artist's way

where we merrily catalog the artist's way classes & events we offer

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May 16, 2008

artist's way open studio (may)

by gl. at 2:17 pm

last night's open studio was quiet -- and quite hot! perhaps it's just as well that the studio won't be hosting any summer events, unless we include a spa/sauna package along with them. ;) it was a very small group; the other rsvps must have been enjoying the sunshine (or hiding from it!).

[moments not minutes: click the image to see all our collages]

this became a collage of the return of my imaginative and freer self during my creative hiatus, i think. i spent much more time gathering images than usual, most of which i didn't use. the text says, "no more minutes. let's count moments-- moments that wedge themselves between days and weeks and rainfalls." i imagine my life being allowed to be more organic: being outside, spending time w/ friends, being inspired by colors and shapes and light. hidden behind the monopoly money is a handwritten note found in the collage pile: "i didn't know i was ready to receive."

[creative advocate, sven's homage to the last collage night]

also, this is one of sven's collages, which he says he created in homage to me (eep!). he's photocopied & tinted some of my collages and created a transparency of me to lay on top. he says he especially likes the placement of the third eye on my forehead and how the hand in "heal" looks like it's being held to my lips.

that wraps it up for the studio events i'll be offering until after the sabbatical, though i will be teaching "creative business basics" at the iprc may29:

"Starting a business is easy! Keeping it running is harder. Whether you're struggling with your identity, finances or business planning, this workshop will help you identify the next step you need to take to make yourself legal, stable and profitable in Oregon. In addition, learn about the other people and organizations who are on your side, including inspiration and support from other DIY business owners."

and then onward through a savoury summer!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

May 9, 2008

artist's way guided intent (may)

by gl. at 6:19 pm

i think i just found my new favorite activity! thursday's guided intent event was based on the theme of "autonomy," and we created full-sized self-portraits in response, all of which were bursting with life, creativity & vitality.

[painting in the studio: click the image to see more of the process]

it's similar in setup to the blind painting activity we do. we started off with some bodywork (breathing, stretching and a guided meditation), then moved into pose practices: we did pairs of possible positions like restful/active, open/closed, spiritual/earthly. then we laid people down onto styrofoam insulation covered with a large sheet of butcher paper. to keep things moving i split them into teams of three: one person getting traced, and the other two doing the tracing. then we hung the tracings on the wall and used the insulation as walls on the side of the room that just has windows. once they got started with the brushes & the paints, there was no stopping them!

i was worried this was going to be too ambitious a project for just two hours, but they all managed to create awesome paintings and none of them seemed rushed. still, it would make for a fun 1/2 day or full day activity, i think.

my only regret is that i didn't get to participate in this activity, because it looks so fun! speaking of which, while people were arriving we noticed a guy run by with a conical party hat, throwing flour at the street at regular intervals. about 10 minutes later, a whole crowd of people also in party hats ran past, following the trail of flour spots!

this was our last guided intent of the season: like last year, I'll be taking the summer off to enjoy the sunshine and I encourage you to do the same. :) but we have one more collage night before that happens, and i'll be teaching "Creative Business Basics" at the iprc may 29:

"Starting a business is easy! Keeping it running is harder. Whether you're struggling with your identity, finances or business planning, this workshop will help you identify the next step you need to take to make yourself legal, stable and profitable in Oregon. In addition, learn about the other people and organizations who are on your side, including inspiration and support from other DIY business owners."

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (6) | categories: artist's way

May 3, 2008

artist's way open studio (april)

by gl. at 10:45 pm

the studio was packed with other creative spirits for last month's collage night; i had to pull out a little tray table for me so that everyone would have enough room. we had three teen artists and it was delightful to meet them and see old friends. it was a quiet spring evening and we were quite focused, creating 19 collages between the lot of us.

[the poems are gone: click the image to see all our collages]

this features the poem still floating around since the edible book tea: eating poetry. it also includes a piece of the popcorn container from cirque du soleil, which i have yet to write about. i don't know what the light bulb & the pears were about, but i liked the shapes and colors.

like last month, we had an attendee from france! linda has decided to "attend" collage night from afar, using our collage momentum to inspire her own.

just two more events before my summer sabbatical!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

April 3, 2008

artist's way guided intent (april)

by gl. at 5:21 pm

i can hardly believe it's possible, but last night we managed to make some fabulous art dolls to represent self-protection in a remarkably short amount of time. thanks to the wide and delicious varieties of creative chaos, each of the dolls was rich with insight & meaning.

["inner lightness": click the image to see more dolls]

first we wrote about what we needed protecting from, or what needed protecting. during introductions i realized i might actually need -less- protecting: i have fairly solid walls between identities, and perhaps veils would serve me better than walls. so during the writing i wrote about needing to protect myself from my own sense of responsibility and a desire for lightness. so the light bulb iconography wasn't much of a stretch, but i was surprised that 3 of the 7 of us created dolls with light bulbs in them (mine is a gocco bulb!). i have surprisingly less gauzy fabric than i thought I did.

it was good to see shawn, a former artist's way client (who just found out she's been accepted to the portland open studios tour this year!), as well as several other people from previous events.

our next guided intent theme is autonomy, which we'll honour by creating your own life-sized, full-body portrait as a symbol of your artistic freedom, independence & self-reliance. we'll help you find a pose that expresses the core of your being, then we'll trace around you and let you loose with paints & brushes. i'm very much looking forward to this event: as a form of creative Self expression, it will be both unusual & uniquely relevant.

i am both excited and nervous to announce that "autonomy" will be the LAST guided intent until september: like last year, I'll be taking the summer off to enjoy the sunshine and I encourage you to do the same. :)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (1) | categories: artist's way

April 2, 2008

artist's way open studio (march)

by gl. at 1:02 am

we had a terrific open studio anniversary last month! to celebrate 3 years of collages, i asked anyone who had attended a prior event to bring one of their collages to display, and it was neat to see several years' worth of collages all at once. :)

i bought new teacups for the studio and they arrived just in time for this event. but i also bought two dozen delicious dots from saint cupcake to share with abandon. at the end of the night there was even singing!

[anniversary cupcakes: click the image to see all our collages]

this year it was an international celebration, too! one of our attendees was a woman from france: she came to a prior event while visiting portland and decided to "attend" collage night from afar, using our collage momentum to inspire her own.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

March 22, 2008

artist's way guided intent (march)

by gl. at 9:01 pm

for our march guided intent we explored a wide variety of dreams, as well as events both real and imagined. the studio is a flexible space: all the tables and art were whisked away, leaving a blank "canvas" to hold the stories as they were spun.

over the course of the evening I got to become a baby penguin, a rippling pond, a TV, a woman on the se artwalk, a young man saying goodbye to his mother, a judge in a courtroom drama, friends & family of a grad student, AND a seminar speaker watching her dream come true! some of the stories made us all laugh, while others made the storytellers get misty-eyed and emotional.

since i was participating in the stories that were being told, I don't have a lot of pictures this time, but we re-enacted a few to give you a taste:

[one of the scenes: click the image to see more]

playback theatre involves a storyteller telling ordinary stories and then picking people to re-enact those stories. it's much more moving and fun than that simple description sounds. this is always the hardest guided intent to run because performing arts is so scary to people, so i usually end up having to participate so that we have enough bodies.

we clear the room to make it an empty stage for the actors, but i also want to make a special space for the storyteller. so i was pleased that this time, instead of setting up a makeshift backdrop with two microphone stands and a stick, i scored a folding screen from craigslist the day before. and instead of hauling the large comfy chair over from the house, i finally found that world market carries director's chairs! i've been offering this activity for three years and that's always been my vision for it, so i'm glad that they both "set the scene" for this activity and can be reused for other studio events.

our next guided intent theme is self-protection: by embellishing a soft cloth doll to act as a warrior (or guardian), you can manifest the qualities you want to protect yourself from critics, crazymakers, or anything else that theatens your creative potential. we'll have all the 3D objects out for this and I'm quite sure we'll make a glorious mess. :)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (3) | categories: artist's way

March 6, 2008

artist's way open studio (february)

by gl. at 5:16 pm

yes, yes, february! as i told dayna, it's never too late to post. :)

several regulars introduced new friends to the studio and the excitement about the previous night's eclipse was still strong. we were so energetic we created 17 (!) shining collages that night.

