Creativity and Time

Recently I heard a captivating piece on TED Talk Radio Hour with Guy Raz about creativity and time.

Jan's ArtWord Daily Creativity Prompts

 Here are last weeks creativity prompts.   

 Enjoy. 

I send out a Creativity Prompt every morning five days a week to help us get through this social-distancing-time creatively. Here are the first five. If you would like me to add you to the list, I would be happy to send you a short positive inspiration and a creativity prompt each morning. Just send me an email and I'll add you to the list.    janhcroteau@roadrunner.com  

New WINTER  Art Classes  Schedule is posted here!

Read More...

Three Creativity Habits

You Can Start Right Now 
That Really Work!

Okay SweetArts, here is a thought worth considering.

Creativity can become a habit.

Some experts say it takes 21 days to form a new habit and some say at least 66 days, but I say, when it comes to creativity it takes a lot less time because anything we create is just so darn compelling.

Soooo, here’s what I suggest…

I DON”T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, but this week I was on fire.

The writing bug bit me and I had to scratch that itch throughout the week, I mean, I had no choice.

All summer long, workshop participants and friends have asked me many questions about my favorite subject … Creativity.

I kept hearing their questions until the Creative Spirit said,
“Okay, Let’s do this!”

One article after another tumbled onto the page as I wrote through lunch times and barely ate dinners. Let’s just say the Creative Spirit came through my door with a to-do list as long as my arm.
 
It appears She has lots to say and I’m still writing daily.

So, I’m going to start passing Her wisdom onto you as She writes through me.

Here’s the first one…
It seems that many of us don't know where to begin when it comes to being creative… So here are
 
Five Ways to Be Creative When You Don’t Know Where To Begin

FALL WORKSHOP SCHEDULE, 2019

SUMMMER CLASSES!

I'm teaming up with the new art store in town... Paper, Pen and Palette to bring you a roster of summer classes.   
All the class materials are available at the store in Wolfeboro, right next to Black's on Main Street. In fact they've put all the materials together in a nice packet with special deals just for these classes. The Paper, Pen and Palette crew is a lot of fun so you'll have a great time visiting them. 

Now on with the show! First up...



Handmade Brushes and the Art of Making Marks.....

Sometimes Things Get A Little Wild 

This painting jumped off my pine-needle-brush with promise, but then, the process got wild.

Really, it was such a mess. 

So, I stopped to give it some breathing room.

The next day I thought... It's going to take a real commitment to paint my way out of this." 

I wanted to tear-it-up. 

And then I thought... Wait, why don't I make this painting the best of the series?

I pulled out all the stops, just went for it, because I knew I couldn't possibly make it any worse. 

And then Ta-Da!
 

Remember those lovely postcards we used to send each other whenever we traveled? 

I got to thinking the other day that I haven’t seen a postcard in a number of years and maybe I should create some, you know, just to have around so that I can send them whenever the spirit moves me. I was hoping She’d move me to higher ground, as this has been a low week, with socked in grey-moody-days, lots of rain and difficult times of loss for dear friends.

So, I found my small stack of handmade paper postcards, the ones with the deckle edges, and gave them a coat of Gesso. 

Then I turned the music up and started painting.

One postcard after another, with little time to over-think the process...

Have you seen all those fabulous creative-geniuses walking around? The ones who are brilliant singers, actors, dancers, writers, painters…the ones who have a bit of celebrity and a solid body of artwork, who live seemingly kissed by the Creative Spirit on a daily basis?

 Well, they have faced rejection. Lots of it. Had the gate shut on their faces.   

 JK Rowling couldn’t find a publisher for Harry Potter in her home country. Oprah was told she’d never make it in TV, and Meryl Streep was rejected from her first audition for being too ugly.
 
Good thing they didn’t roll over and say, well… I guess I’m not meant to be creative.
Oh, gosh, no.
 
JK sent a letter to Scholastic Publisher in the U.S. imploring them to read her manuscript.
Oprah… well, you know Oprah, she is a mighty force of love to be reckoned with.
And as for Meryl Streep, well she pretty much told the director that he was only one opinion in a sea of thousands and that she was off, “to find a kinder tide.” ......Read On

I think, when it comes right down to it, we’re all works in progress.

Human awakening can strike in a blinding flash, or it can come gradually like a painting emerging from the ether of our imagination.

One way or the other, it’s the core of our journey. To evolve into the best human-being we can be.

