ORIGINAL BLISS

Working the Bones

So much going on in my head.

Lots of mundane crap and to-do doo doo.

Moving checklists.

Schedules.

Work.

Planning.

and worry.

Worry is a sneaky little shadow. You think you're good, then she peeks around a corner all unexpected, and jumps out at you. Blasted pest! Once she surprises you like that, she has an easy time of casting her spell over EVERY thought.

Then you obsess. And lose sleep. And get your brow in a furrow. 

*sigh*

Now that felt good!

*deep breath*

Even better!

*giggle*

Maybe I am okay after all.

  

Namaste,

C H E Z

"Dreaming on the Page" Now Available on LuLu!!!

 

I did it!!!

I finished a project I wanted to have complete before Art Every Day of the Month was over.

Issue #1 of "Dreaming on the Page - 10 Soul Journaling Adventures" is available for purchase at LuLu.

You can purchase either a printed copy or an electronic version of the book.

I am so excited!

Several years ago, My art journaling process had become about something much deeper than making pretty pictures. It became a sacred space where I threw my dreams, fears, laughter, tears, rages, plans, reflections,

obsessions, should ofs, could ofs, have tos and to dos. Sometimes my creations were pretty, sometimes they were a complete mess, but always a truthful reflection of my experience.

I started calling my “art journaling” - Soul Journaling. 

Soul Journaling moves beyond words, playing with images to access a different part of your brain to explore deeper insights about yourself and your journey. It is a process that is truly like dreaming on the page.

This ZINE is the first in a series of soul journaling adventure guides that I hope will assist you with your
Dreaming on the Page.

In this 32 page, full color guide, you will find 10 journal prompts with step-by-step instructions. You can follow the process exactly or adapt them at your choosing. The projects are truly meant to be a springboard for your own creative process so I have included some suggestions on how you can adapt the page and make it your own.

If you are brand new to the process of art journaling, I challenge you to open your journal and jump right into a project. If you come across a term or process you do not understand, you will find a “FUNdamentals of PLAY” at the back of the ZINE, that provides descriptions and expanded explanations.

When we make pictures in our journals, adding color and form to the page, we illuminate
them and in the process we illuminate ourselves.
We unearth our buried dreams.
We face our fears.
We find the sacred in the ordinary.
We speak our truth.

Let the adventures begin!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Flippin' the Finger at Chaos

 

"Trying to figure it out.

Wondering if there is an answer.

It is a maddening situation...

But maybe...

just maybe...

???

There is a solution in the CREATIVE."

 

As I said in a recent post, the circus has come to the Sinclair’s.
I asked the question - What does one do when the clowns take over the circus - when the monkeys start running the zoo?

It is very simply, a distraction.

I have been making real progress in my goals, diligently working... well, playing toward my soul’s true calling.

I have been in this situation before... really really excited, thriving, seeing my desires on the brink of manifestation...

when “Splat!”

Shit hits the fan.

When shit hits the fan it doesn’t just land in a blob on the fan. The fan is always on and it slams into the blades and gets flung and blown everywhere. You can spend MONTHS cleaning up shit splatter.

I usually do.

My pattern in the past has been to drop everything, put my goals and dreams on hold to go scavenging for shit splats to clean up. This is very upsetting, annoying, aggravating, enraging...

especially since it is NOT MY SHIT.

Guess what?

I’m not doing it this time.

Hear that?

I am not putting my passion on hold to deal with problems that are not mine.

I do think this must be how people who achieve their wildest dreams do it.

When all your creative momentum is surging powerfully and vibrantly forth, Evil Shit Storm has to try to bring all that positive to a halt - It tries to sidetrack you with chaos.

The “winners” of this world must flip the finger at the Evil Shit Storm, and continue forward, creating and manifesting their dreams.

So here is Shannan - flippin’ the finger at the Evil Shit Storm, and going back to where I was, creating my soul’s desire.

It just so happens that I picked up a book while I was in Point Reyes Station. “Creativity, Where the Divine and the Human Meet” by Matthew Fox.

While I was wallowing in rage at the Evil Shit Storm, I picked up this little tome and read:

“What do we do with chaos? Creativity has an answer. We are told by those who have studied processes of nature that creativity happens at the border between chaos and order. Chaos is a prelude to creativity. We need to learn, as every artist needs to learn, to live with chaos and, indeed, to dance with it as we listen to it and attempt some ordering.

Artists wrestle with chaos, take it apart, deconstruct and reconstruct from it. Accept the challenge to convert chaos into some kind of order, respecting the timing of it all. Study the chaos around us in order to turn it into something beautiful. Something sustainable. Something that remains.”

