This modus operandi started out being about one thing, morphed into a second exploration, and ended up in far left field. If you include the subsequent “best laid plans gone awry” epiphany, I’d say it’s a grand slam!

Today’s subject was first inspired by the July/August issue of Somerset Studio, which includes a feature on art inspired by Provence. While enjoying the art, I also wondered who among the contributors had spent time in Provence and who was working from pure fantasy. I’ve seen similar showcases, of course, about Paris or New York City; obviously locations seen as romantic, thrilling, or remote can be an impetus to art, but I wondered what could be learned by looking closely instead at what is in front of us—our own states, neighborhoods, and homes.

I thought I might be on to something worth exploring further and started to consider a modus operandi about finding inspiration in your immediate surroundings, about seeing and valuing what is right in your backyard. Or, in my case, my front porch.

As a starting point, I took this photo of my front door. Unexciting, but I foresaw using it as the model or basis for some art making. I did sketches of the door, both from the photograph and the actual object, then created the following watercolor portrait of my door.

While I was painting this version, I spent some time thinking about the differences of working in watercolors versus acrylics:

• how with too much water, watercolors would bloom on the page, doing organic things unfamiliar in acrylic painting
• the contrast between blending colors on a page in progress versus mixing acrylics to the perfect shade on a palette
• working in acrylics, I tend to just paint over mistakes, but the transparency of watercolors makes this impossible, however it’s possible to erase or “lift” mistakes from a watercolor painting by using a clean wet brush

This ongoing comparison whilst painting, led me to remember reading about watering down acrylic paints to get some of the same effects of watercolors and wondered how the techniques compared. I had some expectations of how things would work or differ, but no first-hand knowledge. Curiosity got the better of me, and I made a new version of my front door, this time using watered-down acrylics. I learned a lot about the properties of each type of paint by doing these back to back and by having the two final pieces to compare.

Looking at the two paintings side by side, I was distracted from my exploration of technique by wondering what else you could learn about your subject and your perception of it by tackling the same subject in a variety of media. By this point, I had some fairly typical representations of my front door: a photograph, sketches, a watercolor, and a acrylic painting with watercolor pretensions. I was sure I could go further. What about embroidery or fabric? I looked again at the door and thought about its blocks and realized it would be simple to recreate the effect with fabric. With some pieces from my scrap pile (a piece of upholstery fabric, remainders from a sarong and a veil, for the record), I abandoned recreating the exact photograph of the door and climbing vine and made this representation of the shapes of the door.

Where else can you take the subject? Just as I focused on the shapes in the fabric piecing above, what if I took only the colors into consideration? What if I wrote about this door, listing the people who had crossed its threshold or made a poem considering some aspect of it? What if I sang about my front door?

Obviously, this is where I realized I was out in far left field,* but even just exploring these ideas without executing them made me think differently about the door—just as sketching a squirt bottle earlier this month was a way to meditate on that object.

So, to summarize:

• What is readily available for you to make art about? What do you look at every day, but not really see? Fantasies of Provence and the Big Apple are good fodder for art, too, but there’s something quite remarkable about using this opportunity to really see what is in your immediate surroundings.
• What can you learn about a familiar medium by changing it slightly? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each technique in your arsenal?
• How many different ways can you approach one subject, be it place, person or object? How does each inform the next and change what you see in the subject?
• When you plan one thing and something different happens, are you open to the experience? (Yes, I’m poking fun at myself here!)

• Have an idea for a future modus operandi feature? Want to know how I achieved a certain effect or what I used to make a project? Leave a comment below or e-mail me at miscellanea (dot) arts (at) gmail (dot) com!

Thanks for reading!

* Really, I’m tone deaf, so the last thought was a good sign to stop!

Unbelievable. Have I really not posted about The Artist’s Way since week four? Yikes.

