Take Up Space

My new book – Take Up Space – art for the second act, is in production!

Thank you to the enthusiastic and talented people who contributed to the book with comments and insights. Here are the survey results:

How do you feel when you work on your art?  

I’m have to concentrate on the art, so I focus away from the every stresses and background noises.

Peaceful, happy, focused

It’s my path!

It gives me joy. It’s also a way that I feel I can best “do” creative expression.

Many things! Energized, focused, connected, to name a few.

It doesn’t matter how many moving parts ( people, marketing, meetings $ resources) i love it all.

The BEST of self. Challenged, exhilarated, alive!!

As you mention above, being creative is a compulsion,. For me also. When I am creating a project, I am totally immersed in it. I am concentrating on the task at hand, which requires blocking out all outside stimulus, in order to come up with new and original concepts. I really enjoy this process.

I lose myself

Great

Human, part of me internal all my life

With poetry I somehow feel I’ve just found “me” and that’s a relief. Is acting according to a book an art? Yes and no and it depends. When it’s like wow we’re on the same story and we made it work, that’s a great feeling. The applause is deceptive, there’s an ego involved. Drawing, mostly in the field where there’s people involved, I feel shy. I don’t want people watching while I draw. Singing. Oh what feelings of frustration trying to read this new language called music. When the practice is working we have harmony. And that is a joy with a choir.

Intense, focused

I feel like I am both deeper inside myself and outside of myself connecting with other things. I also sometimes feel like I’m in a trance, more connected to myself than ever before.

Has art helped you through a difficult time in life? 

When Pete was first diagnosis with cancer and going through his first chemo treatments, I took time off work and had to stay home to keep an eye on him. I decided it was a great time to design and build the wine racks, which required me to focus to not cut my fingers off for at least an hour at a time, away from all that was crashing and burning around me.

Yes!!

Always

Absolutely. When I was in an especially dark place, photographing landscapes while doing adventures gave me some the most lasting joy I’ve ever experienced.

I can get away from the problem or heartache by focusing. Even though I am a visual artist, I find free writing very helpful for staying in touch with myself and my art, especially in difficult times. Result–I feel better.

Yes- it moves me forward. I feel focused and in the moment

Depression, anxiety, fear of body part failures, grief, loneliness, and more

I am happy to say that I haven’t had many difficult times in my life. Maybe that’s because I have been an artist all of my life. Doing art as my career, and also as my hobby, has been very fulfilling.

Sometimes. I can’t point to a single point.

Play the blues!

Writing is part of me being a human

Yes. As a nineteen year old and now as a 69 year old.

Maybe. Poetry helps me process strong feelings, painting remind me of my gifts, piano is way to sustain a commitment

Being able to focus on fiction when difficult things were happening around me has been a lifesaver. Instead of feeling helpless toward events and people I can’t control, I get to be a God in my own creative universe, especially with storytelling, and I feel some modicum of power and 100% engaged in something I have choice in.

Has making art always been a part of your life?  Or has the impetus to create emerged later in life?

It was always part of my life, but not my family life. I was always building, drawing, creating something. My grandfather actually encouraged me. He painted watercolors.

It comes and goes but the older I get the more I make it a priority

Ever since I was born!

It started when I first picked up a camera seriously in junior college.

Since I became an adult, art or some creative practice has been part of my life. However, I became more dedicated to it when I reached midlife and even more so as an older adult.

Yes, but i didn’t name it till recently.

No, for 20 years I just worked in finances & worked long hours, city life, and the only creative thing I did was travel around the world, which is maybe another kind of art & expression.

I recall the exact day I became an artist… It was in art class, 7th grade, at Sierra Jr. High. After we students had turned in our art assignments, the teacher looked thru them at her desk, and standing, she held up my “work” as an example of what, in her opinion, was a good job. That recognition, and praise, made me think of myself as an artist from that moment on. [She asked to keep the piece, and of course I said yes. I can’t recall what it was.]

Always but it became difficult when I had the multiple stressors of working-parenting-managing the household. Art requires time and space which at times are in short supply.

Didn’t start till later in life.

Always been there but publishing later in life.

I grew up in a family of artists with artist friends. I started really rolling with it in my thirties with drawing and acting.

Yes. Since early childhood I have played piano, written poetry and painted

Yes, I have been creative since I was a child. But it took being an adult to learn how to really deepen my interest in storytelling and get good at it.

How and where do you find support for your emerging art practice? 

Sometimes both in person and online classes. I just had a glass blowing class for my Christmas present.

Books and through my part time work

Writers group. Nice to meet you today.

I don’t know if ‘ts “emerging”. Anyway .. I find it in the sharing of my images on social media, and the appreciation viewers express.

I have a solid art practice now. But when I was still searching for working more consistently, I read voraciously about the creative habits of other writers and artists and also joined groups dedicated to an art form. Classes and workshops that focus on the beginning stages of sustaining creativity and finding your voice were also important. They come before technique.

My women friends

Nevada County is pulsing with WHATEVER art & passion one desires, in my opinion.

Good question. Ghosts sometimes (I’m a spiritualist). My wife and our housemate tolerate my beginning piano and my baritone voice. I need to support myself more, tolerate myself and the mystification I make of learning music. It takes the fun out of it.

Group discussions are more valuable than conferences with speakers. From a technical standpoint, YouTube has been invaluable.

I find it right at home. My wife supports as much time as I want to put in to my creative side.

From me and editors who like my work to publish it.

People who see my art or hear me play piano reinforce me in positive ways. I share poetry with a group of fellow poets. Both environments are supportive .

With my husband, who is also a writer, with my critique groups, with connecting with other writers, both as a colleague and a teacher.

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