["penumbra": click the image to see the other collages]

next week we'll celebrate our third year of open studio collage night w/ cupcakes. yay!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (3) | categories: artist's way

February 27, 2008

artist's way creative clusters begin march 18

by gl. at 3:21 pm

i'll be hosting another round of artist's way at the studio starting march 18. i'm offering an evening cluster & a morning cluster to encourage people to make more of what they love, whether it's visual, literary or expressive art. out of all the things we do, this is my favorite activity to facilitate. :) here's the announcement i sent out:

Gain confidence, courage and compassionate companions in an Artist's Way Creative Cluster! The Artist's Way offers you an opportunity to discover or recover your creative self. If you've tried to get through The Artist's Way alone, come join us! Your facilitator, Gretchin Lair, is a creative advocate known for her "splendid mix of honesty and art" and "quiet leadership."

Two choices for Spring 2008: only $250 for 10 weeks!
(RSVP and $125 deposit due by March 11)

March 18-May 27
Tuesday mornings 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Tuesday evenings 6-9:30 p.m.

http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/artistsway/
artistsway@scarletstarstudios.com
503.762.6830

If a creative cluster doesn't work for you this time, we have plenty of other opportunities for art exploration & creative self-expression! Our goal is to restore hope & faith in your own abilities, to encourage you to create fearlessly & truthfully.

of course, no prior art experience or talent is required, just a desire for & commitment to creativity. i hope both clusters fill with kind, generous, courageous people!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

February 20, 2008

artist's way guided intent (february)

by gl. at 2:35 am

a couple of weeks ago we hosted the february guided intent, whose theme was "strength." so i asked them to create "life plaques," an idea i got from dayna a long time ago.

in fact, we explored 3 different ways to explore our personal strengths: a mindmap on the table, an abstract visualization of four different personal strengths, and finally a life plaque based on one or more of the visualizations.

[compassion: click the picture to see the other life plaques and visualizations]

the next guided intent is one of my favorites. we'll be exploring compassion by sharing our stories "on stage" using a technique similar to playback theatre. playback theatre is a process that combines spontaneous collaboration with gentle direction. by being both storytellers and actors, we will see each other's stories through kinder eyes. it's often touching, hilarious, sad and bold all at once.

(it's also often difficult to convince people who don't consider themselves performing artists to try this, but i want to encourage people to try new things in a safe space as a way to increase creative capacity & vocabulary no matter what their dominant art is. :)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

February 13, 2008

love, love, love

by gl. at 1:26 am

sven's brain has been gushing essays and i'm still trying to catch up with stuff that happened two weeks ago!

for instance, on first friday we attended both "the love show" at launchpad gallery and "love bites" at bite studio.

i've never been to art shows where i've known so many people! several of my artist's way clients jumped at the chance to show together, and then those of us who didn't show came to support them. so we saw justine, emma, emily, anna, dayna, elizabeth & her niece and lynn, in addition to adrienne, bridget, romaine & alisa! i was also delighted to see art on the walls by people i knew, even if i didn't see them at the opening: shawn, consu, kristen maus, beth ann, jennifer mercede. there was lots of good art but i think my favorite piece was an anatomically-correct heart-shaped book with a niche carved out to fit a tinier heart-shaped book inside.

then sven & i stopped by to see bite's first-ever show, orchestrated by shawn (another artist's way client). she was glowing in pleasure and exhaustion, but took the time to explain to us how "biting" works: it's the process used to create an etching in a copper plate. i was also impressed with a "hard candy print" by another artist which was created by pouring hot hard candy into a mold and then pressing the etched plate into the candy and popping it off when it's solid again, leaving the impression behind.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way, exhibits & events

January 18, 2008

artist's way open studio (january)

by gl. at 11:42 pm

last night i hosted a "virtual" open studio, so named because it all happens at our own homes. last year i did this because the hill outside our house was icy and i didn't want people coming here, but i also didn't want to waste the art momentum & resolutions of the new year!

i was so delighted by the wide range of people who attended and the big range of arts i wanted to do it again! plus, while i very much enjoy encouraging people to make art at the studio, i also think it's important to make art in your own space. this year the morning started off snowing, so i was very glad to have scheduled a virtual event.

one of the great things about the virtual open studio is the creative stories and support we share throughout the day. though pictures were due by 9 p.m., people checked in and sent pictures whenever they could fit it in their day, which is something i'd like to encourage people to do whenever they want to make art. no need to wait for a specific date or time; travelling to an official art-designated station is not required. just do it, wherever you are and with whatever you have!

so after dinner, sven & i decided to work on creating creatures for shelley noble's film, halfland: "The undersea door to Halfland is now open. You too are invited to craft, in anyway you'd like, a small sea creature of some kind; fish, seaweed, shellfish, starfish, anything between 1 to 4 inches long ( 25mm to 100mm), that can be used in the underwater scene (film 1; scene 2 in the outline linked below) early on in the film."

i wanted to create a little stuffed "scarlet starfish" while sven wanted to create an "svenfish" stopmo puppet:

[scarlet starfish: front]

[scarlet starfish: back]

[svenfish: those fins can be animated!]

but everyone at the virtual open studio created awesome things! only one major snafu: dreamhost snarfed 90% of my emails about this event before i could write about it, so i had to ask people to resend their pix & conversations. ouch! still, i think the virtual open studio will be an annual event. we may not always make props for friends' films, but it's nice to work in the studio together making things! and knowing other people are also out there playing with art at the same time is exciting and fun.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (4) | categories: artist's way

January 5, 2008

artist's way guided intent (january) & artist's way open studio (december)

by gl. at 1:23 pm

this week's guided intent was a writing event. last year i used vicki lind's old photos for all the exercises, but this time i varied the images. first i used some faces i had torn out of magazines that i've been carrying around since college, then cards from edward gorey's "the helpless doorknob," then cards from "the creative whack pack," and finally we returned to vicki's photos.

most of the photos had 5-minute prompts, though vicki's photos had a series of 2-minute prompts, at which point participants could either elaborate on one of the stories they started or pick another photo and write for another 10 minutes.

also, december's open studio (which i am just now writing about) seemed the perfect place to make these gift tag collages. these were fun to make and fun to match up with the gifts.

that last one is "the angry christmas zebra." alesia asked me why the zebra was angry, and i told her this tag represents a moment in the "rocky" training montage after the zebra had been rejected from santa's sleigh team.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (1) | categories: artist's way

December 9, 2007

artist's way guided intent (december)

by gl. at 9:33 pm

on wednesday we hosted the last guided intent of the year! the theme was "abundance" and the activity was blind painting, which combines movement, paint and writing in a very satisfying way. this is my favorite theme and one of my favorite activities! plus, this is the night i get to introduce one of the most valuable tools i learned from my artist's way teacher in san diego: three safe ways to give non-critical feedback. they are experiential rather than judgmental in nature. i described these responses when writing about this event last year.

this event went really well. i wanted to add a body awareness segment this time to get people moving sooner, and that really did help, but in general the whole thing had a great blend of structure and flow. for the feedback i was able to respond first to a piece i thought would make a good example, then ask for someone to respond to another piece, so all the pieces got at least two forms of feedback.

in general i'm keen on finding the right form of feedback for events. i believe that some forms of positive feedback only reward "pretty" art or encourage the idea that if it's not beautiful it's less valuable, which end up creating huge shadows of competition and conformity. bridget & i are still talking about ways to encourage feedback without killing creativity, feedback which explores meaning or encourages risktaking.