Spiritual evolution, that’s what I love about painting.

It’s hard work. It can be grueling at times.........

 Thoughts of spring and ruminations on the secret mysteries buried beneath the soil (where dreams incubate all winter long) is what inspired this painting.
The process of winter turning into spring is a lot like the painting process. 

My paintings always starts with a sketch. Just a hint of possibilities, like the way things start to look just as the snow begins to recede.

Get Drawn Into Your Dreams

My sweetheart says,” A good house has a solid foundation.” Richard is a builder so he knows exactly what he’s talking about. He sees the good houses sitting on well-built foundations last the longest and need the least number of repairs through the years.

I’m putting a roster of art classes together for the spring time and I know that best place for any beginning artist or creative is to start with a strong foundation... 

Back to the Arctic Terns.

I have to celebrate these little wonders one-more-time with one-more-painting, because they are so first-rate-exceptional.

See that tiny fragile egg in the corner of the painting? Well, it’s a miracle that egg even survives and hatches into a baby Arctic Tern. So tiny and fragile and exposed to the elements, however, most survive because both male and female alternate sitting on the nest. Both birds equally invested. I like that parenting style. There’s a good survival rate with that one.

Terns lay their eggs on the open terrain of beaches. How dangerous is that? 

      I once heard a wise, older woman say, “You can get all the knowledge in the world, but only time will give you wisdom.”

     Ah yes, aging

     As a woman of a certain age here’s what I’ve learned so far …

      Aging is an inside game. Play it with gusto!  

     The journey into old age can be a profoundly spiritual one, full of mystery and surprises. After all......

New paintings always excite me. I tend to ruminate on something and then, before long, it comes through my brush to inform me of its presence.

I’ve been thinking lately about new worlds, and that our human imagination may ultimately be the only thing that can save us... 

Picture This Part 2

So then… Saturday Morning rolls around

Johnny wants to come work on the abstract painting we started last week, he’s at my door at 9:30 a.m. eager to start; his mom and sister and Daisy, his dog, accompany him. I have the studio all ready for the next lively layers of paint.

We get our smocks on, don latex gloves, because we know we’re gonna get a little wild with the paint, and we sit back and take stock of our creation so far.

Johnny strokes his chin because that’s what we do when we ruminate, which one of his favorite words since he first heard it years ago…………..

A few months ago, I added an online class to my website called “Unleash Your Creative Genius” a course in how to get back in touch with your creative side.

So, picture this.

An exuberant six-year-old-grandson who loves art, who always asks to watch me paint, who spends all his visiting-time in my studio creating, who says to me yesterday…

 “Mimi, I want to watch you paint an abstract.”

“Um, okay” I say...

Remember last week when I said that the abstract paintings were real game changers in any room?

Well, here are some examples.

It’s that time of year when the trees in New England explode into a glorious riot of color and I find myself moving toward a vibrant palette of pigments which, as you can see, has dominated my new work lately.

I mean really, this whole color-thing has taken charge of the whole show!

 And so........................................

Build Your Own Art Studio In A Bag

                                        And Take It Where Ever You Go

Whenever you think about becoming more creative does the nay-sayer, hypercritical, judge-within-you say in that edgy voice you’ve come to dread,

“Oh, that would take up too much room, and cost too much money, and be way too hard to do and besides, I don’t even know where to start.”

Well here’s an idea that will only take up a little room, is under a hundred dollars and gives you a place to start which is not hard at all. Ready?

First, find yourself a canvas bag. My bag is over a dozen years old and still going strong.

Of course, you may already have something around that would work perfectly. When I built my first Art-Studio-In-A-Bag, back when I was in my teen years, I used a strong paper grocery bag. (Not very pretty and didn’t hold up well, but it worked for a cash-starved art student.) The recycled grocery bags you can buy for a dollar would work great, you can really use anything.

Now on to art supplies…

Right around Christmas last year I knew I had to change something, but what? I wanted to shake things up, get my head into a new way of thinking... grab a hold of something new.

So, here’s what I did.

Artist Reality

I know, a bit of an oxymoron, artist and reality, but here’s the deal.

We artists are crazy for a reason.

The creative journey is grueling, and terrifying, and fabulous all wrapped into one wild, colorful package.

