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Jul 5

14 Comments

New e-book short! The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years

I’m just a wee bit excited to unveil my new e-book short, The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years. This e-book is the culmination of many years of work, research, and personal interviews. I am so pleased to share this project with you!

When a creative woman has a child, her universe shifts. How to maintain — or begin — a creative practice while caring for a little one? Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is your indispensable guide to navigating the early years of motherhood.

  • Written by a certified creativity coach and mother of five
  • Filled with the first-hand experience and wisdom of 13 artists and writers
  • Specific, concrete strategies for being more creative without adding more guilt and “shoulds” to your already overflowing plate

When you have young children, what you don’t have is time. This 35-page e-book short gives you the information and tools that you need, quickly. Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is a resource that you’ll refer to for inspiration and support again and again. It might be the best tool you download this year! It will certainly the best value you’ll get out of $11.98. Click here to order and download. You can also check out a free sample page here.

Thirteen generous, talented creative mothers share their experience and tested strategies:

A few words of praise:

“Miranda Hersey explains how you can keep your creative life vibrant while you parent your young children. Your creativity doesn’t have to be sacrificed while you parent! Miranda tells you exactly what you need to know to keep your creative life alive. Highly recommended.” ~Eric Maisel, Author of Coaching the Artist Within and Fearless Creating

“Becoming a mother can feel as if you have lost yourself deep under nurturing others and meeting their needs. If you’ve also lost view of the way to creative expression, the place you were most yourself, real grief may temper the joy of falling in love with a baby and raising children. When Miranda Hersey encountered that particular reality of motherhood, she asked other writers and artists, women for whom creativity is food, how they managed. She distilled their wise and practical answers into six do-able practices that restore your creative life and make space amid the toys and laundry for you. Those conversations and Miranda’s own experience as a writer and mother of five reveal the best secret of all: when creativity can be merged with mothering, they enhance and expand each other in wonderful, unexpected ways.” ~Gale Pryor, Author, Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Staying Close to Your Baby After Returning to Work

“In Six Creative Practices for the Early Years, Miranda Herseyrallies her readers into a band of sisters, united by the challenges we share. Drawing on her own experiences, and the wisdom of 13 practicing artists and writers, Hersey invites us to embrace motherhood and creativity as related, cross-pollinating endeavors. Simple, proven practices lay out a formula for success, encouraging us to reexamine our creativity with openness and generosity. With engaging, frequently humorous, narration, Hersey is the voice in our ear, the friend by our side, nudging us to discover those hidden pockets of time and inspiration and the courage to use them to sustain our creative lives. The lessons in this marvelous volume will be with me for years to come!”  ~Susan Edwards Richmond, Poet

“When my twins were babies, I relied on a stack of dog-eared parenting books, flipping through them whenever I needed encouragement, and concrete advice. As a mother who needed to create in order to feel truly alive, I would have added The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years to that library in a heartbeat. Miranda Hersey understands the realities of parenting young children, but gently challenges the reader to tap into the rich creative possibility that exists nonetheless. This is a book that creative mothers will return to again and again for reassurance, inspiration, and genuinely helpful practices.”  ~Ellen Olson-Brown, Author

Click here for a free sample page, and to order and download! And of course, if you like what you read, I’d be delighted if you could let your friends know about Six Creative Practices for the Early Years. Thank you!

Feb 1

8 Comments

Giveaway: Join me at the wishBIG e-camp!


I’m *delighted* to be part of the teaching roster at the wishBIG ecamp this month!

To celebrate, I’m giving away a spot by the campfire to one lucky winner.

This fabulous online course is structured like no other, thanks to the creative genius of Mindy Tsonas at wishstudio. Wherever you live, the wishBIG ecamp allows you to connect with other creatives and get your 2012 mojo going strong.

February 19 – 26, 2012
Online – eight 2-hour workshops (self-paced)
Free for wishstudio members ($86 for non-members)

It’s time to gather round the creative fire!