Week 5:  Recovering a sense of possibility

I was really in tune with the messages of this week, feeling quite strongly that it’s immensely important to make time in life for the things you love. Not only is there an if-not-now-when? impetus, but I do believe these things refill our wells, recharge us, and empower us to do all things better.

I know I believe these things, but I still have to make the time. Walk the walk, as it were.

For week 5, I went to an art museum with my husband, and the trip had highs and lows. Overall, I think I learned an important lesson about making my artist’s dates solo endeavors. Even though it feels selfish, even though I like sharing so much with him, it’s important to have the time entirely to myself

List ten things you love and would love to do but are not allowed to do. (My excuses for why I’m not “allowed” to do these things is in parentheses and italicized.)

• Make paper (Messy. Should be doing other things. Not a lot of space right now in the garage.)
• Get out of the house (I work from home and don’t have a car. Getting places on weekdays is challenging.)
• Go on day trips, exploring Florida (My husband, on the flip side, commutes three hours a day; the last thing he wants to do on the weekend is get back in the car, and I feel guilty when I go off on adventures without him.)
• Take a course or workshop (Money. Transport.)
• Travel, other than to see family (Money. Guilt.)
• Carry a sketchbook (Would people try to look at my in progress drawings? Would I have to make excuses for my doodles?)
• Get a tattoo (Isn’t there something more practical we should do with that money?)
• Meet new people (Energy. Transport.)
• Buy nice art supplies (I’m cheap, I should use the stuff I have, I’m still learning and don’t need to worry about the quality of my materials…)
• Be only responsible to myself and for myself for 48 hours (I’m a parent, I’m married, it’s selfish)

If I were 20 and had money…List five adventures.

• I would learn to SCUBA and go to Australia
• I would teach English in Poland for 6-12 months
• I would go to college or just take classes at Bennington, St John’s or the New School in NYC
• I would have gone to Mexico with M
• I would have traveled more during my year of study abroad

If I were 65 and had money…

• I would travel
• I would start an artist’s colony
• I would raise awareness of FAE/FAS
• I would teach workshops (eg, papermaking, collage)
• I would give microloans to others, encouraging their creativity, helping them to live in more ecologically sound ways, to go to school

Week 6:  Recovering a sense of abundance

This week was quite something. Though much of the chapter was about our understanding of and relationship to money, it was the work in the morning pages (“…write about the god you do believe in and the god you would like to believe in”) that was the true epiphany. While I was raised Roman Catholic, I identified as Wiccan/Pagan for more than a dozen years, my spirituality—the way I understood and celebrated the universe—dissolved with my mother’s cancer diagnosis in 2005.

Up until that point, I would attest, like many others, that my spirituality had helped me through rough times. ‘’Til then, I approached all adversity as a learning experience and felt the sum of my experiences, good and bad, had made me into the woman I wanted to be. With my mum’s cancer diagnosis, it was like an unspoken line had been crossed:  Anything. But. That.

With the boundary crossed, it was like everything spiritual in my life turned to ash. From my morning pages:

That was my line. If that’s how the Universe works, I didn’t want to celebrate its flow, didn’t want to rejoice in its patterns and cycles. I became stingy with my spirit, like a child done wrong I picked up my toys and went home. Well, tried to—there’s no escaping the flow of the Universe, so even though I wasn’t interacting back, it still brought me gifts. Still gave me moments of magic and connection, even when I had no energy or interest.

I knew I had stopped interacting with my circle in Baltimore. I knew I hadn’t even acknowledged a solstice since then, but I hadn’t been able to discern what had happened to my spirituality…or, more honestly, I hadn’t even brought up the question to myself. But, through the morning pages, the entire thing was uncorked.

I found myself wondering, was I even Wiccan any more? I pulled down my Margot Adler, wondering if I needed to start entirely from scratch.

The world is holy. Nature is holy. The body is holy. Sexuality is holy. The mind is holy. The imagination is holy. You are holy.

