like today, it seems like an odd thing to do.  I know.  But what I've found out along this sometimes bumpy creative road is field trips are not only necessary, they are vital to keeping the vitality coming in especially when it feels like the inspiration light is going out.  

So, I forced myself to back a way from the wheel.  Set the wet clay down. 

I put on my boots and parka, wound a scarf around my neck and headed out into the famous Portland rain.  I had a bunch of little errands that I'd put off, so now it was the perfect time to run them. Off to home store for salt for my salt grinder.  Into the art store for a bottle of clear glaze.  

Down the street to that lovely haven of silliness and tactile wonderland: Craft Warehouse.  I wandered the isles, looking at mini fairy lands complete with twinkle lights.  Coloring books for adults aimed at encouraging 'mindfulness'.  

Journals and wall art from the silly to the snarky.  

And my favorite, a glue gun wonderland of pompous, beads, and pipe cleaners in all those happy childlike colors.  

Heaven really is in the small things.

I roamed the baby store for a new outfit for my granddaughter and played with the cutest monkey finger puppet.  I almost bought it, but truth be told, it would have been for me.  You see, she's too little to play with it yet.  

But there's the key: play.  I forget this too often to count.

I get all busy and all business and all work.  And no play.  I know it and you know it and we all know it, but in our culture it gets pushed aside so much, we all forget the importance and value of play.  Recess isn't just about running around a field, it's about so, so much more.  It's about breathing in the fresh air, feeling the rain on our faces and walking in puddles.  And getting out side of our heads and getting a little mindless.  

Field trips are a chance to take a trip beyond our working day, see new things, have an adventure, smile, laugh and yes, even play with a monkey finger puppet. (As long as no one is looking,)

Play and New Clay and New Ideas.

I've been using one porcelain clay exclusively for the last few years.  I chose it because I wanted to work in porcelain and needed a cone 6 porcelain clay.  It's been a learning curve with many bumps and cracks and bloat and unexpected shrinkage.  

I thought it was my problem.  It turns out it was the clay's problem.

As a newbie to porcelain and functional work, I wanted to hide my struggles and problems.  But by opening up and confessing my frustration to fellow clay artists, I got the help I needed.  Over and over, I was told it was the clay and it was time to change.

The new clay made my day. 

Throwing was a relaxing and delicious experience.  This clay was soft and smooth as silk.  Throwing felt light and easy.  Pulling up the clay was so fast, I couldn't believe it.  It definitely took a more delicate touch, maybe because it was softer and fresher.  It just felt better.  So did I.

New ideas sometimes come in the most unexpected ways.

I took myself on a field trip last week to the newly opened Craft Warehouse.  I love this place.  There's fabric, yarn, flowers and moss, decorative containers of every shape and size, paints, colored pencils, calligraphy pens, beads and more.  

A grown-ups toy store.  

I bought some little things.  A stamp.  A calligraphy pen. A few charms.  Two cardboard forms.  A ball of white cotton yarn. Nothing directly related to my artwork at all.  Or so I thought.

But this week, some new things appeared on my studio shelves.  A few new sculptures and  vessels in new shapes with textures in the clay that I used to do but haven't done in years.  I found some old fabrics that I'd forgotten I had and combined them with my new trinkets.

Play.  It's the key to everything.

It's how we learn the basics as children.  It's the most important element in innovation and creativity.  So next time I feel stuck or bored or boxed in, in the studio, I'm going to take myself on a field trip to the grown up toy store.  Then, play away the day and wait for the new ideas to pop up like a jack-in-the-box.

As The Wheel Turns: Low Flow.

The last two months have been full, fulfilling and fun.  Work done.  Goals met.  New adventures with new people, places and art.  In other words, the flow of my life has been like riding river rapids.  

Now it's time for a change of pace.  

But it's not easy for me to slow down.  I walk everyday.  Throw.  Paint.  Write.  Do yoga and jazzercise and all the rest of the necessary work of living a creative and healthy life.  

For me, throwing on the wheel is a calming almost meditative practice.   I didn't have time to throw much for the last few weeks, so spending a few days throwing is a nice way to slow down.

I also love reading and writing and watching good movies.  I'm reading Diana Gabaldon's latest book in the Outlander series, "My Own Heart's Blood".  I wrote in my journal and watched, "Practical Magic" which definitely got me in the mood for Halloween and pumpkin carving.

This week, I also spent time painting with under glazes and doing sgraffito.  But the most important thing I did was experiment with some new handbuillt shapes including plates.  This is stepping outside my comfort zone, yes, but when I do it without deadlines or performance pressures, it feels more like play.  

I used to struggle against slow flow.  But I realize taking the time to take things slowly is a good way to refresh and revive body and mind.   I see it opens me up to playfully experiment with a new lightness and softer energy.

Flow is my word for this year.  As I become much more aware of how it moves through my life and that awareness is teaching me to accept the changes of pace with, hopefully, more grace and less fear.