Artful Living

“Space is the breath of art.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

When I saw that Seth Apter put out a call for his new online collaboration Living with Art, I thought taking a virtual tour into artist’s homes and spaces to see and learn how they live with art was a fabulous idea!   Every Thursday over on Seth’s blog The Altered Page, a group of different 7 artists are featured with a photograph that captures his inspiring concept.

  The project just revealed its second week of artists (including yours truly!) and it’s already been so exciting to see what each artist has contributed and the artful living surrounding their physical space.  Whether it’s personal art, collected art, found & curated objects, or how works are displayed within the room, on a wall, shelf, furniture piece, or frame…. it is a beautiful and creatively stimulating sight to behold…. each celebrating a unique creative style & incarnation.

You can take in the series for yourself here.  And….if you are interested in contributing your own Living with Art capture, the project is still open to new submissions.

Expanding on the theme of Artful Living, here are some my favorite musings that also inspires this:

44 Stunning Art Studios That Will Inspire You to Get Back to Work

Does Your Therapy Office Support Your Creativity?  How Your Office is Like An Artist’s Studio

Reflections on Spaces & Places: Where We Create

Neuroarchitecture: Exploring the Relationship Between Neuroscience and Architectural Design, or How Our Bodies React to the Spaces We Inhabit

I’m eager to see (and continue to be inspired by) more Living with Art artists & their captures as new posts in the Altered Page’s series goes live every week!  Thank you Seth and all the participants- I wish we could do a real-life tour of all these spaces! 🙂

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Related Posts:

Re-Organzing My Creative Space & Repurposing My Dried Up Marker Stash

My Creative Spaces, Places & More #wherewecreate

February Warm Up With Winter Fatigue Art

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Introducing: Creative Deed 365

Happy New Year!

I am excited to introduce my new 365 Project for 2015… Creative Deed 365!

Since 2013, I’ve completed two 365 projects with 730 pieces of daily art as part of my own creative daily practice. This year I am making small pieces of art (3 x 2.5) to randomly gift to others as acts of kindness and to spread creative goodness to others in the spirit of 6 Degrees of Creativity’s 2014 Creative Deed Project.  I want to dedicate 2015 to sharing this process with others and give all the art away with year long positive messages of hope, inspiration, and possibility.

I invite you to participate and become a part of this new creative adventure with me:

• Make a request to join the Creative Deed 365 Group on Facebook to contribute your own art in the spirit of this project.

• I’d also love to send you some of my Creative Deed art sometime in 2015!  If you’d like to receive a piece of this project sometime throughout the year, please send a mailing address to creativedeed365@gmail.com.

You can make your Creative Deed art with whatever materials, media, and supplies you want!  I am using mini index cards with a label on the back to briefly described the intention of the project. I’ve also purchased (at the local craft store) small ziploc bags to help safely protect the 365 art in the process of gifting to others– whether this be through the mail, outdoor or indoor places & spaces, etc.

Today’s first Creative Deed 365 offering I decided to leave outside of a store I was visiting:

Here’s to new creative adventures starting! I can’t wait to see how this project unfolds and what develops throughout the year!

Together, we can make every day of the year full of creative goodness….  🙂

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Related Posts:

3×5 365 2014 Creative Goodness

Compassion & Creativity

2014 Compassion Games: The Creative Deed Team

Ribbons of HOPE: Community Art Project Comes Together for Ferguson, Missouri

“At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope….” ~Jesse Jackson

There’s a collaborative community art project mobilizing for Ferguson, Missouri and the project’s organizers are inviting anyone who would like to contribute, to send Ribbons of HOPE.

From the project’s description:

“Ribbons of HOPE will be displayed and tied on to fences at two sites in Ferguson, with hopes of spreading to additional sites. The Ribbons of HOPE sites will provide a safe space for people to reflect, connect, commune and exchange dialogue.”  The project organizers “hope and wish that Ribbons of HOPE will be unifying, to help nurture and strengthen community spirit and build bridges towards the future of Ferguson. “

On my Ribbon of HOPE, I artfully infused it with positive intentions & support to send. To create my contribution, I used fabric ribbon, nylon cord, sharpie & paint markers, glitter glue, some small cardboard tags, and covered everything with Outdoor Mod Podge.

