Hello! We’re in England  for an extended family visit and I’ve been thinking a lot about what an art practice does—the subject of my next book. Traveling has totally interrupted my regular practice in ways that were making me a little anxious. When I packed my bag, I made sure I had colored pencils, watercolors, and sketchpads etc. I was so focused on being able to carry on with my art practice that I forgot to pack a warm sweater!

When we got here, we were inundated with all sorts of visits. I didn’t have a second to get out my art supplies. It has rained almost everyday and I really missed my warm sweaters. At least, I thought that’s what I was missing! But when I bought a new sweater, I still felt a little adrift.

We’re totally enjoying the beautiful English countryside, the fantastic pub meals and seeing family and friends. And when I finally picked up my pencils I felt totally at home again! An art practice is meant to travel! It definitely makes me feel settled and at home again.

More soon!

Hi there! We took our drawing practice into the paint department at the Saturday Morning Drawing Club this weekend. First we splashed watercolor or gouache on some heavyweight paper—just cheap card stock actually. I’d gone out early in the morning with scissors to steal some blossoms from the trees behind the art center and had them on the table for inspiration. I didn’t want us to make painstaking, literal drawings of the flowers but just to inhale their colorful, vibrant spring energy and try to capture that. I didn’t tell the class what was happening so they didn’t try to second-guess me but just splashed around as suggested. Wonderful things happened—all so bold and expressive. We all found this to be a great way to practice getting loose and letting things unfold as they will rather than taking a tight hold on the outcome. I really like the first stage abstract painting!

We’ll be doing a lot more experiments like this in the online class starting in June!  More soon!

The spring session of The Saturday Morning Drawing Club resumed this weekend! We warmed up by doing blind contour drawings of a vase of tulips. We all love doing blind contour drawings where we just look at the object in front of us and not our paper. The drawings are always loose and full of energy. And everyone’s are different. We can really see how unique each person’s hand is. It also helps our drawings to forget about getting things “right.” “Wrong” is so much more interesting because it’s not the object we’rereally interested in in the end, I think, but the artist’s energy and intelligence.

We did these drawings in black marker on 5″x7″ plain white index cards. marker gives us a strong line with no possibility of being fiddly or erasing anything.

We listened to Linda Thompson’s amazing voice on her beautiful CD: Versatile Heart. Music helps us slip into the space of forgetting the everyday. And drawing takes us over the top!

It’s a beautiful meditation to draw like this. I could have gone on for hours but I don’t like to work the class THAT hard! They’ve already made a point of how I always forget to give them a break in class! Oooops!

Winter over and hibernation/incubation too! Hello there! Hope you’re well and that winter in your neck of the woods was as kind this year as it was in Boston. I’ve mostly been working on children’s books this winter (more on that another time) but something fun is percolating—The Saturday Morning Drawing Club online! The Saturday Morning Drawing Club is the class I teach which inspired my book The Confident Creative / Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind. I love teaching because I see it as a way to explore together, experiment and have fun. I see how working together enriches and humanizes our creativity. So I’m very excited about this! A new journey.

When I was up in Canada last week, I had the great pleasure of meeting two readers of my book. It was absolutely fantastic because they gave me so many great ideas about what they would like to explore as they further their own art journeys. It slots in perfectly to the next book I’m planning also based on The Saturday Morning Drawing Club. Merci a Sophie et Martin a Montréal! And, one day, Sophie and I were hanging out in her studio drawing when she came up with the idea of taking The Saturday Morning Drawing Club online! What a great time we had discussing all the ways in which this can work and augment the books. I’m very lucky our two boats crossed paths! Much work to do but will make a firmer announcement by June.

Another post coming Monday. Happy spring!

In Saturday’s art class, one of my students brought in this beautiful poem by Roger Keyes. Especially love that Hokusai recommends getting stuck and letting things happen, whatever they might be.

Hokusai

by Roger Keyes

Hokusai says Look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing.

He says Look Forward to getting old.

He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are.

He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it’s interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying.

He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient, every one of us has a body.

He says every one of us is frightened.

He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive –shells, buildings, people, fish,mountains, trees.

Wood is alive.

Water is alive

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books.

It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.

It doesn’t matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your verandah

or the shadows of the trees and grasses in your garden.

It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is Life living through you.

Joy is life living through you.

Satisfaction and strength is life living through you.

Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid.

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

We went down to New York last week for a few days holiday. We thought of going somewhere warm but thought New York would be more fun. We could visit galleries and walk around. So down we went, with nothing in particular on our agenda.

