STOP!

Pat Schneider, the author of Writing Alone and With Others and the creator of the AWA method of writing groups, says, and I quote:

A writer is someone who writes.

The purpose of writing in these workshops is to delve within and bring your unique voice out into the light of day.  It doesn’t mean you are writing the great American novel (although you could) and it doesn’t mean that poets can’t write prose (although they might) and it doesn’t mean that every word will come off your pen perfect, polished and ready for the printer (although many will).

It means that you have a voice and a story and a language that is all yours.  And all of this is inside of you waiting to come out; and we are waiting to hear it.  In fact, we are looking forward to it.

So, repeat after me, “I am a writer”.

There, doesn’t that feel good!

Last year at this time I was looking for things to put in my art journal.  Now if I want to incorporate art journaling in my teaching repertoire I really should be doing it.  Don’t you think?  What to journal about was the question.  I’ve been working with a creativity coach recently and one of the things we talked about was awareness and the creative routine.  I combined my first cup of tea in the morning with a meditation exercise.  Just sitting with my favorite mug having the warmth,the scent,the taste, and the color of the tea bathe my senses as I come awake to face a new day is something beautiful to experience even if just for a few minutes.  Yes, I am a tea addict.  I admit it. I even embrace it.  Making this short exercise in awareness to start my day really made a difference in my life.  It conjures up gratitude not only for the tea but also for all kinds of other things in my life, great and small.  It centers me for my day, ridding my mind of the past day and future concerns and bringing me into the present moment where everything is just perfect and I have everything I need.  So then I can start the day with a clean slate so to speak.  This is not to say that I let everything in my life fall by the wayside but I don’t worry about it because I am in the “now,” right now, and yes…..now.  I usually do this exercise in my studio.  I love being there so what better place. 

One Saturday, about a year ago, I had some time to spend in the studio working (playing) in my art journal.  I base coated two pages in an acrylic paint and set out to make an homage to my tea ceremony.  I pulled pictures from the internet, labels and stamps from my collection, and also used my favorite mug as a model for a little tea portrait. 

My favorite Irish Breakfast tea

  I made a list, a la David Letterman, 

Tea Top Ten

 of the top ten things I love about tea.  The afternoon flew by.  The pages actually got kind of messy but I didn’t obsess because it was my art journal, not a finished work of art for teaching or for sale.  When I look back to those pages I remember the fun I had creating a “mess” of sorts.  I remember discovering stamps I had collected not knowing how I would use them at the time.  I remember the sticky, gluey fingers and paint spotted nails and snippets of paper on the floor.  But most of all I remember the feeling of having nothing else to think about except what I was focusing on in my art journal.  And yes I did drink a lot of tea as I worked!