[joyce: bridge back to self (click to see the other paintings)]

the next guided intent will be the day after new year's: after the champagne and midnight celebrations, we'll bring "auld acquaintance" to mind by finding new ways to connect fact & fiction. we'll be writing about the imaginary lives of people from old photographs, so we'll begin the new year gently by creating kinship, commonality & contact with these characters -- and other writers!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

December 7, 2007

artist's way: session 11

by gl. at 12:38 pm

our final week is always a surprise when it arrives, even though i often warn us about its coming a month in advance because the participants are assigned a "response project" to present at the last session.

response projects are like final projects but they aren't worth 50% of your grade. (as i kept reminding them, "you can't fail artist's way!") it gives creative cluster members an opportunity to explore one of the arts we've done during our time together or to strike out on their own. because while i very much enjoy creating the opportunity for them to create art at the studio, the point of going through artist's way is to learn to create art outside the studio on your own. :) anyway, some really phenomenal pieces, including a series of images connected to the basic principles, a powerful music cd, a set of art dolls representing everyone in the cluster, a slideshow presentation, a guerilla art project with hearts in library books, a copperplate etching, a small dancing performance, and an artist's book.

after each presentation i gave everyone an specially chosen inspirational magnet and a dried scarlet runner bean from our garden. but there was a lot of gifting going on: laminated hearts, art dolls, books, and even a tiny tea set!

i am pleased to announce that given my experience with this cluster, the 10-week format works! so i'm going to try it again, timing the next artist's way creative cluster with the spring quarterly calendar in april 2008.

center (faith): soup! the studio has a kitchen; why not use it? :) since i believe creativity is not just limited to Art, on the last session we make a stone soup where each member contributes something. i provide a veggie broth base, and this year we had a stew chock full of carrots, onions, parsnips, yams & brussel sprouts. the rosemary is for remembrance. i usually add special star pastini 10 minutes before serving, but one of the particiants brought noodles, so we had starless soup. but the fried onions i got on the outing last week were a big hit!

music: k.d. lang's ingenue

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (4) | categories: artist's way

November 29, 2007

artist's way: session 10

by gl. at 1:41 pm

this group tends to be in sync: many of the issues that come up in a week are shared among the particpants. this time it was a desire for physical exercise or motion, which doesn't surprise me. as we near the end of the artist's way, physical motion mirrors creative motion; momentum in one sphere often means momentum in the other. also, since we only have one (!) more session left, there are worries about how to maintain these practices, protect the time they've managed to carve out in the week -- and continue to make art!

ordinarily i might do a blind painting exercise at this point, but i kept hearing the group mention music, so i held my breath and opted to try something new. that failed miserably the first time i tried it, and so it took a significant amount of courage to try it again. since then i have attended a music session at creata, which gave me a better baseline for how to facilitate a music event, but i was still nervous, in part because it's an area i still feel pretty uncertain in as an artist. fortunately, it went really well this time!

this activity was possible in large part because one of the participants has a large drum collection she was kind enough to share with us. if i do this again, i need more drums. and a place to keep them. :) i actually ordered some handbells & "boomwhackers," but alas, they haven't gotten here yet. however, i was thrilled to get a chance to use the scarlet star-shaped tambourine sven got me a couple of years ago in anticipation of such an event.

center (autonomy): finding your own way amongst all the other pretty stars.

music: bobby mcferrin's "beyond words."

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

November 24, 2007

artist's way: session 9

by gl. at 7:43 pm

a smaller group this time: two people couldn't make it. i myself barely made it: there were two people waiting outside as i flew down the sidewalk, and they helped me set up. everyone in this group, especially, feels different when they have people missing but it means they get twice as long to check in. the "touchstones" exercise in this chapter seemed pretty popular. one woman came up with a great mantra for her to move beyond her usually introspective nature: "connect, create & commit." i love that! that's very much what artist's way is all about.

one of our members will be in the "thirty" show in december and she said, "people i don't even know might buy something!" so we had a good discussion about why people who don't know you seem more valid than people who do, and talked about the ways in which people are more likely to buy art (or buy anything, really), from people they know (or think they know). so if people you know are buying your art, great! those are the people who really appreciate you and want you to succeed! i went through this when colleen bought the 4x4 version of "you don't own her" and between her, sven & the job club, i've really come to appreciate & better understand the patronage process. :)

this group has asked me to checkin more than once, but they'll get plenty of me when they transition to the "sacred circle" email list, a place for former artist's way participants to maintain their progress with a supportive group who's been through the same thing. a few of us still check in every week, while others go in waves depending on what's going on in their lives. the great thing about it is that whenever you want to get creative again, you'll always have a group to cheer you on!

this week the art activity was "authentic dance." anything with the word "dance" in it is still scary to many participants, which is why we save it till the end. even people who have adapted well to exploring visual creativity exercises find creating art with something as intimate as one's own body is a challenging experience. but i feel quite strongly about exposing people to a wide range of art in order to develop a larger creative vocabulary. and i am always gratified when i know participants would never do something like this except in a creative cluster, because it means they trust the process, they trust the space, they trust the group, they trust me.

authentic dance isn't really necessarily "dance" in the traditional sense. there's no choreography or specific movements you need to accomplish. it's not a "performance." you simply allow your body to move in the way it wants to move next. it's sort of like morning pages that way. if this means you're petrified and you can only wiggle your toes, that's fine. each person had 5 minutes to do this (though usually they have 10). you work in pairs: one of you is a dancer, the other is a witness. the witness' job is to anchor you, to beam good will at you, to watch you as if to look away would cause you to disappear. watching a dance in this way becomes active rather than passive, and allows the dancer to know that only one person is ever really watching them (in a pretty intense way, but it means all your self-consciousness can be narrowed to one person instead of diffused among four and keeps competitiveness at bay).

i know when i first tried this myself i was terrified. i almost refused to do it. understanding i had the option to not move at all gave me a way to try it without feeling (too) foolish. it was horrifying and liberating at the same time, and i never forgot it. this group, though, handled it with much more grace than i did my first time. :)

center (self-protection): each candle safe & beautiful in its own bowl of color. i usually have four bowls, but one of them is still at trillium after the holiday sale. :)

music: a selection of songs from peter gabriel's passion. i especially like "a different drum," "the feeling begins" and "with this love (choir)" for this exercise.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

November 18, 2007

artist's way open studio (november)

by gl. at 10:10 pm

on thursday we hosted our monthly collage night. novembers have previously been dubiously attended, but this month was packed w/ a long waiting list! jill finally got to come and i am pleased when people who have been on the list for a while make it out to an event for the first time, because it feels like the studio is so much cooler than i can convey through email alone!

i wasn't intending on making something thematic, but the catalog candles immediately leapt onto the page and everything else fell into place from there. i've been wanting to use these leaves for a few months now. the flames in the upper half called for shiny bits elsewhere, so i punched some dots from a scrap of gold wrapping paper.