A spiritual path that is not stagnant ultimately leads one to understanding one’s own divine nature. Thou art Goddess. Thou art God. Divinity is imminent in all nature. It is as much within you as without. (Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon)

I immediately pulled out my sketchbook and drew out those words, that amazing reminder of what my connection was to this universe. Not all of my questions and issues surrounding my spirituality are answered—When are they ever?—but at least I knew I still connected to those words, those values, that sense of the world.

I rewarded myself for the hard work of all that digging by another trip to a museum as my artist date, this time solo. I sketched in the galleries and studied some amazing techniques. I refilled my well.

Week 7:  Recovering a sense of connection

Sometimes, in doing these chapters and tasks, I find one week to be a lot of work and quite difficult, but it is usually followed by an easier one. Not so here:  Following up my hard personal research into my spirituality (or lack thereof) came some very hard lessons about perfectionism and risk. The former particularly hits me where I live:  I want to do things perfectly, I want to do it right the first time, I want my efforts to amaze. Over and over, I have to remind myself that a perfectionist leads a very narrow and ultimately rigid existence.

This was also a week of “treats,” encouraged by the coursework; I bought myself a new purse, plus a new wallet and pencil bag to carry around inside said purse, and bought a DVD player for the studio, so I can continue to watch inspiring films and programs while I’m working in there (I’m steadily working my way through the PBS series art:21 and loving it).

Overall, despite my silence on the blog about the coursework, I’ve been steadily at it, working on my tasks and writing my morning pages (I estimate I get them done at least six days a week and usually every day).

We’ve been at it a month, and it has been blissful and a trial, inspiring and exhausting. I think I did more writing this week than any previous one, perhaps a response to this week’s reading deprivation. I discovered and revived interests (printmaking and book arts), acknowledged things I’d love to try, even just once (bellydancing and welding), eeked out a poem/prayer and wrote a letter to myself that actually made me cry.

I am refreshed and directed. I have projects on the table, am teaching myself new things every week, and feel more committed to myself than ever before. Committed and, for a brief moment, unafraid. Week 3 was obviously something a slump for me, but now I feel almost revived.

Week-end check-in

Morning pages:  I wrote six out of seven days; weekends are a spot of difficulty for me since they usually have a set routine, as opposed to weekday mornings when writing out my pages is more of a habit. I get a lot of good ideas whilst writing out my pages, but now need a system to sort of capture them and put them in a place where I can locate them again and have the opportunity to pursue them.

Artist date:  I accomplished two things on my artist date:  I went to a bicycle shop and purchased a new tube for my bike and helmet and went to the thrift store ostensibly to buy some non-black tank tops and generally to explore. The bike shop may not seem very artsy, but since I don’t have a car for about seventy percent of the week, having a working bike will give me significantly more freedom. Plus, instead of just going to Target and picking these things up, I went to a little local shop and had a great experience talking to the owner about my bike and got ridiculously good service and advice. The thrift store had its rewards, too—not only did I get some good summery clothing and have fun just going through things and imagining their possibilities, but I also found a small mold and deckle for papermaking. How random is that? I have a great huge one my husband made me last year, but having a small one (about 8×6 inches) is also useful. When I was standing in line to check out, the woman ahead of me mentioned that she had picked up the mold and deckle, but couldn’t figure out what it was. I explained its purpose and the basics of papermaking to her, and she was genuinely impressed at my craftiness.

So, not only did I get useful and unexpected items, I also got that little bit of ego boost.

Give me this day to behold with joy,
to rise above all expectations and savor
the multitude of voices and colors.

This one day to delight in loving,
to answer my sorrows with grace and realize
the magic in each hour of existence.

To be present and join Phil Och’s song,
to raise my voice louder than the guns and honor
the mettle of living with intention.

Give me today without promises,
and I will create a tomorrow of value.

I had something else planned for this week’s modus operandi, but something Collage Contessa shared via twitter has been percolating in my head, so I’m switching gears. In discussing coming to terms with the the idea of one’s workspace as a “studio,” Kris shared the definition of the word:

STUDIO
1. An artist’s workroom.
2. An establishment when an art is taught or studied.

