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Nov 7

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Breakfast with Anita

We’re off to the UK for Breakfast again this week, so I hope you like your toast browned on one side! Meet Anita Davies, prolific artist, poet, writer, blogger, and mother. I first encountered Anita’s work on the EDM SuperBlog. A year later, when Emma-Jane Rosenberg recommended Anita for a Breakfast guest, I could instantly bring to mind Anita’s work. She’s that good — as you’ll see for yourself. Chin-chin!

meCC: Please give us an intro to who you are, what you do, and your family headcount.
AD: I am an artist. A published poet. I have held a monthly column in the Fenland Citizen focusing on local artists. I have held a weekly illustrated column in the Cambs Times and Wisbech Standard where I spotlighted pages in my daily journals. I am a tutor, currently running a weekly adult workshop, giving private tuition and giving a weekly workshop in a village school with children.

I am also now an author, having recently published my summer project entitled Close to Home where I focused on the homes in three neighbouring villages, painting plein air sketches. The book is available for purchase through the Blurb bookstore.

My family and I live in Cambridgeshire, England, UK. Not in the city part but deep in the heart of the Fens where the skies are huge and the fields change with the seasons. I have two boys aged 10 and 17. It’s a big gap, I know, but after holding my first beautiful baby boy I didn’t believe I could love anyone so strongly and didn’t think it fair to try. Seven years later I felt I was ready and changed my mind. I was wrong…it is possible to love that deeply twice.

icedreflectionsCC: Tell us about your artwork and what you sell in your online shop.
AD: I started to paint in 2003 and I paint anything and everything really. I love a challenge so there isn’t really a subject or medium I would turn away from — I dabble with everything. I am fairly well known for my paintings of roses and my glass works and enjoy painting both. My commissioned work seems to revolve mostly around portraiture and pets where I try to capture the subject’s character along with a good likeness. I’ve been fortunate to have sold pieces worldwide via my previous website, my blog, and word of mouth.

Everything I paint is for sale if it isn’t in my journals or commissioned and I am currently trying to get around to updating my Etsy shop with some pieces — it’s been on my to-do list for some time but I will get there. I’m also currently making some ACEO art to list in time for Christmas. For the past year or so I have been keeping a daily illustrated journal that has helped to ensure I am creative every day. It’s been a while since I worked on anything else, besides commission work; it’s too tempting to take my journals on location through the summer months but winter is approaching fast so the studio is looking most tempting!

cranberrywhip-eyecandy-soldCC: What prompted you to start a blog? What keeps you going?
AD: I honestly can’t remember what prompted me to start my blog, my memory is a little erratic like that. I think I just visited one once and thought…I could do that!

My regular visitors keep me going, without a doubt. It is wonderful to have their support and feel I am speaking to someone rather than vacant airwaves when I type out my post for the day. I post EVERY day without fail; this actually works for me, I am best under pressure and knowing I have to post something each day urges me to do something creative even when I have very little time or energy…It’s a daily kick on the butt pushing me to be productive. I love blogging and I am so grateful for all the wonderful people I have come to know through my blog.

max-soldCC: How did you become involved with EDM? What do you enjoy most about your affiliation?
AD: Emma-Jane Rosenberg told me about EveryDayMatters [EDM] when we met for a sketch crawl date and I joined as soon as I got home. I have met some great people there. I think it is a wonderful spotlight for bloggers to unite and feel they have an audience to blog to. I have visited blogs before that have no comments at all and I admire that they still continue; I’m not sure I would post day in day out if I thought no one was looking. I’m sure this would effect my productivity too. Knowing someone will look encourages me to create and EDM provides a friendly and supportive platform.

dscf4491CC: Where do you do your creative work?
AD: I started by working at the end of my dining room table. Lack of space prompted an outside studio, which was a huge building project and looks wonderful BUT it killed me to make the choice between my family and my art in the evenings — leaving them was very difficult for me. So, now I have a conservatory next to the open-plan dining room, kitchen, and lounge, smack bang in the heart of the home and I LOVE IT! I get so much more done and often create a journal page between peeling the spuds and basting a beef joint.

dscf4475CC: Do you have a schedule for your creative work?
AD: No. In my opinion, schedules create disappointment when they aren’t met so I simply ‘live’ art. If I get five minutes while the kettle boils, three hours while the house is empty or three minutes before darting out of the truck to run up the school and collect my youngest…I make the most of them. My journal goes EVERYWHERE with me.

