Resolution for the New Year

Celebrate your mistakes! They mean you're human.

Don't be afraid of making a mistake: you'll not learn anything by doing things perfectly except how to do one thing. Cross pollination can't happen in a perfect atmosphere.

Expand your world and knowledge: make mistakes.

Remember: there is nowhere to go, nothing left to do if everything is perfect. The concept of perfect is a myth.

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What Kind of Year Was It?

ArtWorks, Christmas 2012

Happy New Year! I'm sure everyone is looking over the last year and taking stock – me, too. This last year was quite a whirlwind for me. At the beginning of each year from Jan. to March I coordinate the EDGE Program, (a 55 hour professional development program for artists on business). At the same time this year from Feb. to May I had 5 teaching trips: home for a week and a half/on the road for two weeks for four months. I finally recuperated from all of the travel by the end of July and then I was traveling again in August. After that my focus went to planning, prepping and making things for a show & teaching in Switzerland for most of November. Meanwhile I was still producing work for galleries and my 'day job' of running ArtWorks…and somewhere in there was some art play time and developing ideas I've had in mind to work on for sometime.

So lately, in looking back, I keep thinking about the days when I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and really nothing much going on. I've come to the conclusion that if I'm wishing for more of something (time, play, silence), then a balance is missing. If I had the balance of each of the things I wish for or want and the things I must do then there wouldn't be a missing component that I'm wishing for, right? For example, I've been wanting more down time. When I asked myself why I was feeling this way I realized that I have been giving me, my brain, what I know and my time away in various ways like crazy. Teaching is just that: giving what's in your brain and it takes a lot of time to do. While I do love that and I love the interaction with my students incredibly it's time for me to develop my ideas and my work as well as pay attention to some other things in my life that I haven't had much time for. This year I'm striving for a better balance between teaching and creating my work, working and playing, noisy time and quiet time, messy space and clean space, adventures and every day life. Every day life can be an adventure, too! Especially when one hasn't had much of that all year. So this year I only have two teaching trips planned, perhaps three. So if you see me out there come say hello. I may not see you for awhile otherwise!

Bea Grob's window, Bauma, Switzerland

 

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Simplifying 101

Well it's about to be a new year and traditionally a time for 'out with the old, in with the new'. Do you clean out a drawer or closet this time of year? I have a few places that I keep saying this is the year I'll get to that…but I've been saying that for many years now! Here is the best article on decluttering and simplifying I've ever read, and believe me, I have read whole books on this subject! This is an easy read and I bet you'll find something that makes you think: AHA! What a great idea!

http://www.simplify101.com/clutter-control.php

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

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Tom Hanks Said It Best

This is a speech Tom Hanks gave in 2005. It’s a quick read and worth the three minutes of your time:

THE POWER OF FOUR
by Tom Hanks

 

Not long ago I was reading about the problem of gridlock on the freeways of Southern California–the traffic jams which cripple the city, stranding millions and laying waste to time, energy, and the environment. Gridlock is as serious and as impenetrable a problem as any we face, a dilemma without cure, without solution, like everything else in the world, it seems.

Some smart folks concocted a computer simulation of gridlock to determine how many cars should be taken off the road to turn a completely jammed and stilled highway into a free-flowing one. How many cars must be removed from that commute until a twenty-mile drive takes twenty-five minutes instead of two hours? The results were startling.

Four cars needed to be removed from that virtually stuck highway to free up that simulated commute… four cars out of each one hundred. Four cars per one hundred cars, four autos out of every one hundred autos, forty cars from each thousand, four hundred out of ten thousand. Four cars out of one hundred are not that many. Two cars out of every fifty–one driver out of twenty-five drivers.

 

Now, if this simulation is correct, it is the most dramatic definition in earthly science and human nature of how a simple choice will make a jaw-dropping difference to our world. Call it the Power of Four. One commuter in your neighborhood could put the rush back into rush hour. So, if merely four people out of a hundred can make gridlock go away by choosing not to use their car, imagine the other changes that can be wrought just by four of us–four of you–out of a hundred.

Take a hundred musicians in a depressed port city in Northern England, choose John, Paul, George, and Ringo and you have “Hey Jude”. Take a hundred computer geeks in Redmond, Washington, send 96 of them home and the remainder is called Microsoft.

Take the Power of Four and apply it to any and every area of your concern. Politics: Four votes swung from one hundred into another hundred is the difference between gaining control and losing clout. Culture: 2 ticket buyers out of fifty can make a small, odd film profitable. Economics: by boycotting a product 1 consumer out of 25 can move that product to the back of the shelf, and eventually off it altogether.

