Coming out of Port

 My daughter suggested that I start a blog.  At first I wasn't sure if it meant, “Mom, we've heard your stories a million times...maybe if you flood the internet with them you'll leave us alone.” But she kept on it, and I really value her opinion...Plus, this may actually stop me from bothering my kids.

The purpose of this blog: I am fascinated by processes. Evolutions. How Everything can transform. I think it stems from my days of studying art and especially design in college. Of course, some of you may know how your mind is in college, so open to just about anything, the synapses firing like crazy, and soon I began to see everything in terms of its process, where it was coming from, and how it seemed to be transforming. There are a lot of people who tell me this makes me brilliant and creative. But, There are also a lot of people who tell me it makes me crazy. Nevertheless, enough people are interested in my wacky view of things that I figured I'd share my creative journey with the general population.

The timing of the blog also comes at a really unique point in my life, a creative explosion if you will, in which I was essentially thrust in a rocket out of my own slumber into a colorful world of possibilities. I'm sure I'll see the wizard someday. But part of being true to yourself as an artist is having the courage to follow the yellow brick road no matter where it leads, even if it's not back to Auntie Em. Everyone has their own road, and their own thought process in making the decisions along the way. That's the fun part. Letting it happen, and seeing where you get. I'd love for you to come along on my creative journey with me...

A little warning here: I take no responsibility, none whatsoever, if you become either brilliant or crazy or artistic or eaten by the cowardly lion in the process. Read at your own risk.

Just a bit about me, without getting too longwinded. I am a fun, loving, overly emotional girl who had an amazing couple of parents in a 'Brady Bunch' kind of family, I was the kid Mr&Mrs Brady would've had together -My dad was an artist and taught me to draw, brought me to boat docks and parks where we would sit all day and draw together. As a grown-up, I got a master's in architecture, worked in the field for 20 years, got married and raised 3 great kids. Now my art, which apparently has been waiting a very long time, is busting out like an overflowing dam, and it is all I can do to stop it.

The drawing above happened at a really serendipitous moment a couple of years ago, 20 years after my dad had passed away. I was wandering around the docks at Tarpon Springs, Florida, a Greek community (my Dad was Greek), smelling the Greek food and the salt water, remembering our days at the docks together, and I looked up and happened to see that image. My Dad's name was Charlie.  I had to sit right down where I was and draw it. There were tourists flooding around me watching, and I really had the time of my life, and felt my Dad was sitting right there with me.  I just love it when things like that happen, and I tend to think nothing is an accident.  I started to know right then that the path of my life was changing a bit. 

Truth is, my belief is that everyone is an artist of their own type. Everyone has a creative impulse that comes out in some way, shape or form. For some it's dancing, singing, or even raising a child or baking a cake. The important thing, in my opinion, is to never block one's creative flow with self-doubt, or fear . I recently learned this face-to-face, and just how critical it is to my own life. The degree of your creativity is directly proportional to the deadliness of the poison of doubt. If a creative person cuts off the flow, they can be left in the prison of depression forever. This is not a good place to be.

So people are always asking me when I draw things, “How can you DO that?” and I suppose I always answer with something logical, like explaining how my Dad taught me when I was a kid, or how I have drawn my whole life, but the underlying thing I feel like answering is, “How can you NOT do that”? And I don't mean to say why are you not ABLE to do that...it's more that drawing for me is a necessity, just like breathing in and out. When I see something (or think something) that strikes me there is a craving inside me to render it somehow, to make it mine, to feel it, to become one with it, in a way that drawing does for me. Sometimes it's not the right time to create when I get that craving, and there is sometimes an actual internal pain. I know I have to let go of it so that normal life can go on in its natural rhythm. When this happens, Something dies a little inside. I know that moment will never come again, and I have to just trust that that picture was meant for someone else, that the world will go on, that I will go on breathing, even if I don't create a piece of art from that inspiration.

(I hope from reading this you might be having a little bit of sympathy for me instead of thinking that life with a creative gift is all glamorous and stuff. It's really quite frustrating. I like sympathy. Go ahead and feel sorry for me. Just remember to buy a piece of art as you shed those tears and all will be well.)

Other times, the craving to create actually comes to fruition, and I am gifted with the ability to carve out just enough time and energy to put that inspiration into a work of art. Each piece becomes a snapshot of the moment, where I hope to convey all of my sensual experience in only usually the visual. It's not an easy task. That's where the process comes in. Sometimes the process can take years from thought to art, as it did in this piece:

So the first step, is just draw. Just write ALWAYS. If the idea is meant to turn into something, it will not go away, and it will eventually become something, which in turn may touch those who see it, so that it can find its way through their brain synapses to where it's supposed to go from there. We are all connected through our creative minds, and in my opinion it is precisely this electric current that makes the world go around.

The topics involved as this blog goes along will be stuff that interests me, but maybe you'd like to take a peek as they come out, not only because the creative process affects everyone, but since I'm interested in just about everything, you'll probably find your interest here too at one time or another.

Thank you for reading!