["bountiful": click the image to see the other collages]

also, in the rush of october, i completely (!) forgot to write about the last open studio, where i made this collage:

["eating poetry": click the image to see the other collages]

one of the things i like about collage night is that i see stuff pop back up and i can use it in a different context. the "eating poetry" scraps are from the edible book tea back in march!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

November 16, 2007

artist's way: session 8

by gl. at 11:45 pm

this was a week of "uturns," for the participants, points where they wanted to slide back into old habits and despair. "what's the point?" their inner voices sneered. "why are you bothering to do that?" where "that" could be any number of artistic or expressive things. i'm happy to say that they are doing things despite that voice, relying on their inner muses and "constellation of support," but the antidote came loudly to one participant: "why not?" she told herself. why not, indeed? it doesn't have to mean anything to be fun for you. self expression is a natural human desire, and thinking it has to be profound or appreciated by anyone other than you is a surefire way to keep yourself from doing it. as long as you get something out of it, where's the harm? why not?

this week we did an activity based on "playback theatre," which is always looked upon dubiously at first, but by the end everyone is laughing and energetic and joyful. it is the gateway drug to some of the other performing arts we will be exploring in the next two weeks before the end of artist's way.

after a warmup called "find your mother like a baby penguin," we began with an exercise called "yes and/yes but," where we take turns elaborating on a simple story by saying either "yes, and!" or "yes, but..." between each segment. each phrase produces a different type of story, and you can keep the "yes, and!" stories going longer than the "yes, but..." stories.

playback theatre asks each person to tell a dream, present story or future story to the rest of the group, who re-enacts it for the storyteller as a spontaneous ensemble creation. watching a story in this way offers insight, perspective and catharis for the storyteller, as well as invoking compassion and consideration in the players. since everyone gets to be both storyteller and player, they often have very different feelings about telling the story vs. reacting to someone else's story.

because the weather was so nice, we ended with a game of "red rover" out in the driveway. because we encouraged "cheating," it became more like calvinball, until we weren't really sure who had won, and didn't care! :)

center (compassion): a river of compassion running between two bright candles. a little silver heart is nestled amongst the stones.

music: pink martini's hang on little tomato. a classic! i actually referenced this song in the weekly email i send out to creative cluster participants, and the whole album has a very theatrical feel to it.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

November 9, 2007

artist's way guided intent (november)

by gl. at 10:29 pm

on wednesday night we gathered four strands of possibility in our fingers and wove them together to create poetry. using divination tricks like coins, cards, cookies and cups of darjeeling tea, we poured our hopes and hearts onto the page. this month charles won a new journal to continue writing (and everyone went home with an exotic coin or fortune in their pocket!).

["appreciate the good will of others;" click to see the other prompts]

essentially, we spent the evening writing based on these tangible prompts. at the end, we wrote a poem based on one of the writings we did. we only shared the final poem, not any of the writings.

the first type of possibility is binary: yes or no, heads or tails. so i passed around a little bowl of various foreign coins and we asked a question with a yes or no answer. mine was "will i live to be 100?" and the answer was tails: no. so i wrote about asking the wrong question, because maybe i'll live to be 101, or 1001. 100 is like 2 more lifetimes from now for me, and it's hard to imagine even 10 years in the future. i should have asked "will i have a long, happy life?" -- but what if the answer to -that- was no?

then we picked a tarot card, and i was amazed that i picked "the star," the card i coveted so dearly when sven picked it last time. i love the star! unexpectedly, i started writing about harvesting stars like a fisherman, casting my net into the roaring dark. (i had a physics professor tell me once that if space wasn't a vaccum, we'd hear the roar of the sun all day and the chatter of stars at night). the sound of atoms in the dark, chattering waves of ions & photons riding gravity through space, creating tides & eddies. galaxies like mammoth whales slowly floating across the universe, eating starlight & breathing stardust. i hit a little bump when i wrote: "but where do the stars go after that? we harvest to eat, we harvest to consume, we harvest them for dresses that sparkle, coats so soft and flowing they make people cry as you walk by." the vision of a stardust coat was appealing, but harvesting & killing stars to do it makes me shudder. i don't know if star farms would be a very valid option, either, though stars glowing in barns would be sort of sweet.

this year i actually bought fortune cookies to use instead of using the little bag of fortunes i'm saving for an undetermined art project. cracking open a fortune cookie in an irreplacable kinesthetic experience. my fortune read "appreciate the good will of others." and i do! while writing, as i so often do, i compared it to a scientific principle, in this case e=mc²: an equal exchange of matter & energy. the more goodwill i have for others, the more i will receive in return.

finally, everyone picked a tea cup from the center of the table and i passed around a bowl of loose darjeeling tea. we poured ourselves just enough tea to dip the fortune cookie into and slowly sipped until the pattern was revealed. mine looked like land & sky, with stars or birds hovering in the air. i couldn't decide which they were, which lent itself well to the final part of the night, picking one of the writings to use as the basis of a poem:

the quantum mechanic takes tea

wet and moist with possibility
the tea leaves swell & swarm
leaving land on one side
sky on the other.
there is no tempest in this teapot
only monet or van gogh
each leaf a dab of paint
from an impressionist's paintbrush.

up close, the story is unclear:
swifts chasing a hawk
or stars gently glowing
above a fragrant field?
like a double exposure
each is true but when i choose one
the other will cease to exist.
stars
or
birds?

--*--

the next event is collage night, which is already full, but the next guided intent is one of my favorites: blind painting! and then i'll team up with bridget to teach a wordwear workshop: the strong silent type. whee!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (3) | categories: artist's way, writing

November 7, 2007

artist's way: session 7

by gl. at 2:46 pm

yesterday was a very emotional creative cluster, as members created day of the dead altars for people they had lost. i asked each participant to bring in a photo or object of someone they had lost, which they could interpret as broadly as they felt comfortable with: the person could be lost through death, distance, misunderstanding, or time.

using anything they could find in the studio, they each built small altars who or what they had lost. these weren't shrines: there was no gluing and nobody took anything home, though i did take pictures i'll develop for them. there's an element of discovery and play to this activity, since they can wander around the studio looking in places they don't usually get a chance to see and using our huge range of materials and objects. (one woman got a bottle of lotion from the bathroom!). after they were ready, i turned down the lights while they wrote a prayer for the person and shared it with the rest of the group. many of them chose their grandmothers & mothers, but one person chose "san francisco" as something she'd lost.

this cluster is really doing well: i found out at checkin that the group had a whole conversation w/o me over email this week! this pleases me in part because the after-artist's-way transition will be smoother for them since they're already in contact with each other. one of the participants was on her way to stay in a fire lookout station, but instead of skipping today entirely she came long enough for the checkin process: "no, i have to hear everyone's checkin!," she said. we all stood on the porch and waved goodbye to her as she left at the break.

center (connection & strength): i believe words have power: each of these stones is etched with a strong word: strength, joy, peace, play, breathe, passion. one small poetry bead, chosen for this activity, simply says "live."

music: cowboy junkies' the trinity session because boy, is it sad.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

November 5, 2007

artist's way: session 6

by gl. at 11:59 pm

"abundance" is one of my favorite chapters in the artist's way, and i always enjoy it when it coincides with halloween so that we can make masks. it makes the studio into a glorious chaos! after several weeks of tidy & contained activities i get to drag out the bins of 3d objects and everyone gets to find ways to use old umbrellas and discarded light bulbs and even prozac pills i got from who-knows-where! now at the halfway point, participants are moving towards activities that require more involvement, stimulus and an awareness of space.

center (abundance): this chapter is usually one of my favorite centerpieces: a large bowl overflowing with apples, which the participants get to take home with them at the end of the evening. i even insert candles into some of the apples. but this year i didn't manage to get apples in time for the session, so i scrambled madly in the morning to find something we had an abundance of and finally remember all our huge stash of acrylics, many of which sven was using for monster month. so they formed the base of the center this week, which then was filled out with a bristling array of brushes, pens & pencils.

music: delerium's karma and poem.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

October 28, 2007

artist's way: session 5

by gl. at 11:13 pm

things are starting to get harder for the group: this was the first week where some of them said they didn't want to show up. but they DID! showing up is a huge part of the equation, and once they were here, they were heard, and they could get to making art, they relaxed. you could see the weight release from them as they focused on blind contour drawing, the art activity of the day. they breathed easier, they smiled, and their checkins at the end of the session were much calmer than they were at the beginning.

it takes courage to be the first person to admit to the group that you're having a bad week. the weeks have flown by and they've been busy bonding, but it's not unexpected to see what julia calls "creative u-turns," where the rest of their lives have not gone as smoothly as the artist's way and are beginning to interrupt and disrupt their progress. all i ask is that they keep showing up. awareness leads to progress.

blind contour drawings start by drawing an object (in this case, two objects because the group is so large: edward gorey's bah humbug & a stuffed bat michaelmas gave me). then they're ready to do self-portraits holding mirrors. then i ask them to draw each other, which means i drag out the large insulation panels to give us more "wall" where the windows are. it's always amazing to me how much insight blind contours drawings give you: when an artist's hands, heart & head are all working in harmony, you really get a chance to see what the artist sees. and when you are drawing each other, it is odd and intense for someone to look at you for an extended period of time. many of them used the word "intimate" when writing about it afterwards, but they also appreciated the opportunity to see and be seen.

