The ancients knew of a land enchanted that offered endless possibilities. Where wonder wandered unfettered and awe was accessible always. Its locus was buried deep in a camouflaged mass of grayness, a complex, convoluted landscape of mountainous rifts, sheer escarpments and unfathomable valleys, yet capable of shape shifting to mirror flatness at will. The curious who ventured beyond the facade of its off-putting grayness and immersed themselves in the craggy depths of its energy-pregnant atmosphere were rewarded with vast experience… Read more »
Posts By: carol@mylifewithcreativity.com
My Naked Truth
I’m seduced by dead leaves, hard rocks, and naked trees. It’s no new thing but is a lasting thing. Apparently, however, it’s an odd thing. Few I know are as beguiled. Fewer still embrace the starkness of winter’s alluring analogous neutral grays and browns. So what makes me curiously different? As a kid I’d lose myself in the neglected field on the other side of the stonewall boundary of our groomed yard. All manner of weeds left to their potential… Read more »
Channeled Creativity
I’m a habitual and organized sort, traits I wear with ease. They minimize life’s wrinkles, give it a good look and feel and keep chaos at bay. Attempts to be otherwise would be futile. Routine and organization are the warp and weft in the fabric that makes me, me. It’ll be no surprise then that I’ve worked out in gyms three mornings a week for over half my life. Cardio, weights, and stretching. While gravity, grey hair, crepey skin, and… Read more »
Weathering Creative Transitions
Unreasonable cold paid us a visit for a few weeks. It was so cold I swear I could see the bitterness in the air. Relentless, sharp-edged wind aided and abetted the snap. The cold causes my shoulders to scrunch upward in a futile attempt to keep my ears, neck and the rest of me warm but only succeeds in providing my massage therapist more knots to knead. Then one day a welcomed reprieve arrived with morning temps above freezing. Looking… Read more »
A Toe Hold on Consistency
There’s concern over my toenails. It’s not made the nightly news yet, but there’s a palpable unrest. Gratefully, the problem isn’t fungal. Scary, scaly green babbling blobs with pencil thin legs are not lurking between my toes or under my nails. But, there has been and continues to be a move for color change. Not a manicure kind of gal, and not to forsake all girly-girl things, my intrinsic tom boy does go for late Spring and Summer pedicures. Pink,… Read more »
My Feathered Ingrates
The crows and me, we rely on each other. We’ve created a daily habit. I lay food on the murders’ rock. Good stuff like chicken and pork fat, bones, bread and food gone amuck. They recognize and acknowledge me with their non-melodic caw, caw, caws, but only from afar, even after our countless ritualistic mornings. I’m talking a commitment of years and in all kinds of weather. They glide down from their lookout limbs onto crow rock to grab and go… Read more »
Back in the Blog: A Salute to Journals
Life isn’t lived in a straight line or at an even pace. My life with creativity is no exception. Hiccups happen and send it off on tangents. The occasional yawn spawned by a slump seemingly stops its forward motion. Divergence off the “beaten path” does have merit, however, as does pausing to reconnoiter. Frost knew the value of “taking the road less traveled” – both can offer new perspective. I’ve been absent from posting in my blog for awhile. Hiccups… Read more »
Dog Days of August
It’s August and the doggone heat is on full blast in Connecticut. We had a record number of days in July over 90º and August apparently wants to follow suit with temps closer to 100º. Will somebody, please, call off the contest! I’m breaking a daily sweat yet go to the gym only three mornings a week. The upside – my pores are fully flushed out. But, the heat does put a damper on my enthusiasm for doing some things… Read more »
Magic Light Whoopla
It’s two weeks since the Summer solstice occurred, a revered event even if not a Hallmark occasion. The longest light day of the year signifies the astronomical beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere. For me, it’s more about the amount of light the summer solstice provides. The more the better. That doesn’t mean I don’t like night, or Fall or Winter. Oh contraire, since it is at night and the longer darkness that belongs to the latter seasons of… Read more »
My Visceral Voice
Thought begets clarity or, at the least, holds the potential. Philosophers are lauded as masters of thinking because they delve deeply into deciphering the meaning of life and other profound puzzlements. After great consternation, Descartes, for example, determined, “Cogito ergo sum,” that he actually did exist because he had thoughts. And artist Auguste Rodin sculpted what has become one of the most recognized statues that symbolizes philosophy, “The Thinker.” Credit for more modern references on the value of thought go to… Read more »
Following My Paper Collage Trail
“The process” is a big buzz term in the art world. Like so many specialty areas, jargon specific and often unique to those endeavors – nomenclature – is the language used to describe activities within those disciplines. Usually you can find a corollary word or words in another field or every day speech that means the same thing. As with the medical profession’s term “stat” (from the Latin, statim), in layman’s lingo it means “now” or “quick”. In meteorology, “Polar… Read more »
Make Believe: The Art of Play
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” asked major league pitcher Satchel Paige. I like his query, even with its murdered conjugation, because it evokes another intriguing question – who would you be if you didn’t know who you were? Too often I hear people bemoaning their age wishing they were 20, 30 or 40 again. Why, I wonder? Is it being younger they miss or what they did when they were younger they… Read more »
A Creative Connection