If you threw a penny away each day throughout your life because it was worthless by the time you reached the ripe age of 70 you’d be over £25,000 worse off. I try to make the most of every moment, however insignificant it seems at the time and I am always pleased I did, no matter what the result, I feel I did something.

25may07-harrybCC: How has motherhood changed you creatively?
AD: Motherhood has made me whole. I feel confident and loved enough to be myself, faults and all, which has opened so many creative avenues for me to explore!

CC: What do you struggle with most?
AD: Hmmm, struggle…there’s a word! I guess I would have to say that I struggle most with my own creativity and the speed and abundance of it. I have a hundred ideas a day and I want to do them all.

lounge-29may07CC: Where do you find inspiration?
AD: I am a thinker and a dreamer…Nothing is uninspiring to me, Everything holds an emotion…mystery…hidden beauty!

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?
AD: That’s like asking me my favorite song…I have hundreds all for different reasons and moods. The most useful is the EDM SuperBlog because it gives me a variety of creativity in one single link, a quick fix with my morning cuppa before I head off to take Harry to school.

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
AD: The midnight hours, they are all mine! The house is silent and I can start to unravel all of those voices, ideas and notes in my head and file them into some kind of order. The earth is still and I am aware of my place on it and all the wonderful ways in which I am blessed. I can work and keep a single chain of thought and open the gates for ideas to come flooding through. I’m a night owl, always have been, it’s normal for me to climb into bed at 3 a.m. and be up again at 7:30 a.m. to start the day…although getting out of bed is a problem (I love my snooze button) and I am useless before black coffee hits my lips!05july08

CC: What are you reading right now?
AD: (BLUSH) I’m a child at heart, I don’t read so much as look at pictures. I could look at pictures all day but my attention span is challenged by text…However, I love to write.

gs-final-soldCC: What advice would you offer to other mothers struggling to find the time and means to be more creative?
AD: Don’t mentally separate the two: It shouldn’t be a choice between motherhood OR creativity. Combine them and be a creative mum. Okay, so you may well want to paint a realistic rendition of the Mona Lisa but if the day doesn’t allow for it don’t mope, excusing lack of creativity to time or the children, just be creative in a different way. Kids love to join in and offer some great inspiration and ideas.

Believe you are worth it: It may seem like just a few sketches or another long scarf to everyone else but it is i27october08mportant to you and you should be important to those you live with. Don’t be afraid to take time out, space alone to clear your mind of daily chores and allow yourself moments to be you, not Mum, not Wife, not cook…YOU!

Wanting time to yourself now and then doesn’t make you a bad mother, taking that time will make you a happier one!

CC: Very well said, Anita — thank you!

Nov 6

13 Comments

Miranda: “Someday” is today

someday_sky1I can’t remember where I picked it up, but at some point last week I heard the old reminder “‘Someday’ is today.” Those three words have been repeating in my head ever since.

When you aspire to living in the moment, it’s easy to forget about all those things you want to do “someday.” The only things that belong on a “someday” list, however, are things that you might be interested in but won’t regret if you never get to them: like taking a Thai cooking class or getting dreadlocks. If the prospect of not doing something on that list is upsetting, then it doesn’t belong on a “someday” list. It should move onto a real agenda. Because really, someday is today — and if dreadlocks really speak to who you are, then you need to figure out how to make that happen now, rather than leaving it to fantasy.

While I continually make progress incorporating creativity into my life — an erratic but upward stagger — I realize there are things on my “someday” list that I really could — and should (“should” because it would make me happy) — be doing right now.

