Happy Accidents...

Spilling my thoughts gently.  Did we solve the world's problems today at lunch?  We held up our 'unfair' signs but no one seemed to be reading them...

All these years the studio sat out back.  I remember when we had it built.  We built it for Stu.  Windows and windows, north light, a bathroom, a/c, heat (just in case we thought about moving we could call it a guest house).  For a bit he quit working and I worked so he could freelance doing art.  This was all B.C.  Before children.  For years now the studio has sat as a catchall.  There's a box full of basketballs, a table saw, a treadmill, more file cabinets vertical and flat files than you can imagine.  Frames, more cassette tapes than I can count.  And drawers and drawers of art.

Last year I took an amazing mixed media class with Carol Panaro-Smith.  I learned techniques, created art books, did collages, started to be able to speak through art.  I didn't think I could, but I was just beginning to find myself in there.  It felt good.  I began to carve out a small space of my own in the studio.  Stu hasn't used the studio for art in a long, long time.  I realized how much I like the feel of the space.  The potential.  This morning my good friend Jana and I met in the studio to do, 'The Artist's Way' book.  We did this book for the first time in July of 1997.  At that time there were 7 of us.  We met every week.  I don't know how we managed to commit to every week but we did.  It was a magical time.  Several of the women had life changing experiences.  They opened themselves up, put themselves out there, and things happened.  Wonderful things.  Magical things.   Doors opened, they jumped through them knowing/believing that a net would appear.  And the net did appear.

These past several weeks as I feel this shift of sorts I thought maybe it's time to do the book again.  I'm terrible at following through with the morning pages every day and am a bit lazy with the reading but I am making progress.  I went through the drawers and containers of supplies I have out here in the studio.  I forgot how many materials I own.  I feel overwhelmed and still somewhat lacking in direction but believe it will come.  There's a calm out here.  A quiet.  A peacefulness.  All of which is good for the restlessness I feel.  I am reminded of how difficult it was to make that first 'mark' on the paper.  How scary it felt.  The what if it doesn't come out right, what will I do with it, how will I make it work.  That first mark on the paper.  Learning to trust oneself, myself.  All the happy accidents that can happen with that first mark.  I love happy accidents.  In art and in life....