News: Semi-Exciting and Not-So-Exciting-At-All

You may have been highly distressed by the fact that possibly noticed that a couple weeks have passed since my last post. Oh yes, friends, I’ve been up to stuff.

I wish I could say that I was busy doing wild and crazy creative things the entire time. Or at least say that I was vacationing in some exotic locale. Alas, neither of these would be true. Most of the time was spent doing boring things like dayjobbish work and paying the rent and fixing my broken website (See: Not-So-Exciting, above).

On the other hand, in keeping with my veggies-in-the-casserole approach, I have in fact been working on some fun things in between all the boring stuff. And I am hoping to be able to share them with you all in September. For now, here’s a quick peek at the goings-on.

Thing #1

The first thing I have to report is that I’ve been working on my gatherings. So far they have only been by private invitation, and there have been very few of them (ha, I won’t even say how many! Oh, the shame) but part of that has been due to wrestling with horrible Tech Demons native to this particular country. Yeah, I don’t even want to get into it.

But in the course of all this demon-wrestling, these gatherings are slowly changing shape. And I need to check with them first, but there’s a possibility they may be ready to meet the world in September. Aw, I’m so proud of them (sniff).

When they are ready, you will hear about it here. I’ll also put up a notice on the board (and you can sign up for updates to that, if you are so inclined).

Thing #2

This Thing is so tiny and brand-new that it doesn’t even have a name yet. But maybe I can describe it for you.

I had a friend of mine, Michelle, come over to my house to do some art. Michelle may in fact be an artist, but it’s not what she does on a day-to-day basis. And this means she doesn’t have a lot of art supplies hanging around. But hey, what do you know, I DO. So we made an appointment for a little art-date.

I should mention that Michelle is getting very, very close to giving birth to a baby whom we’ll call Peanut for now. And she was looking for a way to explore her pregnancy and the imminent birth experience through creative expression. Naturally, this sort of talk makes me jump up and down like a little girl, so I was all for having her over.

We kept it very simple: I provided the art supplies, the space, and the company, and perhaps a bit of support on occasion. She brought herself, some magazines, and some ideas.

At first, Michelle seemed a little intimidated by the blank page. Yep, been there, and I bet you have too. And in her case, she had chosen some pretty intense experiences to be exploring. But once she had allowed herself to make a few marks – no masterpieces, just some color – the rest came a lot easier.

One interesting thing that came out of this experience was how none of the ideas we had brought to the art-date ended up being the right idea. The drawing she made came pretty spontaneously, once she had played with the materials and chosen the one that appealed to her the most. We were both surprised by the results.

The whole time this was going on, I felt as if my presence was unnecessary, as if I wasn’t actually doing anything. But sometimes you just need another person and a dedicated time and space to create in. It can make a huge difference. Michelle was convinced that she wouldn’t have done this on her own. I believe her – I’ve got a little bit of experience in avoiding creative expression. Just a little.

So, that’s my news for now. And I’m sure there will be more developments in Artfulplayland this month. Any news from your neck of the woods?

COMMENTS: I’d love to hear any updates you have on your creative projects. And if you’ve been away from them, it’s OK. Really.