artist, instructor, organizer, ethical meat advocate
If there’s one thing yesterday’s wild, wicked storm did, it officially ushered in the hot and sweaty Austin heat; the morning started out so nice and fresh but soon turned to sweltering. Much like a Midwest winter, now is the time all good Texans head indoors or out of State. In the mean time, I hit up the Blanco Lavender Festival today, before the weekend crowds swarmed in. Lovely! Lot’s of fairy hits! I smell great right now = )
…. that magical buzzword everyone is in search of.
when I was in San Antonio about a week or so ago, I visited a darling bookstore named Twig and asked if they had the book, “Notes on Graphic Design and Visual Communication” as was recommended by Jack WOW Davis in his CreativeLive Creative Photography class that I took last week. The clerk told me they did not have it in stock but she would be happy to order it, to which I replied, “no, that’s okay, I’ll order it from Amazon.”
Well the clerk just about crumbled to pieces and said, “nooooooooooo, not Amazon!!!” “Oh my gosh, I am sooooooooo sorry, that’s probably the worst thing I could have said in here! I will not order it from Amazon, I promise!!”
I did not order it from Amazon, I was able to find it at the independent bookstore Half Price Books and need to pick it up one of these days.
While the lovely clerk and I were chatting about books and graphic design and whatnot, a book called, “Steal Like An Artist” caught my eye. I felt a tad guilty for making the Amazon mention, so I decided to purchase this little book; I liked the title and it looked like a quick, interesting read. It’s a GREAT little read about how to stop making excuses and pop open that creativity. And of course it got me thinking…..
I KNOW I am a Creative-Type but, but, but…..
I have been taking loads of lessons in the past year, and even though my brain is sparky with all sorts of new lessons, I feel a little embarrassed to share most of it. There’s a part of me that says I should already know how to do these things, so keep it mums, no one wants to know. Well that’s It’s the evil side of our ego, something I learned all to well while doing Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way 12-week creativity program in Mexico this past winter. I still am doing the morning pages, which is H-A-R-D because a million other things draw my attention when I first awake in the morning. But I have been diligent about this sunrise exercise. Writing free-form morning pages does this lark a world of good to dump the junk out of my head to so it’s easier to focus on my goals.
Now…. what are my goals?
Well, y’see, I know I can do a million different things. I practice them all the time and then keep it to myself. Phooey, no more. I want to begin to fine-tune some of these skills I am learning. I want to publicly learn new things, and this magical thing called the internet and my little Lark of a blog will help me achieve this goal.
Tonight I attended a book signing for Steal Like An Artist’s author, Austin Kleon. He encouraged publicly learning things as a way to bone up our braveness. I want to bone UP the brave! I get scared but so what! No more.
Tomorrow, June 1, 2014, I start my 30-Day Public Learning Challenge. There are no rules.
These are just some of the things I’ve learned in the past year and I’m totally excited to learn more new cool things. Tomorrow I’m going to learn about raising chickens in my front or backyard, I haven’t decided which just yet. I am excited for this cluck-CLUCKKKKKKK! And don’t be chicken again!
So today is the day I head off to London for a week in pursuit of all things sparkly… because I decided months ago I want the autumn and winter of my life to be magical. It’s only been a few months and it’s almost surreal, the magic I have witnessed. It’s true, it can happen! A head’s up however; should you too decide you want the remainder of your life to be magical, be prepared for a backlash. It’s 2013, and a lot of people have completely given up on magic, let alone wanting to begin to believe it may be true for anyone else – some people actually think I am nuts and I do not care. If being nuts means having a child-like wonder and curiosity for life, then it’s true, I’M NUTS.
I recently discovered Signe Pike‘s awesome book that is loaded in my Kindle called, “Faery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment in a Modern World” and it has been such a perfect read for me. This morning when I took Henry to his vacation ranch for the week, this marvelous faery house greeted me at the end of the walk way and I immediately looked around for faeries because it was that ‘tween hour. Nothing but dew drops and an unmade bed! (jaja) More proof that I don’t have to chase the magic, it is right in front of me if I open my eyes. My eyes are open and I am awake 8-D
The past few months have been filled with quite an education on both a personal and professional level. I just ended my participation on a project that had an ongoing opportunity, but I knew it was not a good fit for me, so I gracefully backed out. I’ve been fired three times in the past year. I have lived, breathed, sweated and cried rejection. It hasn’t killed me, made me to go hungry nor homeless, so now I follow my heart and learn about the things that make me happy. Right now that’s a thing called MAGIC.
Andale let’s go; ENERGY BALLS UP O’HARE!