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Wednesday 19 January 2022

What Does The Next Year Hold? (2022)

While I'm not a collage artist, I used collage making for years in my work as an interior designer and as an art instructor to learn more about the client or the student. I only learned to use collages for myself about six or seven years ago while working with a creativity coach. The first assignment was to make a collage about the woman I was becoming. I have it up in my studio and it encompasses the years between age 50 and age 70. With turning sixty this year, I'm right in the middle and it's interesting to see what has already unfolded and what may be to come. 





After that, I began making a yearly collage and the starting question is always the same: what does the next year hold? I choose a size of paper and then flip through six or seven magazines pulling out whatever catches my eye. Then I work through the pile cutting away anything that doesn't resonate whether it's words or imagery. From there, I begin to arrange the remaining words and images on the chosen paper. Some insist on being there and others refuse to find a place. That in itself can be a real learning curve if I'm not sure about a phrase that wants to be included or was clinging to one that doesn't. It involves being open and letting go right there at the very beginning. 





Fashion is woven through every part of my life. I began sewing when I was twelve and over forty years later, it's still how I breathe and the art form I consistently come back to. If I haven't sewn today, something is off and if there is no sewing for days, I'm going to get really cranky. When I am cranky, the suggestion has been made that perhaps I should go to my studio. How telling is that? It is my destressing, energizing, nurturing space. This next decade feels like a fabulous time to lean into my style even further and really enjoy the clothing I create and wear.




The last six months of 2021 felt unsettled. It began when the gallery called me and asked to carry my jewelry. Without meaning to, I once again picked up the swirling issues around a creative business. There are all kinds of valid reasons for why I'd like to earn income and yet it's been rare and very sporadic for my cash flow to come from what I make and sell. It's not because I'm not good enough. And, it's not because I don't work hard enough. So perhaps, it's not meant to be or it's meant to be only differently. Putting that down... again... brought calm back into my life and I see that reflected in the collage. There is nothing about developing a business and I am glad.

The typewriter represents the blog which I intend to make a focus. I've realized that writing is one of my art forms and it's very fun to be published as often as I want without writing proposals and looking for acceptance from a publisher, without having anyone judge my work through their criteria which has little to do with what I have to offer and everything to do with what "they" are buying. I've been there, done that, and enjoy the blog. 

I have decided to occasionally post things for sale in a casual and low-key way like the studio sales I've had in the past. This would allow me to move my makes along so I can keep making and - never say never - I'm also going to be one of those women that used to frustrate me, and who I now understand, by selling my work at cost. When what I've made starts to pile up, I can't make any more things and if I can't make any more things, I can't function so selling what I make at the cost of making does seem like a good idea. I'm not sure when that might start... eventually. 




There are points in life when our mortality stares us in the face through the loss of loved ones, events like the pandemic, or aging and aching. I feel so blessed to be alive, to live where I live, and to have the options I have in my life. I am increasingly grateful for, and increasingly aware of taking care of, this body I live in as I lean into the journey of ever increasing holistic health. I am grateful that I now truly enjoy dressing the body I have. 




I can't remember if I talked about this in an earlier post but several months ago I had a conversation with a friend about the "in" group. I walk to a rather unusual drummer and I've never felt like I belonged in any group. That feeling has shadowed my life and yet, after talking to her, I questioned where is this "in" that I am not in? Why didn't I recognize in as the coffee date I was on? Wasn't in the weekend with a friend spent sewing in the studio or the workshop with other women who love what I love? Why had I made "in" some place other than where I was and why had I given someone else the power to say if I was "in" or not? What if being in is simply about showing up in your own life? These images are to remind myself that I am in, about being all in, and about developing friendships in this community. 




So many times I get in my own way with wrong thinking that can't evolve until I recognize and confront it. I have been praying about not just surviving but thriving and blossoming in every area of my life including creativity, and about connecting with all that is around me whether that is nature, relationships, inspiration, or something else entirely - eyes wide open, ears attentive, engaged. 




The doorknob is one of the images that insisted on being on the collage and the quote ended up next to it because it fit nicely into that space and yet - once I read them together - it was obviously meant to be. It reads: follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before. Another prayer is that as my path unfolds before me, God will close doors I am not meant to walk through, open ones that I am, and highlight the signposts along the way. 

I prefer to go deep rather than wide and explore a few mediums more intensely. Last year, as I was working out if and how I wanted to make jewelry, I started to feel overwhelmed by too many directions with too many learning curves. Rather than learning and growing artistically, it felt like I was treading water so I began eliminating options down to what I really wanted to focus on and eventually got to polymer clay, and then to beads and buttons, and then primarily buttons. Artful is not an uncommon word in the magazines I read however buttons is and this word was the title of a book in a stack on a table from a picture in a home décor magazine. 

I'm not going to start making buttons regularly until I finish the pieces for the upcoming exhibit, so about the middle of February, and then I plan to participate in one of the 100 days of inset word challenges and make some buttons each day for a hundred days. During that time, I will be away for the workshop so I'm taking epoxy clay with me for those days. I've already been mixing epoxy and polymer with the exhibit pieces and I think they may show up together more often depending on what I'm creating. I like the idea of exploring widely within these narrow boundaries. 

If there's an image you're wondering about, feel free to ask and I'd love to hear what your next year holds. 

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - lessons learned

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