Stories entertain and affect. They can explain the unexplainable, make sense out of the senseless, and if lucky, make us feel connected. I believe we all crave connection and a sense of belonging. In some ways that seems odd since we ARE all connected. It’s an ecological fact. Yet facts don’t always satisfy the human mind and rarely the heart. John Muir knew of the law of connection. He said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he… Read more »
Going Full Circle
Foiled plans invite creativity. It’s a significant phenomenon and a welcome guest especially when I want something badly enough. You may know it as “necessity is the mother of invention.” It certainly wasn’t a necessity for me to have two small 10” diameter real greenery Christmas wreaths, but I did want them badly. Last year I was ecstatic when I found downsized versions of the ubiquitous larger wreaths at Maegog’s farm stand in Salem, a mere couple miles from our… Read more »
One Particular Muse
Creativity doesn’t just happen all by itself. Extraordinary forces spur it on from the shadows. They’re sowers of seeds, brain stormers, cheerleaders, and coaches that flex inspirational muscle, give a directional push or an encouraging, if unspoken, “Go ahead, give it a whirl. Surprise yourself.” The world would be lacking a whole lot of wonderful if these forces ever quit their nurturing nudging. There’d be far fewer ideas and inventions, plays and paintings, novels and movies, songs and sonnets. Inspiration… Read more »
Creative Manna
They say you are what you eat. But that would mean I should be a giant puff of delectable stove popped popcorn! I’ve eaten at minimum a gazillion popped kernels since I was a wee one and I’m still going strong on the cusp of my 62nd year consuming that a”maize”ing food. It’s my go to snack, my food addiction. It’s also been said that “Man shall not live by bread alone …” but I believe man cannot live… Read more »
Hoarding Creative Potential
Hoarding a chaotic slew of stuff isn’t in character for me. It would interfere with my congenital need for orderliness, organization and visual harmony. Clutter is a visual assault on my aesthetic senses. My eyeballs hurt when I see it and messes disturb my brain. I can’t help it, don’t apologize for it, but do fully embrace my need for visual rapport. I even have six key words I subscribe to and do my best to live by listed on… Read more »
Chicken Pox and Puzzle Parts: An Oracle
I call myself an artist. It’s self-appointed because I’m self taught. No B.F.A. or M.F.A. degree on sheepskin with my name in calligraphy from the University of Creativity. If you’ve read the inaugural post and “About” page of my blog, you know I’ve always had a bent towards creativity – just not the artistic kind that included drawing, painting and such. Steve always takes exception to me saying that since I used to occasionally draw some rudimentary cartoon characters. It’s… Read more »
The Ten Commandments of Creativity According to Carol
It may seem oxymoronic to combine commandments with creativity and even high and mighty of me, as well. Commandments are, after all, divine rules and dictates while creativity is freedom of expression normally transcending imperatives. And, who made me the Moses of creativity incarnate, anyway? In a workshop I took in 2002, I was fed the idea of hatching my own commandments of creativity. How to Become Your Own Muse: An Expressive Art Group for Women was facilitated by my… Read more »
In My Creative Room
Creativity is a product of the mind – at least that’s where it originates. The eyes see, the ears hear, the brain assimilates and often a creative idea is hatched. Once imagined the idea needs to be nurtured to become something of substance. An art studio is an incubator of sorts where those creative ideas are nurtured. I turned to Wikipedia to learn the origin of the word studio. They indicate it evolved from the Italian studio which is derived… Read more »
A Poetic Peek
Poetry’s not for everyone. There are volumes of it I’ve never read or care to, some I have and wondered why, and others I’ve been stupefied by the contemplative and obscure state of new understanding it gave me. And although poetry is the subject of this post, I only occasionally read it. But, April is National Poetry Month. I read about it in an article in this month’s O Magazine. What I loved most about the article was the side-bar… Read more »
Decor: An All American Wreath
Circles, there’s no getting ‘round it – for eons they’ve symbolized cycles, unity, wholeness, infinity. I get it. There is something subliminally satisfying about a round, its seemingly effortless completeness is endless. Even a musical “round”, a perpetual canon, has unity and wholeness. As each individual singer starts the same melody at a different time then continues repeating it over and over, the overlapping lyrics and notes are woven into audible cycles that insinuate infinity. It’s all at once pleasing,… Read more »
How To: Making of a Blog Design
It seemed appropriate to follow the inaugural post with one about the blog’s background design since it’s the foundation that gives My Life With Creativity, well, life. I don’t like spending the majority of my day on the computer so I was incredulous at how obsessed I had become working on getting the blog setup. Entire afternoons would zip by as I sat reading, learning, customizing, occasionally cursing, and constantly tweaking with no concept of how long I’d been plastered… Read more »
Musings: Beginnings
Welcome to the first My Life With Creativity blog post! It’s been my dream for quite some time to start a blog but indecision on content kept the idea dormant. Now that the snow is finally melting, Spring, as well as my blog is coming alive. When my talented, Cambridge School of Culinary Arts trained nephew Chris started his latest blog, My Life With Food, I was inspired and decided. I like to cook and eat but I love to be… Read more »
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