Reflections on 365 Making

Today marks the completion of another year of daily creative practice with my annual 365 project…. after being so curious what it would be like to take on this kind of challenge, I am so glad I embarked on one in 2013 on New Year’s Day…. Each year and creative undertaking since has graced me with something new to explore over the last 4 years… Towards the end of my first 365 project, I reflected on the discoveries and reminders it helped inspire.

I am re-visiting this list today to make some updates and to reflect more on honoring the lessons that continue to keep me committed to this important process:

1. I’m always amazed and astonished by the containment of small holding spaces in art making. Working within a small space has helped me make each 365 project manageable. Time and time again the power that this small space holds in its message, form, and process is awesome to witness.

2. Remember to slow down.  This reminder is only one of the important lessons that my 365 projects has gifted me. Taking time out to stop and pause for a moment to work on the day’s image is so important.  Sometimes it might feel like there’s no time or things are just so busy that taking this time seems impossible… but engaging in this process helps bring a grounding, focus, and presence that I have come to value and appreciate every day.

3.  Appreciate each day. Each creative piece and image is an expression of gratitude for another day.   It also allows me the opportunity to be thankful for the moment, which is important to recognize and not take for granted.

4. Trust the process. There are definitely some days that I have struggled to find time or don’t feel as connected to the image I have created in comparison to others, but at the end of the day it all works out.  The process of creating everyday outweighs the emphasis on the product. Just like art therapy!

5. I really do have 20-30 minutes everyday to create. Probably one of the biggest surprises after 4 years of consecutive creating!  It’s still true!  Some days it may have been 10 minutes, sometimes longer than a half an hour, but there was always time within each of the 1460 days.

6. Community: It has been inspiring to connect to and support others working on their 365 projects or daily creative practice through social media… 🙂

2016 also brought a couple of opportunities to share my 365 projects, which I enjoyed contributing to:

• In the spring, I was interviewed by Australian Art Therapist Jade Herriman for her blog about last year’s and this year’s 365 projects.
• This summer Ohio’s Buckeye Art Therapy Association featured my 365 projects as part of their Featured Artist/Art Therapist interview series.

I thank everyone for their support and encouragement with this process over the last four years! It has definitely helped– ❤  I am looking forward to launching another 365 project for the new year ahead. I can’t wait to share it with you!

Happy creating in 2017- What are some of your creative goals to focus on in the next 12 months?

 

 

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Illuminate 365 Awakening & Renewal Photo Roundup

Behold some of the daily photos I’ve taken and re-worked for Illuminate 365 over the last couple of months!

It is inspiring to see them together here. With springtime gradually awakening during this time I have enjoyed capturing and symbolizing aspects of the season to reflect on the illumination theme.  A time for re-growth, renewal, as well as gratitude for days that awaken with and contain so much more light, even on the darkest days.

Related Posts:

Bring On Illuminating 2016!

My Daily Treasure Hunt for Illumination: Illuminate 365

Bring On Illuminating 2016!

‘Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there. A new idea is a light that illuminates presences which simply had no form before the light fell on them.’ — Susan Langer

On this first day of the New Year, I am excited to share the new 365 project I’m about to embark on: Illuminate 365.

My intention with this new daily creative practice is to capture images throughout the year that reflect variations on Illumination.   In 2012 and 2013 I started regularly taking photos of light with a project I called Through a Grateful Lens.  The last few months, I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve missed this practice and the special connection to gratefulness, hope, and comfort these light captures helped inspire during this time. I am curious to discover what a whole year’s worth of captures each day sparked by the expanded concept of light, insight, and understanding will reveal or offer.  Bring on Illuminating 2016!

My plan is to use digital art making through fun apps and programs to get creative with the images that I take in the spirit of this project and share them in quarterly round ups here on this blog. Daily captures will be shared on Instagram.

How would you like to illuminate 2016?

Here’s to a Happy New Year to us all full of art and creative goodness!

3×5 365 2014 Creative Goodness

3×5 day 365 is here!  Yay! To help celebrate the completion of this year’s creative daily practice, I put together a short video with all the index card art I created over the last 12 months:

I feel a deep amount of gratitude and appreciation to everyone who has helped support my 3×5 creating efforts…. Thank you!  This has been in the form of generous encouragement, interest, & feedback via social media, this blog, and 6 Degrees of Creativity Paper Stash Swappers who helped provide some of the collage material I’ve used.  And a big thank you to Tammy of Daisy Yellow, who has been such a huge inspiration in all things index card art related!  One of the highlights of this year’s project was finally being able to participate in Daisy Yellow’s ICAD this summer.

This has been a fun, creative adventure!  As I review the video and each of the days, weeks, and months from this project, it’s awesome to see the year come together and end in this way.

Looking forward to new creative adventures in 2015!