Contrary to popular belief,  artists do not drink from an overflowing cup of inspiration, oh no, as a matter of fact, most artists can’t even find that blasted cup until the most inopportune times, and of course, it’s never when we’re standing at the easel with paint brush in hand.

Nope. We walk around thirsty, absent mindedly looking for the cup and when we find it we’re ecstatic!

We work long hours. No kidding.......

I painted this portrait of Queen Elizabeth the First a few years ago. I use it to remind me that every woman is a queen, born with amnesia, now waking up.

There’s a light that becomes visible only when I stand so close to the veil between life and death that I can almost see through to the other side.

The light is a soft, pale-yellow-glow. The first time I saw it, I was with a friend who was having a baby at home. Her midwife took me aside between labor pains, looked me straight in the eye and said, “You see it don’t you?” I nodded. I knew exactly what she was talking about. 

I’m pretty fired up here.

When I was a little kid, running around our neighborhood in Southern California with my best friend Gail, we would stop sprinting, on occasion, and between hard breaths she would yell, “Ya still wanna be an artist?” And I’d yell back “Oh, YEAH!!!” And she would yell, “MEEEEE TOOOOO.” And off we’d run.

I can’t remember why that phrase was such a motivation for the two of us, but it was... 

Exploring the Territory of Abstract Landscape.

To trek along the path of paint and to dare to go creatively where I’ve never been before , was not an easy endeavor for  a painter who spent the last few years learning the craft of painting realism. I knew as soon as I moved into my new studio that I needed to explore new realms. So I plunged into the depths of the unknown and loosened my grip on the paintbrush.

2017, you were one of the best!

Wow, what a year.

•  The house: We dreamed this one into reality. Co-creating with Richard and the Divine-Holy- Spirit-of-House-Building, we built a new house. Two years ago we tore down our old one. Yep, you read that right. After a winter of intense design work and figuring out how to live in a space as we rebuilt it, we set off on a building journey that was like climbing Everest without oxygen, in flip-flops, with a pint bottle of Poland Spring Water to quench our thirst. With a budget the size of the pea under the princess’s mattress, we created something that so delights us every time we walk through the door that I sometimes giggle upon arrival and ask, “Is this ours?”

Wow. So much for thinking that age has any kind of limitations. Ha! 

I don’t remember the first time I met Wanda because it seems like she’s always been here, but I think it was in the late eighties when I talked to her at a party about art and science and the inevitable wounded-ness of being human. I really loved her from the start. She could listen with an open heart and really hear what it was anyone was saying. She was a hospice angel, a visiting nurse, a therapist, a practitioner of love.

I could ask her a question about health care and she would give me the scientific answer as well as offering a spiritual consideration. I used to talk with her about psychic experiences and synchronicity and she knew exactly what I was talking about.

She loved to play games and so that’s what we did. She and her partner Diane had many game nights at their house and Richard and I were among the lucky people who got invited. This turned into a fun activity during the long winter months for a number of years. She loved to take charge of the night, introducing us to many new games and then she would whoop and holler her way through the evening. Without her clear leadership we were just a gaggle of motely fools chuckling our way through the confusing rules of the new game, with her at the helm we were warriors on the game board, ready to take on any challenge... 

I cleaned out my closet yesterday, I needed to trade summer and fall for winter and the cotton t-shirts got stored in the back while the wool sweaters came forward to take center stage. I like cleaning out closets and drawers this time of year because it’s like going within and trading some old thoughts for new realizations. At least making the space for it so that I might inspire a little Ah-Ha moments.

This time of year, whenever I rummage around my interior life, I find gratitude in every nook and cranny and corner of my psyche. I am one fortune-kissed-soul and I feel it when I first rise in the morning until I close my eyes at night. 

This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post…

May I be so bold as to say, the best way to get yourself where you want to be, which we all figure out once we start giving attention to what matters, is to, as I said yesterday in my post … Create, Something, Every Day. 

Let me be more specific.

Get a little pad of drawing paper and a couple of micron pens and draw a little something.

You may say, “I don’t know how to draw.”

I say, it doesn’t matter, because you’ll soon find out that you can draw yourself out of nothing and into something. Stick figures, lopsided portraits, little bumpy mountains… it doesn’t matter, whatever you draw is really drawing you. So be quite, take ten minutes and draw a little something. 

  When I was young, I read a lot about finding stuff, like…finding my purpose, searching for my     passion, seeking out the big dream. I went from book, to magazine article, and back to books again   (there was no internet in those days) looking for the thing that I was told was missing until I finally   realized one day, while I was painting, that life is not about FINDING anything.