The first evening, we were heading out of our hotel when a man in the elevator struck up a conversation with my husband about the coat he was wearing. It’s the kind of coat that looks like he just stepped out of the Australian outback in the early twentieth century and everywhere we went people kept asking him about it! Once we got past the coat, our new friend told us that he and his wife were in New York for the same reasons we were—they were there to see art and get some inspiration before they headed back to Martha’s Vineyard. He gave us their tips—The High Line (the new park that extends from 18th Street up to 30th on the abandoned elevated railroad tracks) and the galleries in Chelsea. He didn’t specify which galleries through.

Off we headed to the High Line first— a brilliant oasis of peace in the center of one of the most hectic cities in the world. We loved the modernist bird houses. There was no one up there on this windy, cold day but us and the birds! But the Chelsea galleries we ventured into proved a bust. The art left us feeling detached—paintings of decapitated bodies, sculptures of dogs with latex gloves emerging from every orifice, and assemblages of old film stock arranged in colorful patterns. Nothing that made us want to see more.

So we headed back to The High Line and looked at the city from all sorts of angles. And here was this wonderful image. Life is art.

I’m working in the studio and have begun my new series—inspired by Pop Art but with a twist. More soon on that—with visuals. Yesterday my good friend, the fantastic folk artist, Maggie Stern, popped in for a visit. It was great to have her see what I was doing. We don’t need permission to make art but the support of friends and fellow artists really matters. At a certain point and no sooner, it helps the creative process to share and to get that instant, unspoken response. Some of what we do reaches people—other things are simply exploration. Nothing’s a dead end but some experiments come to an end. That’s the creative process. It’s a wrestling match to clarify intention and match it with experience.

Last year I saw the great Californian artist, Robert Irwin, speak at Harvard. He’s in his eighties and hugely vibrant. Artists never age because they’re engaged. He talked about designing the amazing garden/labyrinth at The Getty Museum in L.A. and how he went in his own truck up and down the length of California in search of the perfect bush, with the size and color he’d envisioned. He searched when he didn’t know what he’d find, if anything. He made it his mission. He paid attention and asked that he find the right thing. That attention makes the experience at The Getty so awe-inspiring.

Following this work, he was asked to design the experience of the Dia:Beacon, a 21rst century museum in a gargantuan old factory in upstate New York. He envisioned this project starting with the visitor getting on the train at Penn Sation and travelling up to the museum. How would that experience unfold and what might a visitor feel? He chose the trees and the bushes, how much we would see from the train window. If traveling by car, we discover a different fruit tree in front of each parking space. It’s about losing our sense of self and connecting with something beautiful, amazing and transcendent. And fun.

I’m reading Lawrence Wechsler’s excellent book about Irwin, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, first published in 1982. It’s a document of Irwin’s creative process. Starting as an abstract expressionist, he responded to the questions painting asked of him. Why do this? Why have an edge to a painting? What is the experience of art? How can we engage in it in a larger way? He asked really interesting questions and continued to explore when experiments failed.

Art is a process of discovery. If we knew what would emerge it wouldn’t be interesting to make. We’ll all ask different questions depending on the nature of our own minds and lives. There are many ways to make art—as many as there are artists. We’re not all going to wrestle with Irwin’s questions but we’re all trying for that transcendence , in our way. Part of the process is seeing how well we pay attention, the questions we ask and how we receive the answers. Sometimes through the visits of friends.

These are tough economic times and tough times are tougher still for artists. Even the rich stop forking out for art and the competition for grants, commissions, assignments, sales and even teaching gigs increases. Artists can get discouraged, for sure. Some might even give up or, worse, try to sell themselves short. Some of us may even compromise our art in the hope of making sales. That’s the worst. So, how do we carry on in tough times? And can we prosper?

British artist, Michael Atavar, author of How To Be An Artist, says on Futurising, “Don’t rely on art as your sole source of income – it’ll create compromises.” The point of being an artist is that we get to follow inspiration and go somewhere totally new and vital. We get to make things. We also get to know ourselves and bring the best of who we are into the world. Being an artist isn’t just about what we produce, it’s a way of being, thinking, exploring, connecting and having fun. So, a good point—all our financial apples needn’t be in the art basket. We can diversify.