center (integrity/possibility): we doubled up on chapters this week, a consequence of shortening the cluster. here we have four glass jars on a mirror, reflecting into infinity. each jar has some sort of unknowable thing in it: tiny glass beads, marbles, a red star, pens & brushes. a candle was set atop. you're seeing it here after i've just dropped something onto the center, splattering wax everywhere.

music: the piano, which worked out well last year as a dramatic "first thing you hear upon the end of media deprivation" album, but this time it just seemed fussy.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (4) | categories: artist's way

October 20, 2007

artist's way guided intent (october) & misc book arts

by gl. at 8:38 pm

update 10.21.07: updated the planisphere link. thanks for catching that, sven!

two (!) tuesdays ago michaelmas & i went to the "vamp & tramp" trunk show at 23 sandy, which is a stunning collection of artist's books travelling around the country. michaelmas was impressed with "true to life" by julie chen. i loved a book called "read" whose pages were initially red but would turn white with exposure to heat, so while holding it and reading the primary story, another story would be revealed beneath it.

--*--

the next day, wednesday, was the october guided intent here at the studio. the rainy season prompts us to turn inward, which is a good excuse to literally try to "find yourself" by creating a lifemap. lifemaps are a way to visually explore relationships between the people, places and events that have been important to you.

in what i think is a studio first, bridget wrote about her lifemap on her blog! i've never known anyone to write about these events on their own sites when they leave, so this delighted me. it's good to know this stuff is actually happening and i'm not just making it all up, right? it's good to share the consensual hallucination. ;) plus, it's really lovely to see more insight about a piece develop over time. in addition to lifemaps, this month birch won a metallic marker to gild the edges of autumn leaves, and everyone went home with a wish token in their pocket.

[planisphere: click to see more lifemaps!]

i was obviously hugely influenced by the most recent book i've been reading: dava sobel's the planets. i almost always love astronomy books, but this is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. i found myself marking almost every page. it's poetry. it's what i want to be when i grow up.

so i created a little planisphere here: since the format is naturally meant to mark change over time, the "constellations" represent variously "ascending" art-parts of my life: theatre, poetry, computers, calligraphy & facilitation. in the center is my "solar system" at the studio. i very much like this concept; there's a lot more to explore here!

--*--

i still want to write about the open studio/collage night we hosted a couple of nights ago, but the next studio event is another guided intent: "possibility," where we'll use a variety of fortune-telling tricks as writing prompts. we'll create poetry using coins, cards, cookies & tea leaves!

then we'll host our first 2-day workshop: not just a pretty face. we hosted this as a 1-day workshop last time and decided there was so much to cover it would be better as a 2-day workshop, so you'll have plenty of time to study the masters and create rough drafts the first day, then come back refreshed and ready to dive into your final painting the next day!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way, exhibits & events, printing

October 18, 2007

artist's way: session 4

by gl. at 2:09 pm

now that it's been a month, some of the initial giddiness has worn off, but at the same time, participants are working hard and really looking forward to meeting every week, rearranging their schedules & childcare to make it to sessions. the energy is almost tangible. there's still some fear about competition and comparison, but so far they've been willing to try new things and supportive of each other. this week there was a lot of talk about the portland open studios tour because participants were so excited to be exposed to new art forms, artists and studios.

this week's art activity was one where you write down every single horrible thing your critic says to you, all the reasons it tells you that you can't write, paint, dance, draw, act, metalsmith, etc. then you highlight the thing that provokes the most emotional reaction and let your hand create a movement based on that emotion. you use that movement to draw a scribble over that page of writing. then you squint & turn it around until you can create something out of it. then you pass it along and other participants contribute to that piece, adding something to it or transforming it to protect you from your critic. this sounds like sort of a silly exercise, but it's amazing to see the transformation, and being able to visibly contribute towards the protection of each other really helps bond the group. though the exercise begins somberly, by the end everyone is smiling in delight and surprise.

this is also the session we begin the ever-popular "media deprivation" exercise for a week, which is one of artist's way's most frustrating and rewarding experiences. no reading, tv, music, radio, movies or *gulp* websites/email for the rest of the week. this is meant to balance out your personal consumption versus production. julia cameron thinks you shouldn't read at all, even if you are a student or you're at work, but i don't think media deprivation is supposed to be a punishment or something that makes things worse for you. so i make exceptions for things which are absolutely essential, situations you don't control, and things that can only happen this week that you have already planned.

the goal is to be conscious. awareness leads to progress. so what this means for me is that i'll scan incoming email to see if it's something that needs to be responded to this week, and if not i'll leave it alone. it means i'll ignore the piling queue of rss feeds demanding my attention daily (though i admit to making exceptions for the blogs of personal, local friends). it means i won't read the rest of the planets this week, a book i totally fell in love with while i was traveling in england. and it means i'll try to be very good about doing more, listening to my own voices and desires instead of relying on the influences of others.

center (power): a well of light bursting through rocks like a volcano. it's surrounded by some stars i bought in england.

music: adam hurst's passages, which i bought immediately upon hearing him play at the 100th monkey opening about a year ago. he also plays on a streetcorner during last thursday on alberta. he's really, really, good.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

October 17, 2007

artist's way: session 3

by gl. at 4:06 pm

the third session of artist's way was right after i got back from england and was, in fact, one of the reasons i came back so early. if the trip would have happened later on, i might have skipped a week and stayed longer in england, but skipping the third session is too soon, since the first four sessions are primarily about developing confidence in the group and trust in the process.

the art exercise was a process i call "love letters": some people see the artist's way as confronting their demons or getting down to work in a grim sort of way. but i want participants to start from a position of strength and love and power, so i really enjoy this exercise. i took an izone photo of some part of themselves they wanted to represent as a self-portrait. then they wrote down everything they liked about themselves, then wrote a poem about it & sharing it. as each poem was shared, each person in the group wrote a 1-line response to it and passed it to the writer. then they're all collaged or decorated onto a card to post at home. it sounds a little silly, but it really works: hearing other people validate, affirm and enhance the things you like about youself is a very powerful experience.

i wish they still made izone film: mine has become very unpredictable and large blobs of undeveloped areas will appear, in addition to shifting the hue fairly red. why did you give up on us, polaroid? i may have to figure out another way to do photos; i really enjoy using them in activities, but without a fairly immediate way to print them, it's not very useful. normal polaroids are much bigger than i'd want.

center (identity): a tray full of chestnuts with one shining candle amongst them. i love chestnuts; they feel like the harbringers of fall.

music: the upbeat moby songs from play, 18 and everything is wrong. but one of the participants brought the eels' "i like birds" to play as part of her checkin and we got up & danced.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

October 2, 2007

artist's way: session 2

by gl. at 4:45 pm

i was relieved when the weather decided to be kind enough today so we could do the poetry walk, which is an exercise where i do a simple loop around the neighborhood and we write down all the nouns and verbs of the things around us (or what they make us think of). the trick is that you can't use adjectives or adverbs. afterwards, we had 20 minutes to write a poem, though it didn't have to use those words or be about the walk. i love that even though we've all been influenced by the same walk, we write dramatically different poems.

falling

with each step
we are escaping
from our boxes
of wood and metal
and fences can't keep us
from the fields
lined with grass
and fallen apples.

we are walking together
but writing alone
each rose glowing red
against its own grey sky.

