my everyday art

I started out November committed to participating in Leah's Art Every Day Month - a challenge/invitation that she started several years ago, which I participated in just once before (3 years ago). 

The arts are a huge part of my life; I loved drawing as a kid, I go through phases of getting into crafts, and I really love taking photos, but visual art never really grabbed me the same way language did (in all its forms and variations: writing and reading; music [and lyrics]; theater and story telling ...). 

But I had good memories of my AEDM experience last time - "meeting" and getting to know people who were choosing to live with an intentional focus on artful lives was really cool, and the dialog it inspired got me jazzed; I liked the invitation to put a little more attention on such things, so I decided to do it again.  

And while I played around with some visual stuff, I quickly discovered that I had no real desire to do "art" in the more literal sense.  It actually took me a little while to remember that there are no hard and fast rules to AEDM (and it's not like i was getting graded or anything, right?), and I soon let myself off the hook about producing stuff to show everyone and just played around with some different forms in my writing practice. 

I didn't bring any of it here ... not sure exactly why.  For one ... I suppose I'm always aware that blogging and my real life are two very different things - here I have to decide what I'm willing to reveal or not, what I'll allude to, who I'll name, edges I might soften.  So even though I was moving into some poetry, and playing around with some truth-disguised-as-fiction types of short stories (which i love to do - and encourage participants in my writing groups to do too), I just didn't feel like posting any of it.  (maybe someday)  (maybe in another blog under an assumed name - something i've 'threatened' before ...) 

Interesting though, as I was doing that, I found myself unwilling to post at all.  When the juices are flowing off-line, I find it harder to get it up to encapsulate it all for blog consumption. 

And while the things I post here rarely feel like art in and of themselves, blogging has become an essential element in my every day art ... so much so that - even though I was only away from it for (how long?) over two weeks - it really does feel like a long time.  So I write about the process of not writing/posting here in an effort to get myself back. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me (those of you who always do) ...

(and for those who are new? thank you too.)

Comments

[Carin.c]

There are lots of ways to be creative besides making visual art. I enjoy visual art and I found it tough to do every day for a month. I often find myself creatively craving to do a whole slew of different things, like cooking/baking, writing, photography, arranging some new houseplants on a windowsill, or I just wandering around an antique store or good old barnes and noble for that matter. Blogging in itself is a creative outlet, writing, linking etc. Start writing and linking to other blogs and then one day you can sneakily slip in a link your new anonymous writing blog and we wouldn't even know it was yours.

[Verna Wilder]

Hi Deb! If you ever create an anonymous blog as a place to publish your other writing, I promise not to tell the other kids if you let me in on the secret. I go through something similar, wondering sometimes what the difference is between my writing notebooks and my blog, in terms of content. For me it isn't so much about what I do or don't reveal - it's about the way in which I reveal it. From the beginning of my experiment in blogging, a different voice took over, a voice that I can't access in my notebooks and sure as hell can't get at in my journal. Isn't writing just the darndest thing?! I don't get it, but I am learning to just let it flow. What comes out - in blog or notebooks - is often a lovely surprise. I'd love to hear more about your creative process.