New creative adventures

I belong to a small group of creative friends that meets monthly (or as close to monthly as our busy lives allow). We’re now into our 6th year together, and the ways we spend our time has changed over time as we’ve changed.

Each member (there are 4 of us) does professional work related to creativity. One sold her ad agency and has been a full time (and very successful) artist for over a decade. One is an architect with a thriving practice. One recently gave up teaching in an MBA program at a prestigious university to be a full-time artist — something she was just starting to explore when we first formed the group. I transitioned from my design firm to my current creative coaching practice. Our journey together has been marvelous.

This year we have paired up differently to plan new creative adventures for each of our 3-hour meetings. For this week's meeting, we each sent in a piece of music we loved, and were told to come with an assortment of materials to share for making sculptures — something totally new for me. Here’s a photo of one of the three sculptures I made. It was created while listening to Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant.

I’m also including a photo of a collage I made at our session in December. I'd helped to make the plan for the collage project. Each person started by picking a topic from those in a hat (the topic for my collage was “pain”). To make the collages, we selected images from a stack I’d saved from my design firm days — wonderful samples provided by printers and paper merchants — and applied them to wooden panels. As at our sculpture session, everyone's collages were marvelous and quite different.

If you’d like to learn more about the experiences my group has had, or how you might start a similar group, get in touch. 

Wire and light — a magic combination

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While on a wonderful holiday trip to Paris, we spent the afternoon at the Pompidou Center and nearly wore out our feet visiting the museum's amazing, enormous contemporary collections. Alexander Calder has always been a favorite, and when I came upon this wire sculpture, Josephine Baker IV, vers 1928, I was simply delighted. Next to the piece, an old movie clip was playing of Baker in performance. The sculpture, together with its shadow, creates a sense of Baker's dance moves and distinctive personality that we saw in the old film. 

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Among the many other delights we came upon was a large work by Alighiero Boetti, an Italian artist, whose dramatic and varied work we first experienced in New York at the Museum of Modern Art in the summer of 2012. The scale, color and detail in Tutti (Everything) are fantastic. The 1987 work is part of a series that was embroidered by Afghan refugees in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of their own country. Boetti entrusted the execution of his design to the embroiderers, distributing 84 colors and a finite amount of thread for each.

And, seeing a marvelous portrait by Henri Matisse, Fillette au chat noir (1910), that was new to us, was a treat as well. Matisse was a master of color and this portrait totally charmed us.

Reflections and Gratitude

With Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday, everyone I speak to seams to be hurrying to fit a week’s worth of work into three days. People are cooking and have lots more cooking to do. Many are facing car and air travel that will surely be stressful. Hanukkah shopping and preparation is another challenge for many of us, as that holiday starts so very early this year, overlapping with Thanksgiving. In all of the rushing it’s easy to lose sight of the meaning and importance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Can we all just push the pause button and refect for a few minutes? Can we give ourselves a short and meaningful break from the hustle and bustle? Try this — I promise it will take one minute and give you lots in return.

Close your eyes, relax your shoulders and lower jaw and slowly draw in a deep, full breath. Then, slowly exhale. Make it a long and complete exhale. Repeat. Open your eyes and smile.

That’s it. A moment for yourself. A gift. A snippet of time to refresh your body and your mind.

And, if you can spare another three to five minutes, make a list of at least 12 things for which you are grateful. Beyond the things that come quickly to mind, see what you find in your heart. Maybe you’ll want to make a new list every day this week and see what comes up for you. You can use these simple practices often to bring light into your life. That's what happens when you take a little time to care for yourself and focus on the truly important things that bring you joy.

As I reflect on the past year and all that fills me with deep gratitude, I wish you a joyous holiday, safe travels, love and abundant creativity.