I am on extended leave to play.

As the economy rocks itself to over $4.00/gal for gasoline, I know that it’s time for a hard look at all my art lines and income strings.  $3.00/gal is my measure for paying attention because it’s when art and anything to do with art seems to take a back burner for most people.

I would argue that having beautiful things around you that make you feel joyful and good is a great antidote for money depression, but each to their own way of keeping on keeping on.  Personally, I think focusing on lack of anything is the wrong pathway.  It makes everything you do come from lack instead of from abundance.

Don’t laugh.  Or get snarky.  Remember, I’m one of you.  I am not sitting on a golden cushion of money that gets me through this.  I am sitting on 11 years of working at my art experience and the knowledge that I have made it before and can continue to make it my own way:  working for myself, doing something I love.  If I have to make $10/hour, let it be paying myself to make art!

So – what’s the approach that helps me keep on keeping on? 

I stop working and start playing.

That’s right!  I don’t lengthen my hours, put my nose to the grindstone or freak out.  I used to do that.  And guess what.  It didn’t help the situation.  It just stressed me out.  When I’m stressed out, my inner child (keeper of all things creative) refuses to come out and visit because she knows it will not be fun. 

And you know the definition of crazy, right?  Keep doing the same thing and expect something different to happen.

So I play.

I make jewelry (the most playful of all things when you aren’t trying to make something to sell:  all that sparkly wonderfulness).  Who knew it could be reversible?  I didn’t until the piece showcased here just happened.

I play in clay:  cooling in the kiln right now are pieces for a giant wind chime for my front yard, and for (sort of) dolls that aren’t really, based on work I saw during  my playdate at the Arts Councils Craft Show in Baltimore a week ago with art gal friends  (hat would be Valerie Bunnell’s work…LOVE it!).  Here are some other favorites discovered during that playdate (note:  PLAY date – go out and let your inner child’s imagination e-x-p-a-n-d with possibilities):

• Dudley Vaccianna’s handpainted glass vases – he paints the inside too.  The absolutely glow.
• Bruce Chapin’s Reliquary series (things that open up to other things – more on that further down).
• Kimmy Cantrell Fine Art – not much ceramic at the show this year, but Kimmy works in ceramic and it is dynamic!  and large!

So the dolls cooling in the kiln right now have spaces that will be hidden that you can open (hopefully with metal hinges but I haven’t gotten that far yet).  I mixture of two of the things I saw (doll and reliquary).

The other thing I am playing with, alot, is a 2D journal, which is starting to turn into an art journal instead of a writing journal, and that’s okay.  The whole point was to get things moving…and that has opened me up to things that open up too!  Apparently my inner child is in her hide and seek mode – that bodes well.  I never know what I’m going to uncover when I start opening closed drawers and unlocking old trunks and closets.  Here are videos of my journal making:  the start, the middle, and where I am right now (and I’m not finished).

I have begun several projects that I’ve been putting off for lack of time.  These projects are pure potential – they have no sales value (yet).

I have been after a large piece for my yard for literally years.  I have thought through armatures and walls to build on and wire and clay boxes and could never get my head around it.  When the answer came it was so simple I couldn’t believe it took that long (maybe because I was scaring my inner child with all my fretting). 

And she led to a smaller goddess, a memory goddess, that I designed for a local show, About Face, which called for portraits (broadly defined).  This one is for my Mom, but you can see how I could make the foundations and others could buy them and finish on their own, or commission me to do so.  She is about 28″ tall.

From the memory goddess, came the Intention Goddess.She who was made to help us remember our word or phrase or question for the year or month or week or dayBecause she is finished in chalkboard paint, you can change as you need And she has spaces from which to dangle small vision boards or actual representations of your intentions.  Want a car?  Find a HotWheels representation of it and hang it where you can see it every day.  What’s your perfect place to live?   Hang a picture from her.   Want to go back to school?   Hang a page with some of the subjects you’re interested in

You can see how she is a blend of both the Memory Goddess and the Garden Goddess.  This is what play does. 

It also makes space for rest.   Because if you are playing and get tired, there is nothing to keep you from taking a little nap.   Or a break.  Because you’re just playing.   Nothing is required.   You are in limitless time.   You are making a space for your inner child to come out and play.   And when I was little, if naptime didn’t come soon enough, I was known to take my blanket and find a nice pile of leaves somewhere and take the nap thing into my own hands.  All we have to do is make a space to remember these things.

 The only thing keeping us from playing and napping and howling our joy out loud is the story we are telling ourselves about how we “can’t because…..”

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

I want to learn how to purr.  Abandon myself, have lovers in maidenhair fern, own no tomorrow nor yesterday, a blank shimmering space forward and back.  I want to think with my belly.  I want to name all the stars animals flowers birds rocks in order to forget them, start over again.  I want to wear the seasons, harlequin, become ancient and etched by weather.  I want to be snow pulse, ruminating ungulate, pebble at the bottom of the abyss, candle burning darkness rather than flame….Robert Maclean