It’s that final word that’s been resounding with me–where an art is studied–because I have no formal training in art techniques or materials, just decades of being an avid museum goer and now a strong inclination to steep myself in the pages of wonderful in magazines like Somerset Workshop and Cloth Paper Scissors.

In both instances, I’m inundating myself visually with the best of class and setting myself up for failure in the eyes of my inner perfectionist. This has long been standard practice for me, though I can see it much more clearly due to the work my cluster has been doing with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way; among the things you learn are techniques for evading your inner censor and ways of identifying how you sabotage your creativity.

This realization, combined with the sign Cameron suggests posting in your art space and the interview with Ira Glass I posted during week 2, prompts me to remember that art comes not through osmosis or moments of genius, but through work.

Instead of trying out new techniques in the middle of a project I love, I utilize workbooks. Even the very word “workbooks” reminds me: This isn’t art, this is technique, just like a language workbook wouldn’t be mistaken for fluent conversation or a math workbook wouldn’t be taken as an attempt at the Riemann hypothesis. I started the use of workbooks whilst reading Bev Brazleton’s Altered Books Workshop:

Occasionally, I end up with something that might harbor the beginnings of an idea, like the images above. But for the most part I focus on just learning the technique. To keep myself to that task, I often use colors or color combinations unappealing to me; I’m never going to love these pages, but that wasn’t the point and using these colors helped me dispense with that immediately:

One of the other things I do to sabotage my progress is to start out with too complex a project for my skill level and, again, the use of workbooks helps me avoid that because it reminds me that I’m still learning. So, this past weekend when I started flipping through my copy of Shereen LaPlantz’s Cover To Cover: Creative Techniques for Making Beautiful Books, Journals & Albums, I was immediately taken with some of the books and techniques 70 or 100 pages into the book–the same way someone in the first week of French 101 might fantasize about chatting up locals in a Paris cafe! I forced myself to go back to page one, read the introduction and start with the first technique, a simple pamphlet stitch. I pulled out some scrapbooking papers that were not to my liking, and, lo and behold, I made three books, each with variations:

Again, I don’t like these books, but that wasn’t the point: I’d never done a pamphlet stitch before, and now I know how. And I can use that knowledge to continue moving forward through the book and preparing myself to tackle the projects in the last half.

So what’s today’s modus operandi? It’s less of a technique and more of a way of practice. When you’re learning something new, think about the safeguards put in place in school classes to guide you through the learning process and use those techniques to your benefit. Remind yourself you’re just the student and that learning these things should be fun and interesting. Send that inner censor or perfectionist to study hall or even out to recess and get to the work of learning!

• Do you struggle with allowing yourself to learn and make mistakes? What techniques do you use when trying to learn a new skill? Leave a comment below!
• Have an idea for a future modus operandi feature? Want to know how I achieved a certain effect or what I used to make a project? Leave a comment below or e-mail me at miscellanea (dot) arts (at) gmail (dot) com!
• Stop back next week for another of miscellanea’s modus operandi!

As I’m reading through each chapter, I take little notes in my composition book. Reviewing those notes as I do my weekly check-in, it’s interesting to see what I find worth jotting down and how if plays out during my week, if at all. This week, my first note is from page 61 of my book:

Anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are.

I know I initially jotted this down because my mum talked a lot about the value of knowing your own boundaries, but in retrospect, this should have been a red flag: The whole first section of week three is about anger. While I am grateful for everything I’ve experienced and explored this week, I wasn’t comfortable sharing a lot of it publicly nor would all of it had made sense without an extensive personal history.