I still think flipping the finger at it is a better idea.

You?

 

Namaste,

C H E Z

Livin' Vivid

With Kelsea off to college and Mattea busy with high school and YES Ambassadors, I have had more free time than ever. Jeff will be starting school on Monday, which will mean the nest may be truly empty some evenings!

It is the first time in my life that I have felt I can do anything I want without guilt associated with it.

If I ever sat down for creative time before, guilt always took a seat with me. I should be mopping the floor, doing yard work, grocery shopping, paying bills..........

If family was home the Guilt Being was even louder. "You should be spending time with them. They miss you. You aren't a good mother."

Now that everyone is busy and happy with their own lives and projects --- I FEEL FREE!!!!

I am curious to know what I can accomplish with just that little more time to devote to my passion without my Guilt Being looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear?

I finally got some good sleep today. Only 6 hours - from 8am - 2 pm - but it was deep uninterrupted sleep. Working midnight shift and switching my body to the daytime clock on days off jacks my circadian rhythm up. Coupled with the Equinox, that flooded my consciousness with darkness and nightmares, I've been dragging through my days.

Today's good rest should help me nurture a more positive outlook.

My little angel suggested that I download the audio version of "The Joy Diet" from Itunes. Since I drive 2 hours a day, I thought it would be time better spent listening to the book, rather than try to find time later to read it and keep up with The Next Chapter schedule. My little angel also sits on my shoulder and gently reminds me of things, and points out better, easier ways of doing things. Do you have one of those?

I always wished she would kick Guilt Being's ass --- but she said that it wasn't her place. 

It all worked out in the end.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Well, Aren't You Crafty?

"Art is a re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments."

Ayn Rand

I finally did it. I picked up and bought a copy of Ayn Rand's masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged."

My marketing instructor in college told me if I ever read one book in my lifetime - it should be this. I am an avid reader, but have yet to tackle the 1168 pages. My intuition tells me she is a kindred spirit.

I have often pondered the question - "What is the difference between art - and craft?"

Sometimes I think that all I am doing in my creative endeavors is being crafty. Sometimes when I am in the process of creating a piece someone will comment “Well, aren’t you ‘crafty’!”  

I get a little offended.

 

What is the ingredient that takes craft to a level of being ART?

I agree with Ms. Rands's reflection on this.

 

For me, a true artist is someone who has a feeling, an intuition, a thought or idea, and a drive to explore it creatively, whether visually, through dance, theater, photography, or film.

Just one little treasure of inspiration and the artist is compelled to play! 

They take the hint from the muse, engage in a conversation with the Creative and let it speak to them and through them one step at a time.

Showing up, listening and having a conversation with the muse, is what makes an artist.

Not composition, not color theory, not technique, not execution.

It is birthing the intangible, emotional, and unconscious into the conscious and tangible in the world.

 

The reason I love art journaling is because the whole point is the process –

not the end result.

Many times the end result will be a hot mess -- ugly, messy, the composition could be off, there can be mistakes, smudges, what you thought you wanted to do could have gotten completely funked up.

 

It isn’t all meticulously planned and perfectly executed.

And all that ugly is okay if it's HONEST!

My art journal keeps me grounded.

It’s not the what it looks like, what I can sell it for, who else is going to like it on my Flikr page and favorite it, what my friends or family think.

It is “What did I learn from my dance with the muse today?”

There is an answer within each page, within each element on the page.

Why the color?

Why that face?

Why a stamp?

Why the butterfly?

Why that word?

Why the shape?

THAT is what I like to explore.

If that is crafty to you,

so be it.

It is an artistic orgasm for me!

 

The answers bring a better understanding of who I am as a being, and why I am here.

 

When YOU are appreciating art - what is it that grabs you?

When you are strolling through the museum, trolling Flickr sets, skimming through a magazine or books….

What is it that grabs you and makes you say “I LIKE IT!”

 

Is it really the color and composition? Is it the perfect execution?

Is it really because it is “pretty”?

Or is it telling you something else?

Is there some other message it is conveying to you?

 

When I am enjoying other artist’s work I feel am having a communication with that artist on an unconscious level.

The communication between the artist and the muse is transferred to the canvas or paper through the medium - the paint, the lens, the movement, and when I view the work I feel I am eavesdropping on that conversation.

It's riveting.

I may not understand it on a conscious level but I feel it – I can relate my experience in the world with what the artist has expressed. A telepathic, multidimensional connection with another human and the divine!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Luna Tics

"Ethereal"

Last night was another "crazy" night at 911. The full moon peaked on the 7th, but there was a lot of residual lune-y left in the air. YES! The full moon effects people! It is not a myth.