Your week at ecamp includes:

  • Eight (2-hour) online creative living workshops from a host of fabulously inspiring Camp Counselors, each bringing their own special talent and insight to help you wishBIG, createBIG and liveBIG! In addition to myself, your instructors include Connie Hozvicka, Vivienne Mc Master, Chris Zydel, Amy Palko, Jenna McGuiggan, Stacy De La Rosa, and Rachel Awes.
  • Daily ecamp mail! Inspiration Postcards (sent via e-mail) created especially for YOU by our talented teachers for a little extra creative spark, each day of camp.
  • Evening campfire gatherings designed specially for the group and the work at hand! These fun and inspirational nightly gatherings are created from what comes up specifically for us as a group. Mindy tunes into the thoughts and activity of each day and thoughtfully carves out space for a relevant community discussion. These tend to be intimate, powerful and wonderfully connective whether you sit in the circle quietly or dive deeply into the conversation.
  • Supportive kindred community with our own private group for sharing thoughts and work throughout your camp experience, as well as individual support and cheering from each of our ecamp Counselors within their workshop and beyond.
  • An easy, go-at-your-own-pace format that allows you to work through the workshops in a way that best meets your needs. All classes will be available online for one month, and are self paced.

My own course is A Life of Intention: Your Map for the Next 12 Months (Thursday, 2/23). In this workshop, you’ll create an empowered and inspired map for the next 12 months that moves you toward your longer-term goals. This process involves naming your intentions, gathering your assets, and making your map. It’s a dose of inspiration and clarity!

Won’t you join us? For more details and to register, click here. Meanwhile, if you’d like to be entered in a drawing to win a spot, leave a comment at this post before Friday, February 3 at 5:00 pm eastern time. Good luck!

::::

Jan 13

13 Comments

2011~2012: Review, Celebrate, Plan

My New Year’s Eve ritual is to review my goals for the past year, see how things panned out, and make note of the year’s highlights (both in successes and unexpected challenges). Then I take some time to carefully think through my goals for the coming year. Because I am a nerd and a planning freak, I love, love, love this ritual.

Due to an unusually crazy schedule, I haven’t been able to do my annual review until this morning. I’d like to share the process with you. While it is fun to share the successes, it is equally humbling to share the oversights. This will be a long post, broken into two parts, so feel free to skim the boring bits. This post is Review & Celebrate. Next week I’ll follow up with the 2012 planning post.

2011 goals review

Focus on creative practice

  • Submit five pieces for publication (almost—hit 4)
  • Finish novel, ~80K words/3K words per week Jan-May (no)
  • Paint a large format painting (no)
  • Create a piece for “nest” Creative Every Day challenge (yes)
  • Blog at least one per week @ Studio Mothers (no)
  • Maintain Project Life binder all year (yes)

Launch coaching business

  • Complete CCA coaching certification (yes)
  • Develop business and marketing plan (yes)
  • Enact marketing plan (partial)

Focus on personal restoration and spiritual practice

  • Sit daily (not daily, but solid for most of the year)
  • Daily journaling (90%)
  • Read A Year with Rumi every day (yes)
  • Read 50 books (yes — on the nose!)
  • Create regular time for blog & magazine reading (no)
  • Develop strategies to handle stress better (hmmm…..)
  • Enjoy social media without it being an interruption (good progress here)
  • Stick to the good schedules I have developed (mostly!)

Enjoy family time

  • Consciously strengthen relationships with each child (not measurable, but yes)
  • Spend more one-on-one time with each child (did not do nearly what I wanted to here)
  • Develop “block time” card stack (activities/project deck) (yes, not complete)
  • Do at least one art project each week with Aidan and Liam (no — only sporadic)
  • Create outdoor living/play space in spring (yes)
  • Eat in dining room more regularly (no — dog started peeing in dining room, so I have to keep it gated off, which makes it inconvenient for week-night meals)

Recommit to good health

  • Increase intake of raw foods (yes)
  • Consume 4-5 green protein smoothies each week (no)
  • Take vitamins, minerals, supplements, and iron every day (almost 100%)
  • Avoid sugar and wheat (on and off)
  • Exercise 3x per week (was derailed by broken foot that took 6 months to heal, but made up for that in the second half of the year by developing regular yoga practice)

Improve financial stability

  • Work smarter (day job) to increase billable hours (yes)
  • Reduce debt (no — actually increased it instead)
  • Set up automatic savings (no)

2011 personal adventures, successes, and challenges

February

  • Broke my foot by falling on my own garage stairs. It took six months until my ortho gave me the all-clear for high-impact exercise.
  • Began first class for coaching certification.