For example, I’d like to have an art space in my basement. I have a huge, unfinished basement that is dry and not too unpleasant. There isn’t a lot of stuff down there because we moved many things into storage when we put our house on the market. We have a playroom of sorts in one area of the basement. Why not cobble together a studio so that I can do art projects whenever I like, without taking over the kitchen table or the dining room? A place where I can leave projects mid-progress, without having to clean everything up after every creative stint? I could put something together with little or no cost. Sure, I’m trying to sell my house, but so what? I don’t think that an informal studio area, even if it does get a little cluttered, is going to bother prospective buyers. (And the whole house selling thing is a “someday” trap if ever there was one.)

I also realized that I have another category of “someday” items that I never intended to put off; they’ve been relegated to the “someday” list by accident. These are things that I think I’m going to do “tomorrow,” but then tomorrow never comes. Every week I seem to repeat the same thing: “Well, THIS week is really busy because of X. Next week will be better, and then I’ll be able to do Y.” But then the next week I’m all “Well, THIS week is really busy because of Q. Next week…” And so on. Of course, this mythical week of relative calm and predictable schedule never arrives — and so I eternally put off whatever it was that I wanted to do. It’s a slow kind of death by the best of intentions. Who am I kidding? You’d think I’d have figured it out by now. I have five children and a freelance career. Obviously, relative calm and a predictable schedule are not high on the list of likely outcomes. Some weeks will be better than others; some weeks will be busier than others; but really, the bandwidth is not going to change that drastically.

Here are two examples of things that I intend to get to, but never incorporate as reliable habits:

  1. I’d like to spend less time on the computer (specifically time wasted on the computer). I always feel better when I put my laptop away for a day. And the kids love it too. Anyone who really needs to reach me urgently has my cell phone number. Even if I don’t go fully unplugged, I know I’m better off having set computer times — a few brief stints at specific intervals. Aside from my two full workdays (when I’m glued to my laptop nonstop) there is no reason that I can’t adopt a more reasonable computer routine. Making this happen today instead of later means spending more time focused on the kids, now, when they need me, which is another “someday” item of its own. Do I want to wait until ALL the children head off to college and I realize that I missed my chance to spend more time with them — and that the false promise of “someday” has actually evaporated?
  2. I’d like to get back on top of dinnertime. I usually cook something vaguely nutritious at least four or five times a week, but lately it always seems like my oldest one has just returned from work (at a coffee shop) and isn’t hungry or I cooked something that the ninth-grade son doesn’t like or I timed things badly and my stuffed squash isn’t actually ready until 8:00 p.m. — which is bedtime for the pre-schooler. (Tonight’s scenario, for example.) I want to increase my repertoire of yummy “regular” meals (the most recent set is getting tired) and add a little more ceremony — and creativity — to dinnertime.

Those are my “someday” items for the moment. I can’t say that “work on my book” is on my “someday” list, because I AM actually writing with some vague regularity right now. I’m even running, although not more than 2-3 times a week — but running nonetheless. So there are two perennial “someday” items that I am actually doing.

How about you? What’s on your “someday” list that you really should and could start doing right now? And what “someday” items have you actually moved into the “now” column?

Nov 5

6 Comments

11/05 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

A nice show of hands for this week’s creativity contest prompt. Our two-time defending champion is on a streak! Jen Johnson wins again. Go, Jen! (Is this like that dude on Jeopardy, or what?) Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been sent. Jen writes: “I’d thought I knew what I wanted to write as soon as I saw the new prompt last Tuesday, but the week got in the way with no writing at all. So here we are, Election Day, and this morning I found myself scribbling lines on scrap paper while running around after the toddler. The poem below is the result of about an hour’s much-interrupted scribbling. And given my Mama’s Magic Studio motto –- ‘Where Handmade Magic Happens!’ — I just couldn’t resist sending you my ‘avatar’ photo.” Just goes to show what you can do with an hour. I appreciate that Jen used a rhyming pattern without veering into cuteness, which is difficult — and I like the timely election reference.

Hands (The Personal is Political)
Tap the keyboard,
Knead the bread,
Paint the canvas,
Make the bed,mm-avatar-square-bright-large

Knit the sweater,
Wrap the gift,
Braid the tresses,
Mend the rift,

Wield the hammer,
Sweep the rug,
Tend the bruises,
Squeeze the hug,

Push the stroller,
Mold the clay,
Burp the baby,
Show the way,

Cast the ballot,
Skip the rope,
Thread the needle,
Pray for hope.