Four out of 100 is miniscule and yet can be the great lever of the Tipping Point. The Power of Four is the difference between helplessness and help. H-E-L-P: a four-letter word like some others with many meanings.

 

The graduating class of 2005 can claim, with perhaps more credibility than any other class in history, that during its four years of college the world went crazy. In the fall of 2001, our planet earth and the United States of America were different sorts of places–in tone, in tolerance, in peace and war, in ideas and in ideals–than they are on this spring day in 2005. These past years have been extraordinary in the express rate of change, well beyond the usual standards of culture, well above the personal watermarks you have stamped as college students. As college graduates, you now live in a brand new world, with new versions of political upheaval, global pandemic, world war and religious polarization, the likes of which have rarely visited our planet all at once–and thank God for that.

 

Today’s main purpose is to celebrate your entering into society, but the fact is you have all been very much steeped in it already- Poughkeepsie being the proxy and microcosm of the whole wide world. None of you were untouched by the events in September of your freshman year, none unaffected by the ideological movements of local and geo-politics since. All of you have been staring your individual fate and our collective future right in the eye for the last four years. The common stereotype would have you today, cap in the air, parchment in hand, asking yourself “what do I do now?” You, the class of 2005, have already had many, many moments during your time at Vassar when you asked yourself that question. You might have added the word ‘Hell’, or some such four-letter word to the phrase: “What the HELL do I do now?” In which case, today might not be all that different from other days on campus– except your parents are here and they might take you out for better food.

 

On Commencement Day, speechmakers are expected to offer advice–as though you need any, as though anything said today could aid your making sense of our one-damn-thing-after-another world. Things are too confused, too loud, and too dangerous to make ‘advice’ an option. You need to hear something much more relevant on this day. You need to hear the most important message thus far in the third millennium. You need to hear a maxim so simple, so clear and evocative that no one could misconstrue its meaning or miss its weighty issue.

So, here goes. It’s not a statement, but a request. Not a bit of advice, but a plea. It is, in fact, a single four-letter word, a verb and a noun which takes into account the reality of your four years at Vassar as well as the demands of the next four decades you spend beyond this campus.

It’s a message, once made familiar by the Beatles–those Northern English lads who embodied The Power of Four.

Help. HELP. HEEEELLLLLLPP!

 

We need help. Your help. You must help. Please help. Please provide Help. Please be willing to help. Help… and you will make a huge impact in the life of the street, the town, the country, and our planet. If only one out of four of each one hundred of you choose to help on any given day, in any given cause– incredible things will happen in the world you live in.

Help publicly. Help privately. Help in your actions by recycling and conserving and protecting, but help also in your attitude. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help bring reason and respect to discourse and debate. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help law bring justice, until justice is commonplace. Help and you will abolish apathy– the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

 

Life outside of college is just like life in it: one nutty thing after another, some of them horrible, but all interspersed with enough beauty and goodness to keep you going. That’s your job, to keep going. Your duty is to help– without ceasing. The art you create can glorify it. The science you pursue can prove its value. The law you practice can pass on its benefits. The faith you embrace will make it the earthly manifestation of your God.

Here at Vassar whatever your discipline, whatever your passion you have already experienced the exhausting reality that there is always something going on and there is always something to do. And most assuredly you have sensed how effective and empowering it can be when more than four out of one hundred make the same choice to help.

You will always be able to help.

So do it. Make peace where it is precious. Help plant trees. Help embrace diversity and celebrate differences. Help stop gridlock.

In other words, help solve every problem we face – every single one of them–with the Power of Four out of a hundred. Help and we will save the world. If we don’t help–it won’t get done.

 

Congratulations. Good luck. Thank you.

 

Reprinted from the Plant Tea Gardener, www.plantea.com

 

Love What You Do, Like Who You Are

I was just sitting here mulling everything I’ve done in the two weeks since I got home, (2 weeks already? WOT?). I have taught 3 full day classes, worked my part time job a little more than part time to catch up, attended 3 meetings, did 3 presentation demos in one night, worked on getting my gallery stuff together and haven’t had but one day off in 14. Seems like the magic number is 3 here, too.