  I was 23 years old, and I realized that I was not lost, and that the labyrinth we call confusion is an   illusion propagated by an industry that thrived on me being confused and feeling lost as I looked for the   missing purpose, passion and dream of which people spoke.

I read recently read an excerpt from astronaut Scott Kelly’s memoir titled, Endurance: A Year In Space, A Lifetime Of Discovery, about what he learned from being in space for 340 days in 2015. Talk about endurance!

In it he writes, “I‘ve learned that grass smells great, and wind feels amazing and rain is a miracle. I will try to remember how magical these things are for the rest of my life.” He goes on to write, “I’ve also learned that our planet is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and that we’re lucky to live on it.”

This is exactly how I feel when I paint.

It’s the day I spend with Johnny and Eliza aka Lizey-Lou

I go to their house and play the whole day. We play trucks and a game we made-up called Mr. McGregor and the naughty Peter Rabbit, which consists of me being the cantankerous Mr. McGregor and Johnny being the naughty Peter Rabbit. I hold Lizey-Lou in my arms as we go after that pesky rabbit so we can make him into stew. We also play Candyland and checkers and we build an indoor slide with the tumbling mat I gave them for Christmas three years ago. 

At lunchtime we bring Bear, a four-foot stuffed Teddy Bear... 

     Winter’s Haiku…

      Open my mouth wide

      To capture snowflakes on tongue

       Transformed by winter

We were only supposed to get a flurry of flakes, not much accumulation, just a smattering of white here and there.

And it snowed all day. And it stuck to the ground. And quite frankly, it rattled my cage.  I didn’t even want to go outside, so I didn’t until just before dark so that I could capture a snowflake on my tongue, because that’s what I do at the first sign of winter. I take it into my body, just a tiny speck of what’s to come and then I step back inside and let my little-mind freak-out because I am not a winter kind of girl.

But then I relax, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Yesterday was a tough day.

Things did not go as we’d hope they would. There was a bit of mayhem, and a test that was failed by one point, and two high fevers, and a delusional rant from a 94-year-old parent, and a call for help from an extended family member. By the time Richard and I got into bed, we were exhausted.

In the warmth of the house, under the blankets, in the dark, we reached for each other’s hand and held on tight. That’s how we do it when the ride gets bumpy and that’s how we fell asleep.

A friend asked me once, “How do couples stay married sooooo long?” 

Yesterday around 4:00 in the afternoon I felt the weather change and I knew I had to go out and harvest the rest of the garden and the more tender things in the greenhouse.

So I plucked and pulled, and cut and carried four arm-loads of vegetables into the kitchen and then went back out to the greenhouse and took in the smell of soil and the sweetness of life. I wanted to thank the tomato plants and the bean vines, the leeks, and celery and red peppers for hanging in there with us all the way until November 9th. Oh, there are plenty of hardy greens still out there to be harvested until well into January, but the more tender things are now in my fridge. 

  I keep moving forward like a wild woman painting her life as she walks into it.

 This thing I have with color has always been with me. If you visited my studio you’d see flecks of color   everywhere, even on the keyboard of my laptop.

 So where does this fascination with color come from and why do some of us have it and others not so   much. 

This time of year I sometimes feel … dried up, like the final leaves just barely hanging onto the oak trees in the yard. Maybe it’s the coming cold season, maybe it’s the fading plant life, but mostly I think it’s the dying light.

When I feel this way, I still go into my studio and work for a few hours, after all, I have a lot of things to do, but this time of year is precarious for those of us who live in northern climes. 

     No fruits, no flowers, no light-November. What a perfect month to steep ourselves in gratitude. This time, in the     western hemisphere, the light on the horizon becomes weaker, giving space for the inner light to burn more brightly. It   is the perfect time   for writing, and painting.

    I've been a writer almost ...

     Friday night was the evening we celebrated Halloween in Wolfeboro because on Oct. 31 the whole town and     surrounding area had no power after a wind storm blew in and took down much of the New Hampshire power   grid with gusto.

     My grandson and I were holding hands as we walked up south Main Street after a successful night of trick-or-   treating when a moment of enchantment overcame us as he 

I have been known to woo the creative spirit in some pretty unique ways.

