The approach I’m using to reconnect to my artistic side is a book by Julia Cameron known as the Artist’s Way. It’s a collection of exercises meant for creative folks to use to re-connect and empower their own creativity. The book is meant to be worked over the course of 12 weeks, with two of the tools (known as Morning Pages and the Artist Date) meant to be continued indefinitely. My experience with the process so far has been very good – I’ve completed the required exercises and have been very consistant with using the tools.
This book isn’t new to me – in fact, the current copy of the book that I own is my third copy. The difference between my attempt now to complete the book is that I’m actually doing the work, and not just reading the book. Like any work done for self discovery and enrichment purposes, this work is very scary for me. To do this work is to take responsibility for my creativity, to own who I am as a creative person, and to nurture and grow that side of myself. Already I’m finding that this work is “spilling” over into other areas of my life – the small seed of courage I’ve managed to nourish in the process so far is blooming quite nicely.
The work that I’m doing here, the writings and assignments given in the book that I’m tackling – likely, they won’t be directly shared in this blog. The work is very personal, and is akin to work done in various Twelve Step programs (in fact, the author herself admits in her book that she’s a recovering alcoholic, and the work is steeped in Twelve Step recovery concepts). What I’m sharing here is that I’m doing the work, and that in the short time I’ve been doing it, it has definitely made a difference in my life. The changes are slow and subtle, but they are definitely real. For those of you so inclined, I highly recommend the book.
I’ve spent more time these past couple of days tweaking the layout and format of this site then actually posting anything of substance. Ironically, this just happens to be a major theme of this site – it’s amazing the amount of work one will do to avoid work. Still, I shuffle on towards…something. This very “something” is what I intend to explore here.
Content forthcoming, for those of you bored lucky enough to come across this site on Teh Interwebs. At the moment, am putting a fresh coat of paint on the ole’ building and tearing down the scaffolding, so be patient. We will be open for bid’ness soon. Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?