April

  • Launched monthly newsletter, The Creative Times.
  • Joined RAW New England (Random Art Workshops).

May

  • Published nonfiction essay in Wild Apples journal; read at launch party at Hill-Stead Museum.
  • Liam became completely toilet trained, ending 15 total years of diapering!!! (This may have been the highlight of the year, actually.)
  • Fabulous trip to Costa Rica with husband.

June

August

October

  • Co-led successful workshop (via Minerva Project collaboration).

November

  • Participated in Art Every Day Month.
  • Guest blog post at Bliss Habits.
  • Husband began 2.5-month stint of unemployment. While this had deleterious effect on financial situation, it was awesome to have him around, and he put in extra time with Aidan and Liam while I worked like a madwoman.

December

  • Signed lease and LLC papers for brick-and-mortar studio!
  • Husband received excellent job offer from a company he’s excited about.
  • Little Finn joined the family (don’t worry — he’s a kitten, not baby #6!).
  • Finished last requirements for coaching certification.

What all these bullet points tell me

2011 was unusually full of personal and professional successes. Working on my certification and launching two new businesses (coaching and Open Studio) added considerably to the to-do list and my general stress level. I had some success in counterbalancing that weight through meditation, yoga practice, journaling lots of reading, and creative work. In the realm of the “self,” I have to say that this year was significant. I didn’t do all of the creative work I’d intended to, but I did a lot of other, wonderful, unexpected things instead.

At the same time, I did not do nearly as much on the family front as I wanted to. I really started missing my kids as the year came to a close — time spent just hanging out a home, nowhere to go, board games and art projects and reading aloud. There wasn’t enough of that. We had too many days when I felt like I was just dragging my younger kids from one thing to the next. I didn’t invest in the extra one-on-one time with each child that was part of my original goals list.

This brings me to my plans for 2012. I’ll get to those in my next post.

In the meantime, what does your overview of 2011 look like? Will you share your top 10 successes?

:::::

Jan 6

Join me at the wishBIG e-camp!


I’m *delighted* to be part of the teaching roster at the wishBIG ecamp this February!

I hope you’ll consider signing up for this fabulous online learning course — structured like no other, thanks to the creative genius of Mindy Tsonas at wishstudio. Wherever you live, the wishBIG ecamp allows you to connect with other creatives and get your 2012 mojo going strong.

February 19 – 26, 2012
Online – eight 2-hour workshops (self-paced)
Free for wishstudio members ($86 for non-members)

It’s time to gather round the creative fire!

Your week at ecamp includes:

  • Eight (2-hour) online creative living workshops from a host of fabulously inspiring Camp Counselors, each bringing their own special talent and insight to help you wishBIG, createBIG and liveBIG!
  • Daily ecamp mail! Inspiration Postcards (sent via e-mail) created especially for YOU by our talented teachers for a little extra creative spark, each day of camp.
  • Evening campfire gatherings designed specially for the group and the work at hand! These fun and inspirational nightly gatherings are created from what comes up specifically for us as a group. Mindy tunes into the thoughts and activity of each day and thoughtfully carves out space for a relevant community discussion. These tend to be intimate, powerful and wonderfully connective whether you sit in the circle quietly or dive deeply into the conversation.
  • Supportive kindred community with our own private group for sharing thoughts and work throughout your camp experience, as well as individual support and cheering from each of our ecamp Counselors within their workshop and beyond.
  • An easy, go-at-your-own-pace format that allows you to work through the workshops in a way that best meets your needs. All classes will be available online for one month, and are self paced.

My own course is A Life of Intention: Your Map for the Next 12 Months (Thursday, 2/23). In this workshop, you’ll create an empowered and inspired map for the next 12 months that moves you toward your longer-term goals. This process involves naming your intentions, gathering your assets, and making your map. It’s a dose of inspiration and clarity!

Won’t you join us? For more details and to register, click here.