Ribbons of HOPE is a partnership of the Adolescent Resource Center (a program of Queen of Peace Center), the Northern Arts Council, Ferguson Youth Initiative, Provident Counseling, and the Missouri Art Therapy Association.

To learn how to contribute your Ribbon of HOPE, visit the Missouri Art Therapy Association blog.

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Related Posts:

26 Paper Hearts

Pocket Change Power & The Art of Kindness

Prayer Flag Making Begins

[Buried Treasure] What Ought to Be: On Untangling and Putting Fragments Back Together with Art

The treasure hunt begins on 6/12 over at The Altered Page, as participating art bloggers come together to share past posts we love & to collaborate as part of Seth Apter’s Buried Treasure Project. The concept is awesome: Seth will be posting a list of all our posts so we and others can discover lots of artsy online hidden treasure and creative goodness.

I’m re-posting one of my favorite blog posts, What Ought to Be: On Untangling and Putting Fragments Back Together with Art from the Creativity in Motion archives in 2010.  I selected this post because it symbolizes many core beliefs I have about art-making’s ability to create transformation out of moments full of uncertainty and vulnerability.

I also decided to create some updated fragments of me to add to the box…

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What Ought to Be: On Untangling and Putting Fragments Back Together with Art | Originally posted on Creativity in Motion: 2/28/2010

Earlier in the week I was reading a post about what daily meditation can do for your creativity and wrote down these words that the author, Mark McGuinness highlighted: Focus, Patience, Calmness, Clarity, Insight, and Perspective with the intention to reflect on the state of my own mental clarity and what McGuinness described perfectly as “getting tangled up in thoughts”.

As the week went on, I lost track of this intention. What did follow was lots of tangling and static coming from many sources and by the end of the week, my mind felt like it was in tight knots unable to make sense of anything or what to do next.  Except for one thing: to make art.  When I am having a hard time understanding what’s happening around me or within, art-making usually helps me start to untangle everything and invite many of the qualities listed in McGuinness’ post.

This past week in particular, I was really thinking about themes related to shattering, fragmenting and scatteredness… feeling this within and wanting to do something constructive and meditative to make these pieces more containable and start to put them back together for my sanity and my ability to keep moving forward with fresh eyes, a clearer head, and creative mind.

I used several square and rectangle plastic “Fragments”  from Tim Holtz’s idea-ology and adhered the words I wrote down from McGuinness’ list and others important to my untangling process.   Holtz’s “Fragments” are small clear tiles that can be embellished by adhering patterned paper to, inking, or gluing on printed paper for creating “a concept or thought developed by the mind of what is desireable or ought to be“.

I also collaged a box to hold and contain these fragments of “what ought to be”.

Developing and containing these fragments through this process reminded me (again) of my core intentions, purpose, and helped “untangle” most of the “thought knots”, as well as put back and contain all the little pieces of me that were scattered everywhere and ought to be paid attention to for continued creativity, energy, and collaboration.

Call for Participants: Practice Random Acts of Art!

Come play with us as this pouch travels around to spread lots of creative goodness!

6 Degrees of Creativity

Here’s a new 6 Degrees of Creativity art collab to join in on!

Not too long ago I came across this canvas pouch by Pamela Barsky that has the words “Practice Random Acts of Art” printed across the front.  I thought it was an awesome creative goodness accessory to have and quickly made an order!

With this pouch, I thought it would be fun to practice random acts of art together within the 6 Degrees of Creativity community.

My idea is this: our 8 x 6 inch pouch could be filled with various art stuff, mailed to a participant to make some creative goodness with and then the created art from the pouch’s materials can be given away in a random act to someone else!  Then the pouch gets filled up again & mailed on to another participant…the creative cycle continues until it reaches the last participant and then the…

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Drawn Together Community Journal Project

[Added to] December 2002 Page from Kat & Roar’s Journal

When I received my beautiful copy of Drawn Together by Katarina Thorsen and her father Roar earlier this month, the mailing also included some of their original journal pages. What a wonderful addition! Much of Drawn Together’s content is told through the narrative of Kat and Roar’s journaling and art-making.

In Chapter Three of their book, Kat describes that she and her father often worked in many, many journals back and forth with one another from 2002-2005.  The intention of this shared experience was to help strengthen their connection, as well as manage and try to make sense of difficult events happening in their lives during that time.