 

From Cathy Coley, a lovely pairing of past and present: “A new poem and an old drawing exercise from high school: 3 views of my own hand. 25 years apart.”

mother’s hands
in many pots, but most
importantly rubbing backs,
smoothing tears,
running through
baby fine and thicker hair
lifetime source of comfort.

04-18-2007-102725am

 

From Juliet Bell, a treat for everyone! “Hands -– now there’s an interesting prompt. I’m a palmist. Hands are far more than magnificent tools; they are an encapsulation of who we are, our personalities, our foibles, our talents, our ups and downs, and so much more. They are a window through which we can see our unique magnificence. I thought I would use this prompt to diagram and highlight some of the features that creative people will most likely find in their hands. As you read, please note that this is very general, and as in astrology, it is the full combination of all in your hand that fills out the picture of just who you are as a unique individual. You will want primarily to look at your dominant hand as this is the one which shows what you are doing with the talents you brought into the world with you (shown in the non-dominant hand).” [Click on the image for a larger view.]

hand-creative-construction-diagram1

  1. The head line will likely curve down toward the moon area (blue). The farther down it slopes, the more you draw on your unconscious, the more creative you are likely to be. The more horizontal the head line, the more you will want your creativity to have a practical application (make money, for instance).
  2. The Apollo or Sun finger (ring finger) will be significant. This is the finger of self expression, love of beauty, and artistic endeavors. It will likely extend beyond the halfway point of the top phalange of the middle finger; there may be a line or lines on the hand extending toward the mount (base) of the finger. The longer the line, the more that artistic self-expression is part of your personal destiny. Many shorter lines above the heart line indicate a lover of the arts.
  3. The Mercury finger (little finger) will show the role communication plays in your life, and the degree to which you may have commercial success. If it extends into the top phalange (top crease) of the ring finger, then it is long. This indicates that communication is a vital component of your creativity. This will often be demonstrated by a need or desire to put your work out there for the world.
  4. The Jupiter finger (index) will indicate ambition and leadership (among other things). If this finger is as long as Apollo or longer, then you are very ambitious, and will show much drive toward accomplishing your goals.
  5. The will portion of the thumb (top section) will show your ability to accomplish your goals as opposed to just thinking about them. If it is in good proportion to the rest of the thumb, or longer, then you have the will power to do what you need to make things happen.
  6. The finger tips will show the way in which you attack most of what you do. The more pointed the finger tips and nails are, the more you rely on gut feelings; your ideas and feelings come to you and you act on them. The more squared your finger tips and nails are, the more reasoning your approach will be, and the more practicality will flavor what you do.
  7. The fingers themselves indicate your orientation to the world. The smoother the fingers, the more spontaneous you will be; knotted joints will slow you down, cause you to ponder before taking action. The length of your fingers in relation to the palm is significant. Fingers longer than the length of the palm indicates a love of detail and minutia, a thinker, slow to speak and act. Short fingers indicate a talent for seeing the big picture, and a quick mind — quick in thought and action.

I hope you found this fun and validating.

 

From Kelly Warren: “This is my first attempt playing around with Adobe Illustrator. The words in the background are the lyrics to one of my favorite Sugarland songs. I’ll leave the rest up to interpretation.”

 

What I'd Give

 

From me (Miranda): I got so carried away with Election Day that I forgot my own advice to create a contest entry before the eleventh hour! After a moment of panic, I came up with an idea that I was able to execute on my laptop while watching the election returns last night.

 

seven_hands

 

This week’s prompt: “Self-portrait”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, November 11. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

Nov 4

16 Comments

Cathy: Crying out in the wilderness

I’m having one of those moments — one of those really bad moments of a stay-at-home mother or a writer. The kind where you can hear yourself screaming, but it’s as if everyone else in your home is looking right past you, no matter what you may be saying. In a movie, the lens would be panning through the doors, around the room and from a distance into close up, the sound of a scream gaining momentum until the camera is zooming into an open mouth of a crazed woman standing, in — Oh, I don’t know, let’s put her in the kitchen, with a steaming pot on the stove and a mess of undue proportion all around, but finally the camera goes into that cavern of a mouth, dodges past teeth and tongue, spotlights the uvula, and goes black, and silent. When the scene comes back up, she’s standing there, stunned look on her face, flyaway hair escaping ponytail, and breathing stiltedly.