::oct02.2007::

center (safety): calligraphy pens forming a structure in which art can grow, with the stars shining & encouraging from above, about ready to drop in

music: tracy chapman's new beginning

(and now i'm off to england! tally ho!)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way, writing

September 26, 2007

artist's way: session 1

by gl. at 12:28 pm

it has begun! the tuesday morning clusters had a large response and it looks like a good strong group. every creative cluster is different, and in this one most of the participants are mothers. since that's not something i have any experience with, i'm looking forward to the ways they can uniquely support and encourage each other.

during the usually initially awkward "waiting for everyone to show up" period, i asked them to write down their preconceptions and fears about the creative cluster, then put them in a bowl and left them outside on the porch. it's an idea i got from vicki, who wanted artists in don't think! paint! to "park their prior knowledge of art techniques at the door."

the art activity for the first session is always a 20-minute intuitive collage. it's a deliberately short timeframe to thwart the demons of perfectionism and self-criticism. it might be more appropriate to call it an "exuberant collage" rather than an "intuitive collage" because it more accurately conveys the sense of energy and enthusiasm i see when people are engaged in this activity. afterwards we discussed my favorite form of feedback, which involves three different ways to respond to artwork without being critical about it: descriptive, emotional, and artistic. it's totally deserving of its own post.

we started a bit late so we ended a bit late, and two people really had to leave right on time, so i can see i need to be even more time conscious than usual about begin/end times. i'm usually a good timekeeper at events, so it's not a stretch, but it does mean i have to be really careful about the amount of time each person gets to speak and hold them to it, while not making them feel rushed. that's most difficult in the comments round, in part because i want to make sure people get a chance to speak even if they aren't the type to leap in immediately.

center (intro): an ostrich egg dan gave me, spilling stars onto a scarlet star cloth.

music: the amelie soundrack, which is especially suited for the 20-minute collage, but sets the tone for the whole cluster quite nicely. for this term, instead of waiting for that annoying little red cd player to randomly fail, i picked up some jbl on stage speakers to use with my ipod. i'm already happier. bonus: it comes with a remote, which means i don't have to leap up to adjust the volume between parts of the session.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

September 21, 2007

artist's way open studio (september)

by gl. at 2:02 am

i missed making collages! i didn't realize how much until i hosted the first open studio since the creative hiatus. i don't know why i don't usually make collages on my own, but that's a big reason why i created this event. :)

["heal": click the image to see the other collages]

i tried two other collages before this one, including one where i rubbed watercolor pencils over a page from a braille hymnal. but when this one came together (after i realized we only had 30 minutes left), it almost collaged itself, and i like what it has to say about my love/hate relationship with technology.

--*--

the next studio event is a guided intent, exploring the integrity of our internal geography with lifemaps. we're also offering an interesting "charcoal alchemy" workshop in the lonesome october, "transforming the dark." and then we get to do collage night again october 18!

also, i can hardly believe it, but... artist's way begins next week. eee!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (3) | categories: artist's way

September 10, 2007

diy alert interview

by gl. at 3:12 pm

last week the lovely & amazing diane gilleland posted an interview about scarlet star studios on diyalert! she was especially kind enough to post it in time to help increase visibility for the artist's way creative clusters. thank you, diane!

the fall clusters have had a lot of momentum so far. i'm happy to announce that tuesday morning is full! there's still plenty of room on monday evening, though, and there's just enough time to decide to get support for your creative process & send in your deposit. what are you waiting for? ;)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way, links

September 6, 2007

artist's way guided intent (september)

by gl. at 11:59 pm

it's september, so this means i'm officially no longer on a creative hiatus! we had our first event of the "new creative season" wednesday night and what a fantastic re-introduction it was, focussing on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. we made "creative blocks" to help keep us motivated and powerful when we get stuck. it was great to see familiar faces again and introduce new people to the studio. everyone had such enthusiasm for getting back to art!

i've started doing prizes for people who come to guided intent: linda won a pack of tiny sharpie markers, and everyone went home with a wish token in their pocket.

[alliteration: click to see more creative blocks!]

people really did some amazing blocks, and several of them were much more sculptural than i would have ever imagined!

during these sorts of events i've often been impressed & pleased that i've been able to make art while faciliating the event. even if it doesn't come out perfectly, i can often see what it means and how it represents a fragment of my Self. but i'm baffled by this. it doesn't speak to me at all. i'm much more interested in what i wrote about it than the object i created.

before we started modifying the blocks, we wrote about our strengths & things we like about ourselves. it seemed like i had a little unfair head start after responding to shu-ju's 10 things i like about myself meme a while back. but it turns out i didn't write about any of that. instead, i wrote about how my creative block usually doesn't keep me from doing stuff, but it does keep me from feeling anything about it, especially joy. afterwards when we wrote down six words that might help us overcome our blocks, i was delighted to discover mine all began with the letter A:

• aware
• appreciate
• anticipate
• act
• awake
• alone

that's poetry waiting to happen. now that i can work with! :) so despite how i feel about my finished block, i still feel i got a lot out of the exercise. and it was great to see what everyone else made!

--*--

the next studio event is our casually creative collage night september 20 (which is already full w/ a waiting list). then we're offering a fun improvisational storytelling workshop, "generate, create, communicate" (perfect for animators -- or gamers! ;). then artist's way begins! next month the guided intent theme will be "integrity," where we'll visually explore the people, places and events that have shaped us. rsvp now!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

August 27, 2007

artist's way creative clusters fall 2007

by gl. at 4:25 pm

yesterday we went to pix for the first "artist's way ice cream social" at pix on division. it's a way to get together members from former artist's way groups with the promise of delicious & unusual ice creams. i had a delicious basil ice cream while others were seduced by the chocolate port fig. (btw, it turns out pix is doing brunch till 2 p.m. again! yay!)

which means summer is drawing to a close and it's a good time to announce the new artist's way creative clusters coming up next month! artist's way is my favorite thing to facilitate; unlike my 1-day events or the classes i host, it allows a unique chance for emotional range and growth over time. it emphasizes making creativity an integral part of of your life, rather than an occasional event. i also love that it works for all forms of creativity, not just visual arts. my goal is to encourage people to make art that is personally meaningful & truthful for them.

this time i made it a 10-week group to fit in better with the public universities' quarterly schedule. the 13-week format has always worked extremely well, but i wanted to remove any other inertias which might be keeping people from joining a creative cluster. but this will certainly keep them on their toes! 10 weeks to explore 10 different arts, 10 weeks to overcome what's keeping you from making more of what you love, 10 weeks to bond with other creative, compassionate companions. i'm really looking forward to it! and i'm thrilled that tuesday morning is already almost full: waiting is always the hardest part. :)

[abundance centerpiece]

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

July 16, 2007

stay awake

by gl. at 10:03 pm

way, way back in december, a former artist's way client asked if sven & i would sing a song for an album she was making, an album of lullabyes for her friend's young son. carol brought us a copy of the album when we hosted the edible book tea in march, and we were delighted and proud (and a little self-conscious) to listen to the CD.

we chose to sing "stay awake" from mary poppins, based on an acappella version by suzanne vega. though sven plays a spirited piano, neither of us are professional singers and it shows, but carol was a total sweetheart to work with. we sang it at least 4 or 5 times, even trying a version where sven tried to harmonize by listening to a recording of me singing alone.

and while i still find it a little embarrasing, i chose to sing and i offer it here for two reasons:

1. i want to support people who want to make things. so if someone wants me to sing, who am i to refuse? i'm thrilled carol created this album; anything to help her make music is a gift i'm happy to provide.

2. i think we should all do creative things from time to time that we feel we can't do: not in public, not where other people might see, not in front of an audience!

[unter anshel's vigele: click the image to hear "stay awake"!]