In the last recession, the one initiated by Reagonomics where the rich got richer and the rest of us scrambled, my art income stream dried up almost overnight. And I had two young kids to support. A recession is like a tsunami. One minute it’s calm, business as usual, and, the next, disaster is splashing down on us virtually without warning. For a while, even while getting drenched, I thought that life would somehow carry on as before. It can be hard to know what to do or how to change course or the ways in which the world is changing. But it’s even harder to be inflexible when the bills start piling up. One day I was downtown just browsing in a high end clothing shop. A woman came in and asked for a job. Great idea, I thought, and, as soon as she’d left, I asked for one too and got it. Listen. Seize the moment. It needn’t be perfect.

I worked there twenty hours a week for six months. It did not pay well but it gave me enough to take care of a few bills. It gave me a sense too that my feet were on the ground. It was mindless work and I wasn’t good at it save for being a friendly body in the shop. I once gave a customer who bought a $20. scarf the $300. jacket another customer had bought. That got straightened out. But, the tough thing is, I didn’t feel good about this work. I felt like a loser! Shouldn’t I be making money at art? We need to separate art and money.

Now I don’t feel that way at all. I feel that we artists are so privileged to do what we do. Economies are up and down and our economies are too. A fact of life. We can do other things to create an income-stream and we can simplify our lives. Streamline. And we can keep trying to bring our work into the world.

The great illustrator, Henrik Drescher is selling his stash of old work online. Brilliant work! Now is the time to buy and support each other, if we can.

Michael Atavar is right—no point in compromise. Carry on! Something else happened for me in that last recession—an amazing grace. One day I opened my mailbox and there was a check for $5,000. from an old and dear friend. I didn’t ask for it—he just sent it. Wow. That amazing act of kindness really got me over the hump and changed how I felt too. And from a fellow artist—the great animation film-maker, John Weldon. Thanks, Johnny, forever and ever! We’re readjusting, recalibrating and inventing as we go—with a little help from our friends. Many things can and will happen when we least expect!

What am I doing now to amplify my art practice and income? Teaching, running workshops, doing 1:1 creativity coaching and writing books. I love each of these things! For me, they’re another form of art. They’ve brought a lot of richness to my life. Not oodles of cash but real value. The Wealthy Artist is doing what we love. Everything flows from that.

I’ll be writing more on this subject as I engage in some new enterprises. It’s tough out there but I have faith that we can create good.

Please feel free to share your ideas and encourage others here!

FIRST, the workshop is now ONE full day—SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23rd from 10 am until 5:30 pm!

The workshop is about creativity—how we can connect with our creative core to do our best, most enlivening creative work. How does drawing fit into this and do we need prior experience drawing? Even if we don’t currently draw or make art, we all do have prior experience drawing. All kids draw and, in the workshop, we’ll use drawing to connect with the creative freedom we had as kids. We can use the simple act of conscious drawing as a way to come to know and free our creative minds.

We’re all creative. Sometimes we get stuck and don’t know how to begin. Sometimes our work begins to feel stale. Sometimes we lack a sense of direction or real conviction about what we’re doing. There’s an ebb and flow to the creative process and we’ll be looking at how to enter the flow with ease.

In the workshop, we’ll look at what we want in our creative lives and discover the steps we can take. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to use drawing in the creative process to liberate our highest creative selves. If you’re in the Boston area or would like a weekend away, please join us!

You can register for the workshop here!

Hello, again! Here we are at end of summer. I hope you’ve had a good one! Mine included the very happy occasion of my daughter’s wedding—lots of people, parties and fun! As well as lots of work!

I’ll be posting much more here now about the creative process, how we can all accelerate our creativity and engage with our changing world. Watch this space every Monday to start. Or contact to receive via email. But, first, I’m very excited to announce a brand new workshop for those in the Boston area: Drawing Out Creativity.

In the workshop, we’ll learn to use drawing as a yogic tool to connect with our creative core, understand the nature of our creative process and how to work with the mind. We’ll move through a series of exercises in which we’ll begin to see what inhibits us and how we can overcome the obstacles in our path. The workshop is designed for anyone on a creative path.

If you haven’t drawn for a while, or if you think you can’t, this is also for you! Everyone can draw and everyone is creative. The workshop is totally supportive and affirming. This is a new kind of drawing—non-judgmental and exploratory.

Some of what we’ll do is in my book, The Confident Creative / Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind. We’ll be building on that base and accelerating our learning through working with others who want to really connect with their true creative selves.

The workshop is Saturday, October 22 – Sunday, October 23, 2011 at The Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA from 9 am – 4 pm each day. There is plenty of parking and two restaurants on site.

Come join us! The world needs our creativity! Sign up here!