This is also a common feeling for anyone who deals on a regular basis with someone on the autism spectrum. So I am having a triple whammy day of it — the regular wife and mother moment, the writer moment, and the aspie mom moment of it. So I thought I’d put it to good use. Maybe if someone stumbles across this blog as any one of the above, they’ll know they are not alone without having to feel like they should go on Oprah to talk about it. Following are just a few parts of my particular scenario that have led me to this moment:

  1. I’m still kind of feeling like I’m writing in a void since I don’t have an income from it, although I’m generally doing much better about that feeling while actively working on a novel.
  2. I spent much of yesterday, side by side with my aspie son, looking for the floor in his room — a sea of drawings, started and stopped over and over, because it just wasn’t perfect enough for him. He kept zoning out into whatever caught his attention. I kept calling his name and giving a different list: his list of choices to put things: paper to be recycled, paper to be saved, non-paper garbage or toy bucket. We made it about ¾ of the way through the mess in three hours, mostly by me and by my yelling “S- S- S– look at me — look at this — is this drawing to be saved or recycled? S- S- S– look at me — look at this — is this drawing to be saved or recycled? S- S- S– look at me — look at this — is this drawing to be saved or recycled?”
  3. My husband has not mowed the lawn in a month. The grass is taller than the dog. I know I got us out of the house last weekend for the whole weekend, essentially, so I intentionally backed out of plans for this weekend, except trick or treat, so that we could focus on what slid last weekend, especially the lawn. I finally started to ‘nag’ about it, and then he actively refused to do it. Now I must mention, we have a history with the lawn that involves my ‘green’ mower and doing it myself vs the gas mower and his doing it, in which I have been shut out of the argument due to my recent bedrest pregnancy complications and the fact that I’m still ‘recovering’ from that year in bed and one of the complications.
  4. I also have a teen son. His reaction time, if there is one, happens in stop gap motion. Have you ever seen anyone really look as if they are moving through molasses? That is K. And his slow motion voice has deepened to sound a lot like one of those slow motion effects, too. “Whaaaaaaa…”
  5. I’m more often than not, pinned nursing my lovely baby, which leads to a feeling of helplessness to accomplish one complete task from beginning to end. Not to mention the sleep deprivation involved. Too late.
  6. Economy is a huge issue and my darling husband is a classic sort — the quiet type who thinks he has to take care of it all himself and will probably give himself a heart attack trying rather than communicate better, so I end up having a freak-out moment because of the periodic buildup between us. Of course this only leads to my looking like a drama queen, and doesn’t get us effectively communicating, because he stands there in stunned silence at the monster who has taken possession of his petite, usually fairly sunny disposition wife, complete with flying laundry baskets.
  7. I have my period. Period.

Thanks for listening, and if you ever have the same feeling, feel free to leave a comment below. I must say, having vented, I feel much better already, nearly as well as if I had called a girlfriend and laughed about the same. Maybe now I can rewash that laundry that flew down the stairs last night along with the three day old few sips of coffee I had left by my bedside. Yuck, spotty.

Nov 3

2 Comments

Poll: What does your creativity mean to you?

Election Day is upon us! Warm up your voting muscles with the poll below. Click the link to participate and view the results, which are anonymous.

Which of the following statements best describes how you feel about your creative work?
( polls)

Nov 3

3 Comments

Online Resource for Writers: Fiction Lounge

I recently stumbled into Adam Maxwell’s Fiction Lounge, and I’m glad that I did. While clearly a vehicle for promoting the author’s work, Maxwell’s site is attractively designed and offers a free writers’ prompt tool, which might just be enough to prod you out of a fit of writer’s block should you happen to experience that nasty affliction. There’s also a fun character name generator, which is mildly addictive, and an award-winning podcast of Maxwell’s short fiction. Enjoy!

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