The San Antonio sky and a rusty fence
by my niece, Elena.
Dolores

Hey Creative Types! I am in San Antonio now. My wonderful niece who is about to graduate from high school this Spring takes great pics. The carnation is one taken at the Botanical Gardens in SA. And the second pic is my niece with her dog Hercules- capturing the same expression! She is an accomplished artist. I will send you another pic of her drawings soon. I am very proud of her. Love Dolores

Bare tree on a cool, sunny winter day at the lake

Hi friends. I took this picture at White Rock last weekend. I like the starkness of the bare tree, the hardscrabble earth in the foreground, the brooding, dark clouds overhead, and the steely light reflecting on the water. It all made for a simple composition that seemed to work.

Kids performing and being safe. The black and white shot was taken in another city, but I have seen something similar before and I NEVER WANT to see it again. The arts can do a lot.

Dolores

Working with summer camps at an inner city rec. center. I love teaching these. It is one of the few places in Dallas where kids of all colors work together and have fun.

I'm really enjoying making beads!

This is what I made the first week. You work with file and beautiful colors of glass - it's so much fun!

dali

Here's the photo of my 3D Dali collage that sold. It has a quote by Carl Jung on Creativity and the title Become Who You Are is from a book by Alan Watts.

Circle 12.10

This evening we checked-in as usual, and then discussed the insidiousness of resistance, how it creeps into our lives, and also some brought up portions of the book that particularly struck them as useful for them at the time: for instance, some feel the tug of the call of love and duty to family, others mentioned the trouble of having so many ideas, and I particularly loved the sections discussing heirarchies vs. territories, how the artist need not compete so much as contribute to his or her "artistic bank account" from which no one can initiate withdrawals.

Pressfield thinks the professional artist rightly sees his art as a "territory" that he/she visits and in which he operates alone and exerts full control over his growth and progress and in which there is no possibility of sabotage, if the artist just does the work--the question of recognition being a separate issue and not one that deserves concern, since it is usually not something one has any control over and has little to do with the art itself.

In the exercise portion we worked in pairs, one member adopting the voice of Resistance specific to the individual in the pair, and the other talking back from the perspective of the creative soul on its path. Each person had his or her own experience of what that conversation signified, and overall there appeared to be a common theme that we tend to deprioritize our art at times.

Circle 11.25

During this evening we checked-in and covered lots of issues related to resistance and things that get in the way of doing our creative "stuff," ranging from thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, including issues of self-sabotage. We talked about creative expressions that aren't necessarily fine art, but other things we do or have done that express our creativity, like cooking or home renovation.

In the discussion of the book topic, we shared a variety of thoughts on the ideas presented, some not liking the idea of an "impersonal outside" force that works against you, but most agreeing that we ourselves sometimes aren't on our own pages about our creative endeavors and get distracted. Plainly stated--some people like the book and some don't.

For the art activity, we created collages for the most part, some with charcoal, that express our ideas on Resistance and what it means to overcome it.

Some of the Art on Resistance 11.25

Men/Women at ... Play 11.25

Road Trip Anyone?

From Ode Magazine - Artists Sleep Free at the Creators Inn

Circle 11.18

After check-ins this week, we talked about the first few pages in The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (those aren't numbered since they function as a preface to the next part of the book which covers the topic of Resistance). The topics were What I Do, What I Know, and The Unlived Life.

The art portion began with the intention of painting in an abstract way the Inner Being or that energy that inspires us as artists (but rules are meant be broken, etc.). The prompt for the activity came from a line in the book (on one of those not numbered pages), "A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris."

On Tuesday, the 2nd, we'll cover pages 5-30 of Book One, RESISTANCE: Defining the Enemy.

The opening quotation for this first section is by the Dalai Lama:

"The enemy is a very good teacher."

Just a few notes about the schedule. We won't meet Nov. 25th on account of Thanksgiving unless some of you want to alter that (we can discuss via email) and then we are scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 2, and then Wednesday evenings, 6:30-8:00, beginning Dec. 10.
Finally, welcome to Brynne and Dot--we are happy to meet you! Some of us are planning to meet at the DMA this Friday evening for Late Night at the DMA (around 7:30 at the front desk). So join us if you are so inclined.

Circle Gathering 11.18

Paintings from 11.18

The painter of the first image wants it noted that the painting is not finished.

Carol's poster

Serendipity

Last week, I was hanging this painting done about twenty-five years ago by a painter who lives in San Gimignano, Italy, a small town in the Tuscan hills. He is named Massimo Pantani. He had a shop and painted in the back. My momma gave me one of his original works as a birthday gift that summer while we were on vacation, and he framed it for me. I was utterly delighted by the whole experience. For years it hung on a wall in a wood frame, and then last week the frame sort of hopped off the wall. Well, maybe not hopped but definitely fell off seemingly of its own initiative, while the painting and its matting remained on the wall. I looked at the painting and thought, "With that thick wood frame it looked really woodsy and natural, and in the matting by itself the country road looks just magical. I am loving the scenic road sans the wood frame and with just that silvery matte for a trim.

Massimo's current work can be viewed at http://www.pantanipaola.com/

Sarah

Inner Being (Abstract)

I played around a bit with paints yesterday and today and this is what I came up with as far as doing an abstraction of the energy I would interpret as my Inner Being. I am kind of thinking I will use a silver, bronzy, or gold matte to go with it and it will hang on my orange wall.

Jack bemused by notes.

Andy with his Euro-cut.

The lovely Kim Schlossberg.

Parking Lot Autumn

I was really interested in this leaf in the parking lot just in front of the house where we meet.

Guess Whose Happy Birthday?

Birthday moment!

Can You Find Two Kayaks?

These guys are hard to find but they are there! (You have to double-click on the image to see them.)

Sunset at White Rock Lake

This sunset was lovely and I happened to have my camera!

Morning Pages (August 30)

...I walk first through the ordinary world, the world of my neighborhood, past sprinklers and mailmen and neighbors in conversation on their lawns, towards the lake, where the world turns at first sporty and energetic, but sometimes frenetic, and hear snippets of conversation...He's black so he must be a Democrat...words that make me laugh or feel depressed...towards the water, where people are speaking less. I walk along the water's edge, breathing ions and peacefulness. I notice the color of the water, it's shape, the wind, how the light affects it. I notice the birds near or far, and a dog, sniffing, happy, and unfenced.

My Nasher assignment :-)

My maiden voyage into the uncharted seas of this blog

From the endless, impromptu auto show at Keller's Hamburgers on NW Hwy

A gorgeously decaying structure on Main St in Ft Worth.

Last week I needed to get on some train tracks, so I hit the road with my camera. As the evening progressed I became more and more bold, pulling the car over, or stopping in the middle of the road (no cars were coming) for any shot that looked interesting. This was on the side of a paint shop. It was a huge mural that continued to the right, but with this amazing excerpt of a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, all going unnoticed on the side of this wall, off the main road. Read it if you can.

Texas Cowboys came from Bavaria???

This week I took another step toward becoming Bavarian - purchasing Lederhosen and attending Oktoberfest! As I was strapping on my "leather-pants" and strapping is really the right word, and tieing my "scarf" around my neck, I realized this outfit was not so far from our texas cowboys...leather pants (chaps), and the bandana. Perhaps not such an American novelty after all.







Although I do think we might be abit smarter, certainly strapped on leather trousers are much better for riding horses than drinking lots of beer...especially as it took me an extra five minutes to "break loose" of my trousers when heading to the 'lou' and this is not a time when you wish to be having to wait!

As we say in Oktoberfest....PROST!!!