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way, other art

June 28, 2007

artist's way open studio (june)

by gl. at 12:01 am

the last open studio before my creative hiatus went out with a bang! i have been RSVPing for 10 with the expectation that 7 or 8 will show up, but for this event we had 9! that makes for a packed studio with plenty of lively & creative people. :)

["summer solstice": click the image to see the other collages]

it was the solstice, which is one of my favorite seasonal markers, though it's hard to accept that we've now turned away from the light and are heading back into the dark season.

so i guess i'd better enjoy the sunlight while i can! i just have a couple of other events to wrap up (mostly write about), and then i have a whole summer waiting for me! eee!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

June 18, 2007

good google!

by gl. at 11:15 pm

google finally sees us! after over two years of languishing in obscurity as hit 257, a search for "portland artist's way" will finally take you to our artist's way offerings on the first hit -- even though i would have been happy to end up anywhere on the first page. there truly isn't a better artist's way link in portland and it was driving me crazy that we were so hard to find, even falling below a woman who simply used an artist's way quote on her page!

the change probably accounts for a few of the fall inquiries we've had lately, even though we haven't really begun to promote it yet. i am so relieved i can feel myself actually breathe differently. but it's also a little unsettling, because we haven't done anything differently and i worry we'll vanish again as quickly as we rose.

before i realized google had given us a boost, i reformated the artist's way structure this term, too: instead of 12 weeks, we're going to try for 10, beginning with the other portland colleges on the quarter system. i have previously been dead set against changing the length, because i've both taught & taken shorter creative clusters and by the time you finally develop enough trust in the process, the group & yourself, it's over! my goal is to get you to habitualize the process so it maintains some momentum after we stop meeting, and it's harder to do that when it's shorter. but a shorter term will give me a little more time to promote after the summer ends and i hope it attracts more people who find the longer class another hurdle to overcome their creative inertia.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (1) | categories: artist's way

June 8, 2007

artist's way guided intent (june)

by gl. at 7:28 pm

the last artist's way guided intent before our creative hiatus will leave a lasting impression! masks naturally invite deep personal explorations, so it was wonderful to have such an open, willing, vulnerable group. it was fun to meet new people and encourage regulars.

[waxing & waning: click the image to see some of the other masks]

we wrote before we began making the masks and before we shared our masks w/ the group. the first prompt asked, what part of myself do i hide, or what part of my personality is a defense? i hide the part of myself that is unsure. i feel like i have to be "on" all the time. that's why i love this moon mask, as it demonstrates that one can wax & wane and still shine. i wrote, "i am not the sun: i do not consume myself and spit out flame." it has a a spray of stars wrapped around its dark side and gleaming gems embedded on its outer edge.

this was the last guided intent we'll have until september, where we'll explore our "creative blocks!" one more open studio/collage night on the solstice, and then i will try very hard to do nothing for two months. we'll see how that goes!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

May 18, 2007

artist's way open studio (may)

by gl. at 10:33 pm

a quiet, kind & prolific group this month. many new people that i very much enjoyed meeting, the kind of people where you find yourselves working together in a comfortable silence. and for the first time in a long time, we had TWO boys at an event at the same time. i like events that are age & gender balanced, and this one was both.

i try to market open studio as "our most casual event," which means that because it's free i don't have to spend time or brainspace facilitating it, even though hosting it requires some small amount of facilitation. previously, this also meant that we didn't have introductions at the beginning or sharing at the end, because sometimes they can get out of hand, but this time i wanted to try it as a way to shape the event somewhat, and i'm glad i did.

["so good night, with lullabye": click the image to see the other collages]

i didn't realize where i was going with this until after it was put together, at which point it very much made me think of nathan's mother, who just died from cancer. he's been writing these posts about her funeral and her death and i can tell the words have touched me, even though i'm thousands of miles away. the text you probably can't read next to her arm is from "a midsummer night's dream":

Come our lovely lady nigh
So good night, with lullabye

if this piece feels incomplete, it's because i had intended to fill the part above NEXT with a jumbled pile of transfer letters. i bought an obscene amount at art media because they were discontinuing them, and i tried some at collage a couple of months ago that were so smooth and elegant that i knew i had to have some. but these must not have been the same brand, because i could not get a clean transfer off any letter i tried:

i don't know if i'll leave the collage the way it is or if i'll try to think of something else. i rarely go back and do anything with art after an event (much to the chagrin of my "unfinished projects" box).

next month is our last set of events until i go on hiatus (dare i say "vacation"?) for july & august. the one i'm most excited about is an andy-goldsworthy inspired workshop at Mt. Hood that i'm facilitating (down to earth). it took me years to find the perfect location, and now it looks like i'll only get to offer it once, so i hope it's awesome! :)

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

May 3, 2007

artist's way guided intent (may)

by gl. at 10:13 pm

lynn facilitated our "safety" guided intent this month. this was the first time she's taught soulcollage but i'm really glad to give her that opportunity, because she was such a pleasure and had such gentle enthusiasm. i know lynn through the other regular artist's way group in portland, the one that's offered through the unitarian church.

one of the things i like about having other people at the studio is seeing how they use the studio differently than i do. lynn spread out the images all over the studio so that people moved around to find images, even sitting on the floor to sort through the huge pile there! then we gathered at the table to make the soulcollages, and afterwards we broke into pairs to talk about our cards, using the "i am the one who..." process. i think these kinetic landmarks really helped mark the different stages of soulcollage.

i actually made two soulcollages! the first one is still a little vague for me; i don't really know what it means yet. but the second one absolutely delights me. this is one of my favorite collages (i know, didn't i say that last time?). whenever i see it i think, "yes! that's one of my best selves!" and i really want that feeling of lightness and joy again, the kind where you close your eyes to listen to yourself hum and you've gotta dance just because the moon is shining. though you can't see it very well, the dancing fish & the water droplets are shiny.

["silence" & "inner joy": click the images to see the other soulcollages]

i'm facilitating the next guided intent in june, at which point i'll be taking the summer off, so the guided intent after that will be in september. the theme for june is "identity" and features mask-making. i've only ever done this in an artist's way creative cluster, so it will be interesting to see how it works in a more general setting. but so far, i've always been amazed at what gets made! having it as part of guided intent will also mean that i get to create one -- which i haven't done yet!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (2) | categories: artist's way

April 20, 2007

artist's way open studio (april)

by gl. at 11:28 pm

what a lovely time last night! it was exactly what i want in a group: lively, generous, fluid conversation with plenty of art at the end. i think it helped that i tried to set a positive intent early on, and specifically asked people to be considerate of everyone: no politics or boy bashing. (i wish i had a better word than "boy bashing," though it's primarily what i want to eliminate.) instead, i asked people to talk about what they loved, or what they wanted to be doing.

i was thrilled joanne came! joanne was from one of my first artist's way groups in the studio, and she just got back from a trip to spain. she biked here on the springwater corridor trail, a route i have to remember to tell bicyclists coming from that side of town.

[flight: click the image to see the other collages]

i think this is one of my favorite collages. it's built on a card, but the hands and leg escape the borders. i couldn't bear to cut them off, so when they get put into a card they'll be folded over the edge. this would be a great time to learn some pop-up book techniques. :)

the next event is also collage, a guided soulcollage introduction may 2 that is already full. it's being led by someone i know from the unitarian artist's way group who has been trained by the creator of soulcollage, seena frost.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

April 5, 2007

artist's way guided intent (april)

by gl. at 3:31 am

i was so exicted to have dayna here tonight! dayna was in my artist's way creative clusters two years ago but she shot off like a rocket & is now leading her own groups in salem and art classes all over the state. ordinarily when i host an event for someone else, i supply the, um, supplies, but dayna brought boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff!

she also asked me to lead the initial writing segment because it's not something she ordinarily does, but is interested in doing it more. because i wasn't facilitating, the first page wasn't all about thinking about the other people and how they were doing or what needed to be done next.

but i had "play by the rules" echoing in my head, so i wrote about the tension between my healthy respect for and desire for rules/structure and my appreciation for the phrase, "it's better to beg forgiveness than seek permission." as the timer beeped, i ended with, "when i don't like the rules, i make up a new game."

