A Little Imagination and a Pile of Junk

it's spiritual

Just a  few more  papers I'm working on.  I'm headed out this afternoon with my bff for a  night out of town to see Ray LaMontagne in concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Denver. I've never been to this venue before but I've been told seeing any band there is a 'spiritual experience' and to see my beloved Ray is going to be a dream come true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you can't make it to the concert tonight, here's a little bit of Ray for you to swoon over right where you are.

Ahh. Swoon....

doing the work

 

I'm not anywhere near finished with getting the house in order, but I took a break yesterday to work on some art. I spend about 4 hours painting papers and getting my hands (and clothes) dirty.

 

The previous home owners left behind a large drafting pad that I've been dying to use for painting experiments and journal papers. I usually work with 9x13 in. drawing paper for my painted papers so it was liberating and quite a lot of fun to work on such a large scale. And efficient, too. In just a few hours I managed to put out a ton of new papers.

 

 

 

Words to live by:

Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.

This second, we can sit down and do our work.

--Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

What are you waiting for? Go do it.

Then come back and tell me about it.

settling in

 

We've moved into our new house and are beginning to settle in. There are still many more boxes (I almost typed 'books' which is also true.) to unpack but all the essential items are in place. Unfortunately, the ankle I hurt when I stupidly fell down the basement stairs still hurts me every day. If I could get a few days to stay off my feet it might heal more quickly, but who has time sit around all day? I can sit around once I get my new studio up and running!

 

We love our new house and I can't wait to share more pictures but I want to wait until things are a little more organized and decorated then do a big reveal. For now, a vignette or two will have to do; we'll get to those first thing next week.

My first order of business art-wise is to transform a huge drafting pad of paper that was left behind into painted papers for new artwork. Besides that, my first major project I've decided is quite an ambitious one. I want to crochet an area rug out of old t-shirts for the living room like this one I did a year or so back.

 

In my mind it will be huge and just as colorful but rectangular and striped. I can't wait to get started!  Since this isn't exactly the kind of project you can toss in your yarn bag and go, I can foresee many hours with Season 3 of Lost working on this one. Thank goodness our internet and Neflix is up and running again. But for today, I have to rest my ankle because I have a date tonight and there's no room for pain. So it's just me and The Girl Who Played With Fire for the rest of the afternoon. Have a fun weekend!

mini-break, or more like a sprain

After falling down the basement stairs (Have I ever mentioned what a klutz I can be?), I'm back to my pile of books for the rest of the afternoon so I can get back to packing and moving boxes tomorrow. We're moving into the new house on Saturday so I can't afford to be down and out, but I can afford to take the rest of the day off and put up my twisted ankle for a bit. I'm in good company, though. Books have always been some of my closest friends but really good books are more like family that you want to be with all the time. And I've read some really good books this summer.

The nearly 600 pages of Bonhoeffer: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich kept me occupied for quite a while, especially since nearly every essay or sermon that was referenced I had to look up and read for myself. A Testament to Freedom was a perfect companion for this fascinating biography, the first major one to be written of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the past 40 years. This is not the first biography of his that I've read but it is without a doubt the most riveting and powerfully written. I learned so much not just about this amazing man and his theology but about Nazi Germany and resistance in the face of evil. I couldn't put it down for days and was genuinely distraught to see it finally end. I comforted myself, however, with a number of other books on similar subjects that I've had on the shelf for a while: Letters and Papers from Prison and Last Letters of Resistance. I've also started but not finished Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, which is fascinating but pretty heavy reading (and pretty controversial as well. At least on Amazon, as many people hated it as loved it.) I'll be working on that one for a while. However, today I'm opting for some much lighter reading material, though just as intriguing: The Girl Who Played With Fire. It ought to keep me occupied until I'm back on my feet again. Literally.

 

And since we're talking good reading material, I have a couple of articles out in some very good magazines. So there's plenty of great reading materials out there to indulge the last few weeks of summer. Better get reading.

 

 

  

So, what have been your favorite books so far this summer?

compelling evidence

There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.

What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

--Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

I've been learning a lot about myself in Steven Pressfield's brilliant book The War of Art. I picked it up a few months ago after a friend told me it was one of the best books he'd ever read. After bringing it home, my husband promptly confiscated it for his own, but since he's his pile of books-in-progress is teetering even more than mine I had to steal it back and hope he doesn't notice. It's for a good cause.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

--Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

What I've been experiencing with my art (and it rears its ugly head in all kinds of areas of our lives where we desire to grow or make a change) Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. That internal struggle that manifests itself in fear, laziness, apathy, distraction, addiction--anything and everything to keep us from our calling.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

--Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Resistance and I are best friends and old enemies. But I'm through with letting it control me. Here's the proof that it has sunk its claws in deep, but I'm determined to shake them off come what may.

 

Right now I have to concentrate on the new house and the move but it's a choice I make and not an escape from my work. Inwardly I'm dying to dip my hands in colors and I'm even setting aside a few choice art supplies to that end, but not now. I'm letting it build. And I'm working hard on cleaning, organizing, purging, packing, etc. to keep the momentum going. Hard work is good for the soul and in a day or two, I should have a new place to work. Because my work is important.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

 --Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

all better now

 

Just wanted to say a quick thank you for the encouragement and the kick in the pants after my last post! I was surprised that just admitting how I had been feeling was just the thing I needed to get the self-pity out of my system. I feel ever so much better now, so thank you for letting me dump on you! And thank you for your constant encouragement and support! 

We closed on our house a few days ago but the moving process is taking a backseat for a few days as we get away to the mountains with family for a little R&R. I'll be back later this week with an improved attitude and lots to share. xo, debra