What was most interesting during this process was revisiting emotional and explosive moments in this heightened creative state brought about by having my own studio, hanging my art on a gallery wall, and going through The Artist’s Way with my cluster. While we often attribute creative endeavors and accomplishments a kind of head-in-the-clouds quality, I found that those things were instead quite grounding as I did this week’s tasks and exercises. I started thinking less about the specifics of my life in some instances and more about the underlying themes–moments of bliss in hours of darkness and how to take that joy and do something productive with it, what is secret versus what is shown–and ways to interpret those experiences creatively. In discussing my house sculpture at the gallery opening, I realized these were some of the things I was thinking through, but I would like to do so in a way that retains its personal resonance while being more universal. Exploring the themes rather than directly mining personal history.

Some of week three’s exercises/tasks follow, but I’ll try to share more of week four’s work:

Detective work, an exercise

• The best movie I ever saw as a kid was either The Last Unicorn or The Neverending Story. The former probably gave me unnaturally mature ideas about the nature of regret and life experience, the latter’s special effects probably don’t hold up today, but really transported me to a different place back in the ’80s.
• If I could lighten up a little, I’d let myself take Polka or Bollywood dancing classes.
• If it didn’t sound so crazy, I’d make a book out of a suitcase. Oh, wait, I am going to do that crazy thing!

Five childhood accomplishments

• I consistently had high grades and test scores and held my own in honors/advanced courses.
• I won a state-level writer’s award and was invited to a young writer’s conference when I was around 12 years old.
• When my family raised and bred sporting dogs, I was responsible for the complete training of two dogs (though I assisted with others) and got points on each–one in confirmation showing, the other in hunting trials.
• Attending two pre-college summer programs–McMurray College in Illinois the summer before 8th grade, Washington + Lee in Virginia the summer before my senior year of high school–was a huge honor and really helped me visualize myself as a college student and meet some great people.
• Putting on a school play my senior year of high school; though the school had a drama club we had never, in the time I attended the school, had a school play, which I thought was ridiculous. (Having just spent too much time on said high school’s terrible web site, I can’t tell if the play is still ongoing.)

Week-end check-in

Morning Pages: I did seven out of seven days, using them both to record the unusually vivid dreams I’ve been having this week and to rant about some issues I’m not yet prepared to deal with in person. I felt like they were extraordinarily useful this week and am starting to wonder when an appropriate time would be to review previous pages and review some of the ideas I’ve generated whilst writing them.

Artist’s Date: First, I spent half an hour on a local nature trail, just taking photos (forthcoming!) and exploring the various colors and patterns in Florida’s greenery. I came back quite inspired, even accounting for the heat and skeeters. That same night, I also pulled out a book a friend gifted me and taught myself a simple pamphlet stitch binding, making three small books. I feel this is the first week I’ve been 100% successful at the artist’s date and honestly appreciated the time to myself, with my own ideas.

Week two considers other barriers to our creative recovery, both from others (folks Julia Cameron calls crazymakers and poisonous playmates) and from within (the skeptical voice in my head that says, “You’re not an artist!”).

I’ve done a couple of this week’s tasks, which I’ll share here:

Life Pie

This is a great visual exercise–not just for those using The Artist’s Way, but anyone–to make you consider and own up where the imbalance in your life can be found. To play along at home, simply draw a circle, divide it into the six pieces below, and make a dot in each “pie”–closer to the outer rim signifies greater fulfillment, closer to the center reveals displeasure in that area.

No matter what your final pie looks like, there will be some areas where you have achieved greater satisfaction than others. Give yourself a pat on the back–but also pay attention to the areas where you could be happier. In my Artist’s Way journal, I’m keeping a running list of the things I can do to improve my happiness in the areas of friendship, exercise, and romance/adventure.

Di and Cassidy have already completed their “20 things I like” lists, so I ought to also join in. The following is an alphabetized list of activities I enjoy doing, followed by the last time I had the pleasure of said activity:

What surprised me in doing this was the disparity–so many things I had done in the last month or so (approx 40%)…and then things I haven’t done in two years or longer (45%, italicized). Any of the things in italics which can be done for little cost are now officially on my to-do list. Others–travel and homebrew, for example–need to wait on other things, but this has certainly put them on my radar screen. (Note: I specifically didn’t mention my artmaking activities, one, because they are many and I could have used slots 1-10 just on that; and two, because they are obviously a priority for me else I wouldn’t be reading this book, maintaining this blog, etc!)