["breaking the rules": click the image to see the other shrines]

this was a hard object to take a picture of! it's constructed very much like a tunnel book, so the round object in the center is about an inch away from the top of the shrine, though 3 layers of box.

this marks a whole year of events based on artist's way themes, and brings us back to the beginning: safety. for many people, the easiest & safest tool to explore art is via collage, so i'll be hosting an introduction to SoulCollage to explore how we hold a safe space for ourselves and our creativity.

and i enjoyed dayna facilitating so much that i'm looking forward to another guest facilitator! for soulcollage it will be lynn sherman, who i know from the artist's way group at the unitarian church! lynn also came to the Fabulous End-of-Summer August Art Swap, where she surprised herself by discovering she wanted to inspire & support artists via fundraising & grants.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

March 17, 2007

open studio second anniversary & edible book tea

by gl. at 9:17 pm

beware the ideas of march! the open studio second anniversary & edible book tea contained a wonderful range of "books": creative & tasty non-fiction, poetry, journals and reference materials. it's sort of an odd anniversary: we've actually had artist's way events for over 3 years, but the first open studio, where we branched out into regular events, was two years ago.

i printed excerpts of "eating poetry" by mark strand onto crepes using a gocco machine w/ chocolate sauce. i wanted to make an interactive piece so everyone could print their own crepe. gocco-ing with chocolate was one of those things i knew was theoretically possible, but i couldn't find anyone who had done it before. shu-ju mentions trying some tests for the iprc text ball, but it didn't work out.

in all i spent about 15 hours working out the details of the gocco chocolate-printing process, which i'll write about in another post. i was a little nervous, epecially when my first experiments earlier in the week were dubious. so when we printed the first crepe at the event, i was thrilled and relieved to discover it had worked!

["eating poetry" setup]

[gocco crepe print: click the image to see the other edible books!]

also, it's one thing to make a technically edible book, but to make a tasty edible book is even harder. crepes, homemade whipped cream & strawberries are delicious even without poetry. :)

our next guided intent event features dayna collins, a former artist's way creative cluster member! she's really doing great work in salem, and when i saw the matchbox shrines she made during the virtual open studio in january, i knew they would be perfect for the last theme in the guided intent series, which is faith:

"Faith is an essential component of our art. We should all have a holy reminder of our commitment to create, helping us pray for guidance & courage. So come create tiny matchbox shrines to celebrate & believe in our arts! "Faith" is the last of the Guided Intent series before we begin the cycle anew. So I am thrilled to announce our first guest facilitator for a Guided Intent: Dayna Collins, who is one of our own members!

"Dayna is a collage, assemblage, and mosaic artist and is the founder of Alley Art, an eclectic art style that incorporates collage with 3D mixed media on bowling pins! She facilitates Artist's Way groups in Salem. Dayna offers workshops on a variety of topics in Portland, Salem, and Sisters, and works part-time as a counselor at Serenity Lane. Her passion is helping others discover their own creativity and living a life filled with joy."

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (1) | categories: artist's way, other art

March 8, 2007

artist's way guided intent (march)

by gl. at 7:34 pm

spring is in the air and art is blossoming! coordinating mind, heart & hand was the purpose of last night's blind contour drawing activity. we drew and drew and drew and drew! I can't even believe how much we drew!

each of us started with a random object and swapped with each other at the end of 10 minutes. we did that excercise four times. then we did a self-portrait; then we did portraits of each other; then we colored the enclosed spaces on one or more drawings.

[self-portrait & microscope: click the picture to see the other photos]

i've done a much better blind self-portrait before: in fact, it's what originally made me so happy about the process. but i've discovered that if part of your brain is faciliating the event, it's difficult to approach it with the same amount of zen. :) this self-portrait looks like two portraits, each at different angles. but i think my hair is spot on. ;)

the most disappointing part of this event was the attrition rate again. this time, half of the rsvps didn't appear and never contacted me. man, that sucks. it looks like the only strategies left are to collect payment in advance or stop hosting them. i have two more guided intents i -must- host because i have guest facilitators (eee!), but it's not like i make enough money off the guided intent to be worth all this hassle, so the latter option is not out of the question.

having said that, i'm very excited about the next event, which is the edible book tea to celebrate our second anniversary! i very much enjoy celebrating creativity of all types, including culinary, and i was charmed when i attended something like this in san diego several years ago.

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (3) | categories: artist's way

February 20, 2007

artist's way open studio (february)

by gl. at 2:46 am

i don't think this collage has -any- shiny on it! :) nothing even very unusual: it's all clippings from magazines. everything simply found its way into my hands. i like the composition quite a bit. i've also hit a couple of surprising interpersonal realtionship bumps for which this image is pretty appropriate.

[release: click the image to see the other collages]

i deliberately overbooked 10 in a studio that seats 8, and so when the first person changed their RSVP, I didn't panic -- but we still ended up with 7 people, i think. i'm also still debt collecting from the last artist's way guided intent, which is one of my least favorite activities (right up there with flyering).

in general it was a lively event, though with a underlying tension and competive (!)dynamic i still need to sort through. one of the participants, especially, felt particularly overbearing, and then that just set off a couple of the others. a new boy came and i felt we weren't as inclusive of him as i would have liked. i just want people to come & make art, you know? i often feel the guided intents are more successful in part because they're so structured, so it's difficult for any one person to monopolize the group.

in fact, the next event is a guided intent featuring blind contour drawing. :) and after that, to celebrate our second year of open studio, i am very excited to host an edible book tea! i attended one of these in san diego w/ terrilynn & loved it so much!

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

February 11, 2007

artist's way guided intent (february)

by gl. at 11:54 am

this was a pretty successful event! i was nervous about it because i don't do the fabric arts much at all, but part of the goal of the guided intent is to push my own boundaries, too. i was epescially worried that we wouldn't have enough time for such an ambitious event: we had two hours total, and only a little over an hour of work time when you accounted for introductions, writing & sharing.

we wrote about what needs protection and what it needs protection from. i wrote that i need protection from my mental gremlins that keep me from enjoying the present because i have so much left to do in the future.

["twilah": click the picture to see the other photos]

"i am the one who can manage it all, beautifully & unfraid, while my heart beats above and the sky beats below. i am the one who sings with the frogs in the gathering twilight." the threads represent my tasks which are neatly gathered in her arms, leaving her room for peace and emotions. you can't see it well at all, but she's covered in very small rhinestones, glittering like stars. her "hat" is a piece from the porch star lamp we retired last year.

the next guided intent is blind contour drawing: "You have a life and vitality that is yours alone. Retain your autonomy by exploring your unique vision! Blind contour drawing is often a reflection of your truest perceptions because it teaches you to draw what you really see rather than how you think something should look. You learn to rely on your senses and self: allowing your eyes to see, your mind to think, and your hand to act. Learning to draw this way will increase your artistic freedom, independence & self-reliance. Trust the process! Trust yourself!"

posted by gl. | permalink | comments (0) | categories: artist's way

January 22, 2007

last chance to find your muse (aka artist's way)

by gl. at 11:32 pm

i can't believe i haven't posted about the next round of artist's way yet. technically, the rsvp deadline for this is tomorrow, but i'll (obviously) be extending it. :)

this is essentially what i've been promoting:

Give yourself the time & space this year to find your muse at our abundant and inspiring studio! Whether you love visual, literary or performing arts, when you commit to finding your muse you will also find confidence, courage and compassionate companions. Your facilitator, Gretchin Lair, is a creative advocate known for her "splendid mix of art and honesty" and "quiet leadership."

"Find Your Muse" is based on The Artist's Way (if you've tried to get through The Artist's Way alone, come join us!). But we go far beyond the book, actively exploring a wide range of art activities designed to encourage your muse and stretch every aspect of your creativity. After you find your muse you'll be ready to create fearlessly & truthfully!

Two choices for Spring 2007: only $260 for 13 weeks!
(RSVP and $130 deposit due by January 23)

Tuesday nights
6:30-9 p.m.
January 30-April 24

Wednesday mornings
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
January 31-April 25

for more about my Portland Artist's Way oppportunities, please visit:
http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/artistsway/

(If a creative cluster doesn't work for you this time, there's always our independent support option, where you can find your muse on your own schedule!)

this year i hired posterchild to do the flyering since i hate that so very much. next time i'll probably do the same but with a much longer lead time: my reach