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Related Posts:

3×5 365 Begins

My 3×5 365 Art Adventure …in Progress…

In the Presence of Now: Creating One 3×5 At a Time

Hot Chocolate Savoring & Creative Pausing

As fall gives way to winter and the year begins to finish out its final month, I find myself wanting to slow down while I adjust to colder weather, holiday anticipation, thinking ahead to planning for 2015, and reflecting on the adventures of 2014.

Here are a few things from this past week helping me take time out for some pausing….

I’ve embarked on a hot chocolate challenge 🙂 :

Fear’s Confections Hot Chocolate

My friend Lori and I have decided to enjoy this list of Top 10 Hot Chocolates in Cleveland by attempting to try each one throughout the winter.  It’s a great reason to get together, warm up from the cold, and savor some chocolate. Win, win, win! Our first stop on this hot chocolate tour was Fear’s Confections. I recommend splurging for the gourmet homemade cinnamon marshmallow to accompany the drink- Yum!

I also started prepping the children’s board book I’ve chosen for creating a new revo’lution altered book, one of the creative rituals I enjoy taking time to reflect on as the New Year approaches…  2015 will be year/book #7 in the series…. Yay!  If you’re in the NE Ohio area, I’ll be hosting a cozy Ready for Revo’lution art-making gathering (with hot chocolate available!) on January 7 that you can check out here.

Beginning a new revo’lution

Things are also winding down with this year’s 365 project, as my 3×5 art journey moves forward into its last month.  Incredible that 11 months and have already gone by, with only one more to go…. It’s an ongoing reminder time and time again to slow down in each creative moment.

3×5 art filing (2014 365)

Day 331

Here’s also a few blog posts to help embrace your pausing spirit & manage this time of year:

14 Tidbits to Stir in your Coffee (or Tea) when the Sloth Visits | Rebelle Society

Go Out and Have a Free Adventure: #104 of 1,000 Ways to have a Happy Artist’s Life | Lani Puppetmaker’s Blogspot

Be Still. Distill. | A Big Creative Yes

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Related Posts:

Prepare > Intent > Create > Transform: ready for revo’lution [2014]

In the Presence of Now: Creating One 3×5 At a Time

Ringing in the New Year with Revolution Art Making

Creative Chain Reaction

 Month #10 just came to a close for my 3×5 365 project and in reflection I’ve decided to put together some of the words & phrases from days 274-304 in a poem of sorts:

Creative Chain Reaction

Welcome….stillness….

An artful perception

Of enoughness re-framed

Before & between

To challenge my adventure into imagination

A new day…. Always.

Believe! Work creatively!

Permission granted to do the things you love to do.

To honor the stories behind these stories

With mindful power and an abundance of hope

To reclaim with mercy & inspiration.

The next thing, a newness, re-birth….

Re-forming and finding grace

For a creative reveal, full of growth.

This is it:

A creative opening to fall into this rhythm.

Related Posts:

Mid October 3×5 Creative Moments

3×5 Journeying Into & Through

In the Presence of Now: Creating One 3×5 At a Time

Mid October 3×5 Creative Moments

I wanted to take this mid-October creative moment to share some of the 3x5s I’ve created this month as part of my on-going 365 project…. It’s hard to believe there’s less than 80 days left in 2014 and for my daily index card art making fun…. The rest of this year is flying by!

October 3×5 Creative Mashup

I’ve noticed that with many of my recent 3x5s, I enjoy tearing/ripping bits and pieces of paper (usually from magazines or catalogs) and putting them together into a messy collage of sorts with my usual use of distressed inks & stains, dictionary pages, chit chat stickers, and the occasional washi tape cameo.

Day 274: Hello October…. Welcome….

 

Day 275: Support in Simplicity & Stillness

 

Day 281: Adventure into Imagination

 

Day 282: Beginner’s Mind Reflection

 

Day 286: [Doing] The Things You Love

 The color palette these days shifts between cool colors of blues and greens to warmer colors like yellow and orange.  October so far seems to reveal themes of welcoming new energy (or saying goodbye to old energy disappearing) with new adventures harvested from creative seeds planted earlier in the year or new space from things that have come to an end. My 3×5 art right now also reflects a time of honoring/remembering what I am most passionate about, but also balancing simplicity & moments of stillness as fresh, new air for my work, creative practice, relationships, and loves.

“Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is is change.” – Edwin Way Teale

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Related Posts:

In the Presence of Now: Creating One 3×5 At a Time

3×5 365 Begins

3×5 Journeying Into & Through

Shifting Made Visible

Shifting Made Visible

reflection & review: 15 days of August 3x5s

I decided to take a look at this month’s 3×5’s I’ve created so far in a moment of creative contemplation.