::::

Nov 11

Miranda: Art Every Day Month ~ Day 11

Day 11 of Art Every Day Month (AEDM): I had the pleasure of attending a Random Art Workshop (RAW) hosted by the lovely Mindy Tsonas of WishStudio in Newburyport, Mass. My cohort at the Minerva Project, Ellen Olson-Brown, came along for the fun. (Check out Ellen’s fabulous AEDM mini-book projects here!)

I played with a bunch of things at the RAW evening — stepping away from my poem collage series for a bit — including the watercolor sketch below. 

:::

Nov 4

7 Comments

Robin: Stepping In

I completed my one week ecourse with Christine Mason Miller this past week.

More than anything, I found that putting the money down for the e-course forced me to DECIDE…Decide whether I am in or out. Am I really moving into this writing life of mine? Or am I just flitting around from here to there talking about it and blogging about it and TWEETING about it.

So step 1: Yesterday, I cancelled with a friend who wanted to shoot the breeze explaining that I KNOW that Josey’s preschool time is supposed to be set aside for writing. And I KID YOU NOT, within the next 24 hours TWO PEOPLE asked me if I would like them to help with Josey, giving me 4 EXTRA HOURS next week to write.

So here I am stepping into my life. I am writing an e-course on the spiritual side of creativity. The anticipated launch date is January 2011. You heard it here first. I am thrilled to say it in this space because this is where I first put my toes in the writing water this year. Thanks to Miranda and all my kindred spirits for the courage to put one foot in front of the other.

[Photo credit]

Oct 14

3 Comments

Robin: Wish.Play.Create. — Week 4

Welcome to Week 4 of Wish.Play.Create. Week 4 was taught by Mindy, THE ONE who DREAMED UP the WishStudio
This little one is my MENTOR when it comes to using color WITH ABANDON!
We used some fabric paint that we got on the cheap but didn’t have a chance to experiment with yet. The effect on the gesso was pretty cool. The colors took on a metallic feel.
I want to thank Mindy again for the generous gift of this class (I won this opportunity via Miranda of Studio Mothers).
I am now prepping for a new course offered in the Wish Studio taught by Christine Mason Miller in an effort to get myself in gear on a writing project that I need to work on. Anyone want to join me in The WishStudio?

Sep 27

6 Comments

Robin: Wish.Play.Create. Week 3 – Knowing Your Limitations

Have you checked out Stephanie Lee’s Work? She was this week’s fabulous instructor in the WishStudio for the online art playgroup. Her contribution was heart of stone plaster pendants and called for an introduction of plaster of paris and doing some wire work. I gotta come clean on this. When something this NEW TO ME is introduced, I actually need the benefit of sitting in a class with an instructor coddling me through my fear! And really, that SHOULD NOT have been necessary because Stpehanie’s instructions were very clear and she gave us a PHENOMENAL amount of pictures with each step. I think this was just not the right time for me to learn it. So…

Plan B:

Josey and her best friend Noelle up 6:15 am on a Saturday morning after their sleepover, remnants of the carnvial we went to the night before still on their face! We are prepping to make polymer clay pendants!

This is something I learned to do about two years ago in an art class I took at a local community center.  The girls were amazed at the amount of work it took to get the clay soft — this is NOT Play-Doh!
Josey decided she wanted to make cookies for her kitchen (don’t worry, I’m way ahead of what is going to happen later…)

I am about to hit a MAJOR SNAG because I can’t seem to remember what TEMPERATURE and HOW LONG to bake them…

The good news is they were happy with them (if you look closely, you will see they were in the oven a bit TOO LONG!)
OK, ON TO WEEK 4!
[Cross-posted from Well of Creations]

Sep 16

9 Comments

Robin: Wish.Play.Create – Week 2 (went a bit differently)

So I was totally psyched about week 2 of the e-course of Wish Play Create. The instructor is Tracey Clark of Shutter Sisters so I “knew” this was gonna be a fun week.
EXCEPT…
Josey has ZERO INTEREST in playing with a camera. For three days I would ask her in this excited voice, “are you ready to take some pictures of your favorite things?” and I would receive responses ranging from “um no thanks…” to a whining yet emphatic “I DON’T WANT TO!” The good news is we were giving some prompting questions to help with shaping the assignment. Things like:
“My favorite things” — pink and going somewhere
“I really like to” — do
“I am really good at” — going somewhere
“I feel happy when” — it’s good
So here’s the compromise:
She let me take a pic of her in one of her pink outfits (kind of…)
I caught her working in her journal….
Such is the life of motherhood and creativity:
CONTINUOUS IMPROVISATION