On that note, I’ll close with some advice from Ira Glass of This American Life about being creative and enduring that has definitely helped me squelch my Inner Censor and Skeptic as of late:

The thing I would just say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting, creative work–they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as what they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. [...] The thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. The most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.

That tidbit comes from the video below, which is part of a series of four clips; I recommend you watch them all and soak up the inspiration and compassion for what it means to be driven to create:

Reading Xiane’s post about the “wealth of strong women” who have and continue to support her made me want to share the image to the right. It was made for me in 1996–over a decade ago!–by an extraordinarily supportive English teacher, Janis Ledman.

Angelique – constantly creating herself

The painting graces my studio, reminding me not only of the voices of encouragement in my life, but also that the work is not what is on my craft desk or on the canvas, but the real work is myself.

This first week focuses on the monsters and champions of our creativity and was difficult because I didn’t really have anyone, let a lone a list of people, to point the finger at for squashing or attempting to stifle my creativity. Didn’t that mean I got to slack and take the week off? Not even slightly! Instead, I had to wrap my head around the idea that I am often my worst critic/enemy/saboteur–but also that some part of me keeps the faith and takes any safe opportunity to whisper, “Go ahead! Try! Do!”

Similarly, even friends who intend to be supportive have made me feel like my interests or the things I make are silly or goofy. Instead of deliberate sabotage, I think what I am seeing instead is how much we lack a vocabulary and a means to support people’s creativity. I thought about this a lot Saturday as I watched and encouraged many young children color and draw at the gallery’s table during a local festival, where I was a volunteer. I never said, “Is that a turtle?” to have a child then say in a discouraged or confused tone, “No, it’s a hat!” Instead, I said to the kids, “Do you like how that is looking?” or “I really like how you are using many different colors.” I looked at the things they were coloring, but focused more on how the activity made them feel and less on judging their output.

It’s hard then, to feel safe in your creativity if even you and those who mean to be supportive can thwart or diminish your efforts. There’s risk in creativity, and we each need not only champions and records of their words (recollecting and writing these were two of this week’s tasks), but also a reservoir of bravery to do the work and to share it with others. Some of my bravery as of late comes from this cluster; from remembering those people who, intentionally or not, have inspired me; from knowing that we generally let the little voice in our heads get away with much more negativity than positivity and only consciousness can correct this; and from being open to the experience of synchronicity, just making myself available for opportunities.

Week One Check-in
1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages and how was the experience?
I did six out of seven days this week and am sooo frustrated I blanked on doing them Sunday morning. I really love doing the morning pages and am a bit embarrassed I didn’t start doing them again sooner, with or without the rest of the book and its tasks. They’re just a great way to pour out the contents of your brain. My favorite thing about them as a tool is that on the days you think you have nothing to write about, mid-way down page three, there’s almost always this epiphany that could knock your socks off!

2. Did you do your artist date this week? What did you do? How did it feel?

I did a few things this week that, cobbled together, I’m calling my artist date. Because of a kinda panic situation at work, I had to walk six miles roundtrip to a local shopping plaza. While the events surrounding this hike were not of my choosing, I enjoyed how aware I felt of little things as I walked a long–everything from really noticing the different shapes of leaves of trees to finding funky objects on the ground. Also, I got to finally stop and look in at this large flock of birds living behind our bookstore. The next day, as I noted above, I volunteered at my local art gallery and helped run their table at a street festival. While not a solo event, I was introduced several times as an artist and encouraged a gaggle of children to be creative. Even prior to joining the gallery, I had intended to volunteer there (shadow artist intentions, anyone?), and it felt really good to finally get around to doing this. Finally, tonight I spent some time in the studio trying out a new technique and really just playing with paint with no expectations.