Usually 911 callers are either ignorant or belligerent (with the occasional actual emergency). The past two nights, callers were BOTH ignorant AND belligerent. I can be patient with one or the other, but the combo kills me.

I spent my lunch break in the kitchen elbow deep in Gel Medium and Modge Podge putting the beginning touches on some altered National Geographic pages in Journal #2, "Angels and Guardians".

 

"Flower Secrets"

I got off work this morning at 7... made the hour commute home... drank a Coors Light in bed (yes at 8 a.m.! It's my 5 o'clock)... and took a 3 hour nap.

On my first day off I like at least 5 hours of sleep. But 3 was all sleep would give me. I was a-buzz with energy!

I have no idea why, but I didn't take the gift for granted!

I worked some more on my pages, made a big bowl of ceviche, participated in a spin class, and am blogging and trolling as we speak.

Tomorrow night I'll have an art booth at the Stockton Art Walk --- if you live close, stop into the Bob Hope Theatre and say "Hola!"

Off to dinner... the ceviche isn't finished "cooking" and a margarita is sounding good.

So much for the spin class!

Namaste,

C H E Z

The Birth of Consciousness

"Jesus said: 'If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is amazing, but if spirit came into being because of the body, it is even more amazing. I am amazed, though, at how such great wealth has settled into such poverty.'"

Saying 29 - The Gospel of Thomas

Before flesh there is only spirit. In order to know itself, spirit has to manifest into flesh. Without flesh/mind/psyche, spirit/love/Eros cannot know itself.

"The Birth of Consciousness" Mixed media/Collage/Resin - For Sale on ETSY

 

I recently read two wonderful books by Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child and Angels of Destruction.

In them, he expresses the agony of how children grow up and abandon you for their own adulthood and on the other side of the mirror the agony of molting out of the soft skin of childhood and becoming an adult.

These books were an angel to me as I go through a grieving and letting go process and watch Kelsea struggle with her transition into adulthood.

I share with you some of my favorite insights:

"Why whisper wishes when my heart shouts with no result" - Margaret Quinn

"If a line exists in two directions from a single point, and it is called eternity, there can be no beginning and no end. It simply is. You is. Are. My first secret is that you have always existed and will continue to exist. those who truly believe must conquer time. It is not the length of your life that matters if you will always be –- If you have existed since the beginning and shall be forever, than the cares in this life are little more than a sigh in time. And yet we worry over every problem large and small. Instead of trusting our troubles will pass as we continue." - Noriah

"Fathers know from the beginning the string will snap and they mourn a bit each passing day. Mothers keep their eyes fixed on their children in the bright blue sky and are dumbfounded when they break their hearts."

Summer is a great time for a good read!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Breaking Patterns

"Break the Pattern"

One of my first memories is being 4 years old, putting on my boots, getting my record player out, putting on my favorite 45 - "Indian Reservation" by Paul Revere and the Raiders - getting on top of the Formica kitchen table and getting my go-go on.

I loved my record player! Well into my 20's I owned a turntable and played vinyl. The sound of the needle touching the record was palpable and you could feel the grooves as the music played.

Until the record skipped.

Some small scratch would pop that diamond tip on repeat... repeat... repeat... And you'd have to nudge the needle a little to get it over the nick.

Remember?

Life is like that sometimes.

Blissfully groovin' along and budump,budump,budump,budump...

We must really like the tune of that record because we keep putting it back on the turntable. Then we get all aggravated and confused when we reach the same ol' budump,budump,budump,budump...

You think we'd learn the lesson - ditch the broken record - and upgrade to an iPod already!

But we don't.

Well, at least I haven't...

yet.

I am determined to stop repeating old patterns by putting on a new record. But I have a sneaking suspicion they'll be a scratch in it somewhere!

"Sew Easy"

Jeff and I went ephemera hunting at antique stores yesterday. I love shopping for ephemera! It inspires me and it's CHEAP!

I bought a box set of National Geographic magazines from 1922-1938. Fourteen composition size treasures ready for altering for $20. JOY!

Yes. I will gesso and gel and collage and tear them. 

This FREAKS people out! "AHHHH! You are ruining a book!"

I figure someone had this in their garage for 70-something years and all they got was a Jackson. (Actually... it was probably bought at an estate sell for a Lincoln and the dealer quadrupled the price.) So re-purposed for art's sake they get and back to art I go!

Namaste,

C HE Z

 

"Sew Easy" Spread