Shifting Made Visible

This month I’ve been experiencing some major shifting, from within and out. I’ve been witnessing this surface & form in my daily creative practice of 3×5 work with themes that reflect new change, possibility, and discovery:

Day 213: Artful offering

“When everything is moving and shifting, the only way to counteract chaos is stillness. When things feel extraordinary, strive for ordinary. When the surface is wavy, dive deeper for quieter waters.” –Kristen Armstrong

Day 215: explicitly forming from within

“…art is knowledge made visible.” –Gustave Courbet

Day 217: [creative] restoration

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered.”
— Nelson Mandela

Day 219: create hope

“All appears to change when we change.” — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Day 221: artful passion

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” –Sarah Ban Breathnach

Day 222: all my hopes

“It is enjoyable to make things visible which are invisible.” —Eric Cantona

Day 226: something new

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Related Posts:

3×5 Journeying Into & Through

Journey to Resilience: Takeaways & Creative Offerings

Firewalk Inspired Smashbooking

Paper Stash Swap Show & Tell

In July, I organized a Paper Stash Swap for my 6 Degrees of Creativity online workshop community, where interested members signed up to exchange artsy paper stuff and goodies with another participant:

Let’s Swap Some Paper!

Below is some the creative goodness I put together for the couple of fun  stashes I mailed to Nancy and Jessica.  These packages included a variety of scrapbooking paper, tags, paper bag books, scrap collage bits & pieces, bingo cards, book catalog file cards and more:

Preparing Creative Goodness for Paper Stash Mailing

Here’s a collection of awesome paper stashes I received from Jessica, Roseann, and Nancy (thank you!) which included lots of colorful printed paper, book & dictionary pages, maps, tags, tickets, and so, so much more:

Paper Stash Treasure

The second part of this Paper Stash Swap is this month’s Show & Tell where we can share what we’ve created with some of the gifts & treasures we’ve received.  I’ve used a lot of the stash stuff in my 3×5 365 cards during the past month. It was also really easy to take the stashes (contained in a large mailing envelope or plastic bag) on the go with me to create with.  I really thought the patterns, textures, & colors of the stashes I was generously gifted with brought a new excitement and an inviting warmth to my 3×5 art. It was a pleasure to begin incorporating these positive elements into my creative practice and feel these meaningful additions come to life (each day and each week).

My Paper Stash Show & Tell: July 3×5 Art

I look forward to seeing other Show & Tells from this exchange on the 6 Degrees of Creativity site and how what was received was used or what it inspired. 🙂

In case you’re looking for your own paper stash inspiration check out some of these ideas from my Creative Goodness with Gluebooks e-book that you can download free here.

Cultivating Your Paper Stash

What’s your favorite paper item to use in your stash or to gift to others?

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Related Posts:

Creative Pay It Forward’s Paper Stash Surprise

Gluebookers Unite: Let the Paper Stash Swapping Begin!

Getting Ready: Gluebooking, Paper Swapping, Page Exchanging & More

3×5 Journeying Into & Through

“…And for most journeys, we need a map…” ~Patti Digh

This week’s theme for Daisy Yellow’s ICAD Challenge was focused on all things maps. It has been lots of fun to work on different creative concepts combining my 3×5 art making with map making.  I used a variety of maps I’ve collected….. from maps I have picked up in hotels, local & regional maps, prints of maps in magazine catalogs, and maps gifted to me in paper stash swaps.  On the 3rd day of this theme, I was also inspired by researching maps of the hand.

As this week’s ICAD theme comes to a close, I’m spent time today reflecting on themes around finding, discovery, navigating, & adventuring.

My companion for today’s reflection was the book, The Geography of Loss, by Patti Digh which I took off the bookshelf in my creative space this morning as I looked over the 3x5s I created this past week.

“The word map: A process of seeing, of charting, of knowing, or journeying into and through.”

 

I often include paper hearts in my 3×5 art (and art journaling for that matter!) and the map theme really inspired its inclusion even more. As a compass of sorts.

Today, post 3×5 making and having these maps & paper hearts before me, I re-visited Digh’s section on thematic mapping for widely opening our hearts (Part 2).  Digh prompts us to create a metaphorical map of our heart and to think about what’s inside,  what/who opens or closes this heart, to honor what is by honoring what was, and to feel the difference between a heart that is protected and one that is free & open.  Inspiring stuff….. 🙂

I love this combination of heart & map making…. As I worked on each of these cards the intention of progress, readiness, and journey honoring was definitely on my 3×5 making brain.  It’s nice to see the series together, as well as pieces of the terrain that create a larger perspective.

I look forward to continuing ICAD’s themes for weeks 4-6! 

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Related Posts:

Heart Space: 365 Days of revo’lution making

Artful Hands & Hearts: Honoring Community

Creative Compass of Hope: Happy Artist’s Life Navigating, Reflecting