All of these activities were little adventures and really made me feel good about myself.

3. Other odds & ends

• I made a copy of the Basic Principles and have them hanging on my bathroom mirror, an easy reminder to read them daily. You can download a PDF of the principles in this format, too.
• I added the following paragraph at the end of my Artist’s Way contract: “I also commit to respecting and encouraging the creativity and experiences of Christiane, Di, and Cassidy. I will be generous and supportive of them throughout this work.”
• None of Julia Cameron’s descriptions of the Censor–those nasty thoughts attempting to stifle and diminish our creativity–really worked for me. Know what I see in my head when I think of my Censor? Either of these two guys:

They both perfectly encapsulate the kind of mockery I feel best describes my Censor’s modus operandi!

Week two details will be forthcoming later today.

The Artist’s Way is a book by Julia Cameron, a 12-week “course in discovering and recovering your creative self,” that I am undertaking in the company of Xiane, Magickal Realism, and DigitalMayhem. I picked up this book once before, after it rose off the sale table at Waldenbooks to me. I got a few weeks into the book, but then got an extremely last-minute call that I had, in fact, been accepted into my master’s degree program and would be starting classes at The University of the Arts in, oh, ten days.

In the flurry of activity and the commitment to my coursework that followed, I let The Artist’s Way, the healing work of the morning pages, and all other associated tasks and inquiries fall to the wayside. In picking it up again, you can imagine the hilarity of reading the following on page two:

As you work with the tools in this book, as you undertake the weekly tasks, many changes will be set in motion. Chief among these changes will be the triggering of synchronicity: we change and the universe furthers and expands that change. I have an irreverent shorthand for this that I keep taped to my writing desk: “Leap, and the net will appear.”

My leap, earlier that summer, had been leaving my job and fairly comfortable post-college life to move to the other side of the state, hoping for something better to come along. After a month or two of temping, “something better” had utterly failed me, and I was considering accepting permanent employment in my current temp position…with a mortgage company. I was, in a word, unthrilled. Another word? Discouraged.

My husband had received the call from my faculty advisor that afternoon, explaining exactly how my application had been lost in the shuffle and inviting me to join the fall class. Unaware of these events, I arrived home, and he greeted me in the driveway. I was work weary, but he insisted, “Drop everything, come with me, hurryhurryhurry.”

He led me down a short flight of stairs and into the bathroom, turned on the light, and faced me into the mirror.

“What do you see?” he asked, practically singing.

“Um. Me?”

“And…?”

“Someone who loves me very much?”

“And…?”

When I gave up at the guessing game, he had me look in the mirror again. He stared into my eyes through the mirror and, his lips close to my ear, said, “I see a graduate student.”

Retelling this story always gives me a slight chill. My life and plans changed dramatically in that moment. The mortgage company’s offer of gainful employment wilted away, and in its place was a future of challenging classes, inspiring professors and peers, an internship at Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop + Museum, and a fellowship at The Baltimore Museum of Art. Had we not made the leap in moving earlier in the summer, I don’t know how I would have managed to get myself, husband, and all the components of our lives essentially from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia in just over a week—plus sign up for classes, buy supplies, and orient myself to the new locale!

So, for those of you joining me on this adventure or anyone else considering picking up the book, heed Ms Cameron’s words: Many changes will be set in motion!

I will write more specifically about week one of this course in the next couple of days, but wanted to use this opportunity to introduce the book, its purpose, and my participation. Thus far, I have successfully read the introduction, principles, tools, and chapter one, as well as written my morning pages daily starting Monday and begun work on this week’s tasks.

In the future, it’s my plan to introduce the week’s tasks on Monday and do, at the very least, a mid-week check in and a summary at week’s end. Some of the exercises will be personal in nature and the details of that work will remain in my journal, but as much as I am comfortable sharing and think might help others will find its way here, under the new artist’s way category.