Anyway, the thought strays across my mind like a wind blown leaf: love what you do, like who you are, and it feels profound. Like a deep secret that needs the light of day so all can know it; like treasure nestled in old velvet, hidden in an old jewelry box, long forgotten, but oh, so valuable. What made me think this, I wonder? I was mulling, as I said. One of those mulls was that it seems that the more solid work time I create in a class, the happier my students are with the class. Read ‘solid work time’ as ‘shut up Meredith, you don’t have to prove your value as a teacher by spewing a dump truck of info here! Let them work!’. I’m an information addict and always want to know more so I forget that not everyone can listen and work. I know it’s very frustrating to have a teacher keep blabbing out info and the students dilemma is do I take notes for every golden word or work on the process laid out? It’s really hard to pace information in a class because every class is different but it is easier if you love what you do and like who you are. I heard you say HUH? No really. Think about it. If you’re not continually, unconsciously trying to prove your value as a teacher you can take that step back and work right along with your students. It’s also really hard as an art teacher to just watch everyone else in the room making stuff, get inspired at what they’re doing and then because you’re the teacher, not be able to do anything with that inspiration. You think to yourself: oh I’ll try that when I get home but then after packing up everything in the right order so you’ll find it again and getting home you’re completely exhausted. All the inspiration gets shelved, and all you can do is whatever it takes to hold body and soul together.
If you like who you are then you know that you’ll put the right amount of information out for the student group in front of you without having to prove yourself. Every group is different so the information flow is always different as well. The dynamics of teaching are amazingly complicated when you take into consideration all of the variables: personality types, learning modalities, behavior styles, personal agendas in the room, student self confidence (plays a big role in the room), and the info to be presented, demonstrated or illustrated. If you love what you do then your passion and enthusiasm gets communicated. If you like who are then your personal issues don’t really enter into the information flow equation. This all applies to more than art teachers. Besides life is just plain better if you love what you do and like who you are!

Comfort Points

Okay, it must be one of THOSE days… I’ve rewritten the first sentence to this post about four times now. I know what I want to say but keep coming at it from the wrong end. Need more coffee, (or in my case, tea, but today I’m drinking coffee). My brain isn’t awake yet and I feel the need to chemically induce wakefulness. It’s totally acceptable in my culture to do so, shoot, I live in the Seattle area where everyone is hopped up on the caffeine. We think that’s why ‘café’ is named such. Clearly it’s short for caffeine, isn’t it?
So perhaps the first thing you do in the morning is to chemically induce wakefulness and this is a comfort point for you. Like I said, I usually drink tea. For me it really depends on what I will enjoy more: quick wakefulness, (coffee) or that first wonderful sip of ahhhhhhh, (tea), because it reminds me of being in Paris late on a cold November day, sitting in a hustling, busy, brightly lit café in the afternoon gloom, across from the Trocadero waiting for dark to see the Eiffel Tower light up in anniversary splendor. I believe the tea was Richard’s ceylan or purple label, my favorite tea of all time. Too bad I can’t seem to find it in the U.S. I’m hoarding my last 10 tea bags of that stuff as if it were gold because it is 10 more comfort points down the road for me.
What’s with the comfort points? Think about the moments in your day where you know deep in your soul: this is good. That’s a comfort point. Or the thing that makes you stop for just a second and appreciate what you have going on. Like an artful coffee cup or lusciously warm socks on a cold day and you’re outside but your feet aren’t. Or Art Spa time creating away. Or how about that moment you crawl into your bed at night and relax, totally relax into it? Isn’t that a delicious moment in your life to savor? Whether the day was good or bad, that bed feels like the promise of something better yet to come.

Comfort points can be alluring and useful. It’s good to know what your comfort points are. It’s just as important as knowing what makes you uncomfortable since comfort points can be used in your favor.

No matter what, I try to build some comfort points into each day. I find that those mere moments (Ha Ha! Mer Moments [think Meredith] as they’re known around my house), are like an instant recharge so I can slog or dance through the rest of my day knowing I will crawl into my bed, relax, get that respite to wake up again and see what’s around the next corner of a new day.
I use comfort points to get me through the most dreaded tasks. They’re a reward. For example: get these contracts filled out and all parts sent and you can have a moment in Paris across from the Trocadero…

Life is Like Wire

Recently I’ve been working more with wire. I found that it’s something I can actually do and it’s fun. When I was able to do other things I wasn’t as interested in what wire could do. Also my focus was probably in other places. But I found in working with wire that there are parallels between life and wire. Like life, wire doesn’t like to be pulled along. In fact to work with wire you push it around the form rather than pull it. Once you have this premise about wire it”s easier to work with and you have better control over it. I think this really works in life too.