In my theater years I used to brew tea and bake scones just to encourage Will Shakespeare to visit the studio whenever I was adapting his work for the stage. He even had an empty chair right beside mine so he could have a place to sit whenever he visited.

Things can get a little wild in the new studio. It’s as if this new space is so filled with its own youthful energy that my old ways can’t keep up. 

And I’m so filled with ideas when I’m here that I had to put a twin mattress on the far wall just so I can stop and take a rest on occasion. Whew.

I’m flying straight into the realm of possibility and, as James Brown once crooned…I feeeeeel good.

I’m tricking my critical mind into submission... 

    My new series: On The Horizon.

    Wow, look at these paintings. They are all small mostly 6x6 and I am doing them for two reasons.

     One is to paint past my thinking brain. 

       Virginia Woolf made quite a statement when she said… “In order to write (or create), a woman must     have two things… “A room of her own and enough money to support herself.”

    These past few days, after several months of building, my husband and I finished my new studio and now I have a “room of one’s own.” Not that this is my first. 

I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo for the month of Nov.

Up Hill Moon

Acrylic on Canvas 12x12

I was cruising Facebook this morning when I came across a sponsored post asking if I would like to learn how to “bring my best self to live Facebook video.” Right beneath the headline it said: “Don’t want to look old on camera? Click here.”

Sheesh, like looking old is the WORSE... 

Only From the Heart Can You Touch The Sky

These lines bubbled up from memory and came flying onto the painting as soon as I painted the birds in flight.

(I had to look up the quote to make sure it was from Rumi.)

Sure enough, that sweet poet once again whispered into my ear. 

One thing I know for sure is that love is an art and it can last a lifetime.

Title: Winter Sticks

India Ink on Yupo Paper

Winter Sticks is a play on words. After I painted this, I not only realized that the winter trees look like sticks against the full moon… but also, I think of the way winter sticks with us for a long time here in the northeast. I painted this just as we were heading toward the Winter Solstice. The sky was full of candor, the night promised we’d be together for eternity, and I was gazing out my studio window with thoughts of warmer climates and the smell of soft eucalyptus trees.

You see, that’s been my default reverie for years. I used to spend the first few weeks of winter fighting it. I’d clear my car of snow and ice while muttering colorful expletives... 

Title: Moth To The Light

Medium: Charcoal on Paper

Number 14 in the series Food For Thought 

She landed on the artichoke just as I finished the drawing. The sun poured through the studio window and this wild, precious moth fluttered across the room and landed, as if to say, this is my globe. Of course I had to add her to the drawing, I’m not completely blind! Good grief, one thing I know for sure… when nature talks, I listen...

Title: Out On A Limb

Acrylic on Canvas

#13 in the series   Food For Thought

Yeah, I’ve been there. I know you have too. Out on a limb is kind of scary. You’re hanging on for dear life, hoping that the limb is not too scrawny to support your dream, the thing that you have held fast against all odds. But... 

Title:  Make Mine With Onions

Acrylic on Canvas

#12 in the series  Food For Thought

Chef, Mario Batali wrote, “…food is part of the fabric of our days.” I agree. Healthy food is like a good strong cotton or nubby-linen backdrop to everything else that goes on in the foreground. Every morning we have to think, what am I going to make, bake, cook or buy every few hours until I sleep again? Sheesh, with a need like that you may as well turn it into an art.

Title: How Do You Like Them Apples

Acrylic on canvas

# 11 in the "Food For Thought" Series

Our apple tree is close to 40 years old. We planted that little apple-stick in the ground when we were in our early twenties and now we’re what we  would have considered back then as being old. 

(Funny how our perspective changes as we age) ...

When the Crow Calls Answer

Acrylic on canvas

Number 1 in the series   Birds of a Feather

Building a website is not for wimps. But then, neither is aging. Combine the two together and you have a recipe for potential disaster...

We Earn Our Age

Watercolor Pen and Ink

Number 1 in the series Summer Postcards

Full figured bodies on the beach are the best models to paint, especially older women who wear such fabulous expressions and don big sun glasses and strut that I-could-care-less-attitude along the water's edge. You can see the freedom on their faces. Their smiles revealing a song in their heart… I’m Free At Last, I’m free at last, Thank God Almighty I’m Free at Last!

The beach is a place where pretensions fall to the wayside … 

Know Your Onions

Acrylic on Canvas

Number one in the series, Food For Thought

“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”      Carl Sandburg