Sep 9

7 Comments

Miranda: Best of Both Worlds

What a creative week! I finally finished overhauling our playroom just in time to finish the first project in WishStudio’s online art playgroup with my 5-year-old son. It took us a few sessions spread over the week to finish our projects. Here’s a peek at a few steps along the way:

I was thrilled with my son’s finished card!

Isn’t is beautiful? I was less pleased with my own piece, which — despite working for at least an hour after my son had finished and skipped off to do something else — I couldn’t get quite right. After cutting out my son’s image for his own card, I was too intimidated to try to cut out the pair of little ones in my own photo, so I opted to retain the background image. But then the balloon color wasn’t right — wasn’t enough of a contrast — so I tried several different layers (poster paint, colored pencil, crayon, oil pastels, you name it!) before ending up with a murky eggplant color.

Even though the outcome isn’t exactly to my liking, it was a wonderful process. Thank you, Shona! I’m grateful for this opportunity to blend creativity and motherhood, rather than complaining about not doing justice to one or the other.

It’s already Thursday and we haven’t yet started on this week’s project. Time to get those smocks on again 🙂

Sep 8

6 Comments

Robin: Wish.Play.Create – The E-Course, Week 1

Josey and I were the lucky winners of the fantastic e-course offered by Mindy at The Wish Studio
We tweaked it a bit by used pieces of wood instead of paper for the base of the project.  We just moved into a new place and I saw this as an opportunity to make some art for the walls
This was not an obstacle for Miss Josey who LOVES playing with paint and the MORE SPACE she has to work with, the better!
Shona Cole-Author of “The Artistic Mother” was OUR INSTRUCTOR for Week 1!
Special thanks to Miranda at Studio Mothers for hosting the contest.  We are having SO MUCH FUN!

Sep 3

6 Comments

Miranda: Out of the closet

If you’ve read this blog recently, you’re familiar with WishStudio’s 5-week online playgroup. (Studio Mothers had a giveaway for one spot, which went to Robin Norgren.) The playgroup started this past Monday, with Shona Cole as the instructor for the first week. My 5-year-old and I went shopping for a few supplies we needed and eagerly watched all of Shona’s instructional videos.

The first step was for me to gesso our project paper. But I decided that before I got to the gesso, I would transform our playroom into an art room. The playroom was disorganized and full of outgrown toys and loose game pieces — time for a total overhaul.

At the same time, my art closet was no longer the tidy, organized collection of art supplies that it was a year ago. I often found it too difficult to put things where they belonged and ultimately resorted to opening the door, tossing in whatever belonged in the closet, and quickly closing the door again before the object could fall out. Many of my key supplies were too difficult to get out (note the large plastic bin on the top shelf). In all, the closet turned out to be less than ideal for art supplies. Good for storing, perhaps, but not so good for using.

So, all of the toys came out of the playroom. Many of them went up into the attic for donation/yard sale; some of them went into the boys’ bedrooms. Then all of the art supplies in my art closet went into the playroom, now dubbed the art room. Board games went into the old art closet. I positioned an old table in front of a window in order to make use of natural light, as this room tends to be a little dark.

Here’s the old playroom, just as I started taking it apart (note that my camera tends to distort reality — it makes this room look larger than it actually is):

And here’s the new art room, after three days of hauling, sorting, and labeling. It’s all here, even though it looks like a mishmash:

My two little guys immediately helped themselves to art supplies and inaugurated the art table with fresh splotches of acrylic paint. And you can see that our dear Mimi made herself quite comfy on the table too.

This new room supports my new schedule, which is phasing in over the next few weeks. I’ll blog about that more as soon as I can swing it. I think I may have figured out how to work AND be a stay-at-home mom. As in, the best of both worlds. Stay tuned!

Now, I’d better get that paper gessoed so we can finish the first week’s art project before it’s time for the second one!

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