If you pull your life along or have to pull yourself out of bed, it’s always a struggle. Pulling oneself a long makes me think of the old saying “kicking and screaming”. That means someone has to drag you. But publishing your own lifelong means your living under your own power. I like to live under my own power. That means I have the freedom to choose, the liberty to decide for myself. I know that there is a common issue in our country right now where everyone wants to decide for everyone else. This is not freedom. Freedom does not mean telling others how they should live, how they should be, or that what you think or someone else thinks is the right way. Freedom is in the ability to choose. Take that ability to choose away and there is no freedom. 

There is something my husband found at a garage sale one time. He found a cache of audiocassettes. He wanted the boxes not the actual tapes themselves. One of the cassettes had some hand drawn art on it. There’s a picture of Buddha and a saying on the box. It says “it is better to raise up then to push down”. And I say it is better to push up then to pull up. Smile.

The Moment You Choose to Live

I was sitting at a very special memorial service for Ron Hudson, jazz photographer extraordinaire in Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, a jazz club here in Seattle.  Ron photographed all the greats in jazz for decades in trademark black and white and always gave a photo to the musicians he photographed.  He attended jazz festivals from Monterey to Montreaux regularly to ply his craft.  Someone said that when you look at his images you can feel the music coming out of the musician.  It’s true.  You can see his incredible pictures, etc. at www.ronhudsonjazzphotography.com

I didn’t know Ron Hudson personally but I know his wife, Chris.  I can’t really speak about Ron from a personal perspective, however I listened to relatives and friends speak about him throughout the evening between incredible jazz performances by the Roosevelt High School Jazz Band and Origin Label’s All Stars (Chad McCullough, John Bishop, Thomas Marriott, Mark Taylor, Chuck Deardorf, Rick Mandyck).  There are a couple of things that I want to pass on from this lovely evening of celebrating Ron Hudson’s life.

First off, it isn’t what we all want to do (go to a memorial, funeral or celebration of life),  but when we do we are reminded of things we tend to forget, take for granted or are shown how to see something about our lives in a new way.  Besides remembering someone special it is also a ‘re-learning’ opportunity to live our lives a little deeper, a little richer and be more aware of things.

One person reported that Ron told him:  “There is no better moment than now to live” (I’m paraphrasing here),   meaning that this moment with his family or friend was THE moment to seize.  This struck me.  This is THE moment.  The moment *you* choose to live. THE moment is now, whatever is going on, whoever you’re with:  be in that moment and get all it has to give.

One of the people said that just standing next to Ron made them feel better.  That’s an amazing thing to say about someone.  Are you that someone?

Feeling Less Than Worthy

I know everyone has times when they feel less than worthy.  This is universal.  There are those that always feel less than worthy and they are targets for trouble and abusers.  That creates that vicious cycle: feeling less than worthy, someone else ‘proves’ you’re less than worthy, feeling less than worthy…and on it goes.  Artists are especially prone to this because they are often seeing the world differently than the  general population.  That makes them a target to begin with because they’re standing out from the crowd – though I prefer to view them as outstanding in the crowd…  It’s all in how you choose to see, really.

Know that abusers lay all the shame and blame on their victims; victims are those easy to do this with.  Simple answer is: don’t be easy for others to shame and blame.  Don’t take it on,  it isn’t yours to take.  It’s easy to be abused if you allow others to have the power.  Each one of us has power to change whatever we want to change.  We can choose differently, choose to take our power back for us to use and not be abused, choose to use our power for good and not evil.  So what are you choosing today?

Books to check out:

The Gift of Imperfection by Dr. Brene Brown

All That is Bitter and Sweet: a Memoir by Ashley Judd

Go for your own life today!

How to ‘Make’ It

What does that mean, ‘make it’?  It’s different for everyone.  It’s good to define this for yourself otherwise you never know where you are on YOUR scale of things.  Otherwise, you’re living your life on someone else’s scale.  Think about that.  What the heck are you doing using up your life living on someone else’s scale of things? Make your own scale: what’s important to you? What would your joy list be? What would make you feel satisfied with your life, your work, your self?  Do it.  That’s how to ‘make it’.  Really.

The best advice my Mom ever gave me from the time I was young was that I could do whatever I put my mind to.   I have to come back again and again and thank my Mom for that amazing piece of advice.  The confidence she always said it with baffled me but now I understand.  Thanks Mom.  I know you didn’t get that as girl or woman and you were making sure I did.

All of my life I have known that I could do whatever I really focused on.  What I didn’t know was how many different things I could put my mind to, uh, in my case, all at once…  Okay actually, it surprises me that whatever I put my mind to happens.  It also surprises me what I find to put my mind to.

It’s good to be surprised.  =)