(Sorry to be late with this check-in, but I had a busy weekend and just couldn't get to the computer.)
1. I did morning notes 7-for-7, though one day was just a page-and-a-half. Morning notes didn't seem especially helpful this week, but I was still drawn to doing them. Sometimes I think I have discovered the page-and-a-half "truth point." I have noticed that I spend the first bit just reciting what I did the day before or what I will do that day, and then I get to something significant to me at that moment.
2. My artist date didn't exactly work as planned. I drove to Franklin to attend a Christmas open house at a small LQS that I haven't visited in some time. The reason is that it is very small and caters to very traditional quilters, lots of hand-appliqué, etc. And also because the shop owner's speaking voice is a scream—literally. The shop is small and enclosed and she talks so loud and is so "helpful" I am ultimately driven from the store for relief! Well, she was in high gear with the festivities of the open house, and she seemed to have a customer who was trying to outshout her. I spent as much time browsing, thinking to treat myself to a new book, as I could stand. Finally I couldn't take any more offers to "help" me or any more screaming. (I might point out I have a quantifiable hearing loss in one ear, although my husband says I have the ears of an Iroquois!) The only "answers" I heard were those urging me to get the hell out of there!
3. I ended up doing a bit of Christmas browsing in a shop I don't often visit, picking up a hostess gift for a dinner party we attended last night. In a way the dinner party ended up being a bit of an artist date (I know…I wasn't alone.), as one of the couples there were people I vaguely knew to be a painter (she) and a songwriter (he)—this is Nashville, after all. He is a retired American Airlines pilot who finally left his overbearing, insensitive wife 15 years ago and met and married the painter. He described having been in an unhappy marriage and had been unable to devote much time to his art because he'd been concentrating on being a good husband and father. "Finally, we divorced, and I met [the painter] and she saved my life." Her version in the kitchen was that when he retired from American she knew she couldn't take having him at home all the time (that is where she works), so she went out and rented him an office on Music Row (he seems to pick assertive women). He spends his days writing music and poetry, she spends hers painting and free-lancing illustration work. Their gorgeous old house was recently used in a music video by Rodney Crowell (Roseanne Cash's ex) and Vince Gill, to tape a song called, "Why Would I Kiss The Lips That Chewed My Ass Out All Day Long?" (They said they think it is a "break-through" song for them!)
Anyway, I found myself asking them each, separately, rather pointed questions about their art and their creativity and what kinds of homes they had grown up in that encouraged such expression. The painter seemed pleased that I understood (from my interior design background) the fabric printing work she does, and the illustration work, as well as the choices she has made about which galleries she wants to show her pieces in. The songwriter has a musical "ear" and I asked him how old he was when he realized he had this gift (4 years), and told him of my deceased MIL who had an ear that she recalled realizing at the age of 3 when she came home from church one Sunday and sat down at a piano and picked out a hymn she'd heard that day. He made the point that music had been a tradition somewhere in her family, or there would have been no piano in her home. That intrigued me, because I'd never thought about where she had gotten her encouragement.
I wanted to ask each of them if they were familiar with The Artist's Way, but the opportunity didn't arise. I hope, however, I will have the opportunity to meet them again. She has a reputation for being a flake (and she does do some odd things), but I found I liked her very much.
I don't know if that was an artist's date, but it was enlightening to me. I don't know if that was synchronicity, but I was far more open to these two people, more interested in what made them tick and how they managed their separate creativities, than I would have been before starting this course. So, I was saved by the dinner party I didn't really want to attend!
4. I don't recall any other issues last week that I consider significant to my discovery.
To see other Week 5 Check-Ins go here: http://artistwayquilters.blogspot.com/
5 comments:
The talks with the painter and musician sound very interesting. I wonder if she has the reputation of being a flake just because she is an artist? (Although, with all the artists around Nashville, maybe y'all don't have that misperception about all artists.) A painter friend of mine keeps one of her bag lady series paintings on her bedroom wall because it encourages her to get up each morning and paint. If she doesn't, she'll become a bag lady. I think other people think she is a little flaky, but I just love her.
I just realized that you are only about 4 hours from me if you are in Nashville. I live in a NW suburb of Atlanta.
Oh, yes, Jules, I noticed you are in Marietta. My older daughter lived in Buckhead (thought she'd died and gone to Heaven) for 3 years before going to law school in Malibu. (Get the idea that she likes to lead fantasy lives?)
No, the flakiness about this artist is justified. I think she's had an alcohol or drug dependency, so her behavior has been erratic over the years. But she seems to have found peace and calm. I found her extremely interesting.
How great that you found yourself at a dinner party with a couple with whom you could talk artist stuff. Sounds like synchronicity to me.
I kinda thought so too. It was very stimulating. (Probably due in part to the fact it wasn't an alcohol-fueled evening. There were a couple of former heavy drinkers who now stay straight and sober, and the conversation was a lot more interesting than it used to be.)
I know without doubt that I was far more interested (and less intimidated) than I would have been before beginning TAW. I felt comfortable talking to them as equals in the artistic life, and I think they were flattered to have me ask the questions and show the interest that I did. I had a genuine experience of synchronicity as far as creativity was concerned. But also, the retired pilot's old route was the Chicago-Stockholm flight, and it was amazing that the first conversation I've ever had with him was on the heels of our own visit to Stockholm just three months ago. I genuinely connected to both of them in ways I KNOW I wouldn't have, only six months ago.
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