Hearken unto the Muse

Many years ago, when I was teaching multiple classes at Lassen College, I had an epiphany one day: it’s all the same. To what “it” was I referring? Simple: all design, all art. Designing a stained glass window requires many of the same skills that piecing a quilt does. Putting together today’s outfit, decorating the living room or laying out an ad each bear many commonalities of skill with the other.

I taught glass design and life drawing at that college for years. Many of my students were women with family. Those that had sewn were quite familiar with patterns and fitting. They caught onto the process of fitting the glass pieces together quite readily.

Those that had juggled dinner, soccer games and crying babies had the skillset required to focus on the line of the model no matter what distractions arose. (Note: A high level meditative process – Sit at the piano with a “musically inclined” child on either side, dogs, cats, and other children running through the house, and hear only the notes you are playing while keeping attentive to any indication of emergency).

How does one go about learning a new art form? Hearken unto the muse. Allow the inspiration to flow through, and build your skills doing anything creative. Often, life may not immediately provide you the opportunity to spend hours painting masterpieces. It is important to realize, I think, that all is not lost if such is the case. The creative urge and flow is accessible through sometimes most unusual media.

I remember in graduate art school, where the lofty intellect was given full rein, that there was a big deal made about not selling your art short or diluting your creative flow by transferring your attentions to some “lesser” activity. It is my contention that rather the opposite can be true. If I bring my full attention to the moment while I am creating compost, and open to inspiration as I do it, I find that it increases my state of artistic grace instead of diminishing it.

The Joy of Blogging

The Joy of Blogging


OK, so now I am hooked. I have always enjoyed writing – especially poetry. And I absolutely love illustrating my writing, or is it writing for my illustrations? Hmmm.

Anyway, I love doing both. In my experience they are the same. My job is to consciously cooperate as spirit expresses through me, either one way, the other, or both. It is the same joy, certainly. The two have always arrived together for me, like twins.

There was a while there that I would incorporate the writing graphically as part of my drawings. Then when I started combing my prismacolor pencils with the watercolors, the words got relegated to the edge of the paper. My latest combination is a new blog I started: The Daily Napkin. If you feel the urge to take a look, be sure to read the first post that explains how it started, and what the name means.

Anyway, it is joyous indeed.

Flow and the Creative Urge

Today has been just one of those days that I love. Most of the day was really pretty uneventful, however the whole day was extraordinary. Like many days I spent an inordinate amount of time alone, on the computer and designing. So what was different? The energy, the energy in me, the thrill in my gut.

I stayed up until almost 2am last night working on a project. I was exhausted. This morning I woke up before 6am, and just jumped out of bed. I’ve stood and danced most of the day at my computer. I accomplished a lot. The ideas were flowing. I started a new blog, created a few jobs for clients, began a book, listened to lots of my favorite music and continue to have the urge to just create more and more.

I don’t know where this burst of creative energy came from except that it has something to do with being in the flow of walking my walk. I think I’ll come back later to this. I feel like painting!

Designing – Art or Craft?

I met with someone yesterday who wants me to completely redo his website. He’s an engineer and very good at writing php and software. He’s definitely not a graphic designer, however. Yet I’ve got to say he is one of the most creative individuals with whom I’ve been acquainted. His enthusiasm and passion for life are contagious. He has that priceless skill of being able to incite epiphany. I am sure the collective IQ of a roomful of any people raises when he walks in.

It’s my belief that each and every one of us has some art form, some natural outlet for our creative urge that makes our heart sing. Whether it be a fine arts expression like painting, dancing or playing a musical instrument, or the valuable art of uplifting someone’s psyche, the urge to express has been exercised, and the world is a better place for it.

To me, it’s the infusion of spirit – the touch of the muse – inspiration that makes it art. Craft is the accumulation of skills. You can be an artist without having developed any level of craft at all. Spirit expresses through you, your heart pours out and art is the process. You can also practice your craft without creating art. Mathmatical formula may produce something quite beautiful, yet if it is not borne of a conscious connection I have perceived some distancing or coldness about the outcome.

Of course all of this is simply semantics. As was pointed out in yesterday’s stimulating conversation, even quantum physics has concluded that it is all one, we are all One. So, you can’t art without craft, and you can’t craft without art. Nevertheless, contrary to what I always believed (we are all artists), I’ve discovered that it is rare to find someone with both old world art skills as well as techno graphic designer skills in this world of specialization.

I’ve found it to be such an enriching combination in my life. I wish it for everyone. It seems to me we could use an infusion of old world skill training in the graphic design world. Wouldn’t it be great if students regularly learned how to really draw before learning Illustrator and designing? Both Art and Craft would benefit.

Joy of Food

Joy of Food

Tomorrow evening I am facilitating the Equinox celebration at a beautiful place called Picollo Pastures down in Elk Grove. Before that, tomorrow morning, I am hosting the “Grandmothers” – the women that get together consistantly many times each month to plan, support, and hold space for the circle of women – at my house for final planning and breakfast.

I decided to fix a really nice vegetable, potato and egg thing. I worked for a good hour putting all the components together, put it in the oven and was carefully timing it, when my husband called me into the other room to look at something. One of the not-so-efficient things of being completely in the now is the tendency to get totally involved in whatever you are doing. Well…

Tomorrow I will be joyfully serving the brownest egg dish I’ve ever seen! It smells good. I so thoroughly enjoy fixing food for those I love. And I get great joy from playing with food.

The picture here is at the Agro Art Festival up in Lincoln California, which is put on by the Arts Council of Placer County. They have me (aka Ruby Grapefruit Pearl) come up there and teach children how to play with their food. It’s right up my alley! The kids and the kid in many adults create all kinds of creatures and other things out of raw vegetables and fruits in the Play Garden while sculptors and teams of artists work on more involved agro-art pieces. It is great fun.