The journal pages sent to readers is an opportunity for these expressions to be shared and have others in the community also become part of their process through the invitation to add to them.  To hold some of Kat and Roar’s pages in one hand and their touching story in the other, I felt such gratitude and privilege to be included in their art-making connection.

[Added to detail] Another December 2002 Journal Page

Pages that have been added to and returned back to Kat for the Community Journal Project will then be exhibited at a Drawn Together event!  What a great idea to celebrate the power of art, community, and connection!

If you’re interested in also contributing you can learn more through this link.

Gluebookers Unite: Let the Paper Stash Swapping Begin!

The Paper Stash Swap for my e-workshop Creative Goodness with Gluebooks as part of 6 Degrees of Creativity 2 just officially started. Let the paper swapping fun begin across the US, to Canada, Australia, Brazil, England, and Italy!

This paper stash swap will give each of the individuals who signed up a quart/liter sized Ziploc bag full of creative goodness to use in their gluebooking throughout the rest of the workshop or for other creative means.  I can’t wait to hear and see more about what people swap, send, and receive!

In preparation for this exchange, I’ve started on a scavenger hunt in my art-making space to put together lots of creative goodness for Bailey Earith, of Bailey Fiber Arts Studio, who I will be mailing a paper stash to soon.  I have lots of different types of textured and colored paper, as well as lots of magazine photo collage images, postcards, and other ephemera that I need to sort through for this swap!

A great resource I’ve been recommending to participants in this workshop is Cindy Shepard’s book Stash and Smash to help inspire and cultivate stuff for our gluebooking that comes from our everyday surroundings, daily activities, and current happenings to visually document our day, week, month, occasion or to explore a special theme.  I think it’s a great book with lots and lots of paper stash ideas!

My intention with the stash I receive from this swap is to incorporate this fresh new creative goodness into a gluebook I am going to make about 6 Degrees of Creativity 2. I can’t wait to get started!

Acts of Creative Blessing: Permission ATC Swap

This week I joined the Permission Artist Trading Card Swap being organized by Lani over at 14 Secrets for a Happy Artist’s Life.  What a great idea: swapping art and inspiring messages with one another in the form of a mini creative blessings!

Here’s the first batch of ATCs I have been working on to contribute to the exchange:

Permission to: Shine, Fly, Feel, Create

And my second batch…..

Permission to Grow, Follow Your Heart, Be True

Interested in joining the exchange too?  There’s still time-! Learn more information about how to participate here.

Spaces & Places: Where We Create Now Accepting Submissions | Art Therapy Photo Documentary Project

Spaces and Places: Where We Create is now accepting submissions from art therapists, art therapy students, expressive art therapists, and art organizations for this photo documentary project that aims to provide education, awareness, inspiration, and understanding about the spaces & places, settings, populations, and materials that the art therapy community works in and uses within their practice.

This collaborative event using social media and digital photo sharing via Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram invites participants to submit a photo or photos of their creative work space and favorite tools of the trade.  The project will be accepting submissions until May 31, 2012.

Learn more via the Art Therapy Alliance website for more information and details about how to participate: http://www.arttherapyalliance.org/WhereWeCreate.html

ATC Delivery in Route: Creative Goodness x 6

This week-end I exchanged all the artist trading cards (ATCs) I received throughout the last few months for the 6 Degrees of Creativity swap and mailed them all to their new homes in different parts of the globe. Since the moment my ATC workshop started in October for 6 Degrees I have been patiently waiting for this creative moment!  It is such a joy to see all the ATCs that have been sent and then to further connect participants through exchanging and mailing them all back.  We are now truly connected with the mini artworks we will receive ( x 6 ), along with the messages, creativity, and good intentions sent with each of them.  So wonderful and so much fun!

Lots of thanks and appreciation to everyone who was able to contribute and participate in this ATC exchange. It was an honor to host this swap for the 6 Degrees of Creativity community and connect to participants through this experience.

Here are some photos I took before, during, and after the exchanging:

Pre-Exchange ATCs that have been coming in since October 2011:

A sea of creative goodness is ready to be exchanged!

On the way to the post office! It took 45 minutes for the postal clerk to make sure all the postage and delivery methods (first class vs. parcel, international vs. domestic, etc.) were all good…ATCs were mailed out to the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Canada. Many custom forms were filled out!   🙂

In celebration of this exchange and everyone who contributed I put together a short video featuring one ATC received from each participant:

I also created a collective image of one ATC from each batch: