stinkwanink

Standstill

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:15:00 +0000

The creative powers are not in relation
all things are benumbed
confusion and disorder prevail...

--I Ching Book of Changes, Wilhelm/Baynes trans
Hexagram 12 Standstill/Stagnation

Is there an area of your life or work that doesn't seem so creative lately? This hexagram addresses stagnant situations where there appears to be no progress.

Want some oracular advice? Before reading further, think of a particular situation where your inner guidance and inspiration seems shut down, sluggish or simply absent. If you can persuade yourself to, write down a question about what you'd most like cleared up. Then pick a number between 1 and 6 and jot that down.

"When we perceive that there is no progress...
tension and inner conflict arise.

The remedy is to disengage from looking at the situation.

We abandon neither our principles nor our goals.

When we have re-established inner calm,
the clarity needed to put things into perspective becomes possible. Until then, nothing can be done.

In all striving the ego attempts to find some
way to make things work in order to stay in control.

If we can accept that we are meant to patiently persevere,
then, by itself, Fate will indicate the way."

--Carol Anthony A Guide to the I Ching, Hexagram 12 Standstill/Stagnation

The hexagram as a whole counsels a retreat from trying to force solutions. Fruitful activity is temporarily impossible, because fundamentals are out of relationship with each other. Best not to focus on externals, even if tempting offers appear. Public action now could wind up compromising your principles. Instead, withdraw, be patient, and allow right action to arise of itself.

------------------------------------

Remembering your particular stuck situation, read the advice corresponding to the number between 1 and 6 that you wrote down earlier.

Keep an open mind, and see if your question's answer reveals itself to you.

(If you didn't pick a number 1-6 above, go ahead and choose one now.
Or, just read them all and see if one feels like it is meant for you.
Or, don't. )

1. Stop pouring attention into the negative situation.
Quit trying to influence it or to strive against it in any way.
Instead, persevere inwardly to stay connected with your truth.

2. You may have to endure self pity, discouragement and mistrust
from others and from your own childish aspects. For the good of
all, don't act on pressures to try to fix or convince anyone.

3. Misunderstandings within and without are beginning to clear up.
The futility of trying to force solutions becomes evident.
Take care not to humiliate or rush those who are changing
their confused ideas for the better.

4. If you remain open, balanced and alert,
you may be called into action by events now.
Keeping free of willful ambition,
you advance as the way opens and
pause if you meet further obstructions.

5. The transition out of standstill has arrived.
Take great caution now. Don't be carried away
into grand gestures. Instead, take small steady steps
to secure the transformation from many angles.

6.Through keeping your inner attitude correct
you have brought about better conditions.
The time of standstill has come to an end.
Creative energies flow into harmony.

Looking Down

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:31:00 +0000

If things are looking down,

and you're sick of trying
to make them look up,
well, just look down!
Look for ugly-beauties
right here on the pavement
under your feet.

Nesting

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:25:00 +0000

I've made nests on and off for years, unruly wild-crafted webs of willow, grapevine, and seaweed, among other materials. They became home to some of the little things I can't help picking up and keeping.

Seaweed Nest and Sand Dollars JS '97?

Making a particular place for things, an appropriate container, feels like a fundamental domestic satisfaction. I remember meeting a woman with alzheimer's. Her favorite activity was sorting and arranging beads and buttons in a little grid of boxes. Her daughter said she still recognized her mother, who had been a scientist, in this kind of play. There was something essential to it.

I don't tend to live in an orderly fashion. Plenty of times I cross over from creative chaos into squalid mess. Things are definitely not in their places. And contrarily, sometimes I use housework as a procrasto-gizmo to avoid creative work. (There's a cartoon about people who have to do the dishes before they can art at the end of this Art First post).

At least I don't have all my eggs in one basket.

But maybe everything is really in its rightful place even when it seems out of order. Every place and every thing is impermanent, after all. Form is a giant game of musical chairs.

One-Egg Basket crocheted yarns and threads, JS '07

******************************

This past year I moved out of my own little nest in the sky. I had lived there for 18 years, hidden away in a small attic apartment. It had become an exoskeleton, an extension of myself that I felt alarmed and exhilarated to molt out of.

Before taking apart my studio, I found myself making a little house-shrine. It felt like a meditation on mortality as a change of address--a visual response to the koan, "What was your face before your parents were born?"

Our mother's body is our first nest. Then we live in the temporary container of our own body, sheltered in changeable clothing and houses, held by gravity to our place on the round mother planet, within the moving, living universe. Who or what is contained here?

Before Mother House
shrine with vases and candles, fabrics, paint, mirrors Jude Spacks '08

Interior of Before Mother House, showing mirrors

The front of the piece has curved openings, some of which are covered with sheer fabric. This is participatory art: it needs you to complete it, to bring presence to it. As you look through the semi-veiled openings to the mirror and colorful wall in the rear of the little house, you see only a foggy, mysterious suggestion of a face looking back at you. Who is that?

The flowers offered in the little vases, fresh only a few days, and the hand setting them there, a hazy suggestion of its movement doubling in the curved mirror shapes and disappearing: all the same essence, held so fleetingly.

******************************

Packing meant seeing freshly the hoard of ordinary treasures I chronically save. Some things still held memories of when they appeared in my world. But with most I had no idea how they came to be here. There were some startling encounters with beauty that had been hidden, overlooked, taken for granted, forgotten.

Equally mysterious was the knowing that chose what to let go of, what got thrown back into the ocean, literally or metaphorically, and what got packed to come along.

One day shortly after I began living in my new house, I happened upon a citrine crystal of a very deep burnt orange, set into the top hole of a sea urchin skeleton of cool filigreed silver-green. The citrine glowed with gold flecks inside, like a wise, wild eye.

I used to collect crystals, and knew some of their magical properties. Citrine supports cleansing and ordering, as I remember the lore.

The urchin shell fit around the crystal with perfectly symmetrical grace: curved radiating rows of light dots increasing in size towards its periphery--a divine artifact of astonishing intricacy. In my palm the combination felt potent as a wand. I had to make a Place for it.

The feeling I had was of a grounded mystery, of tangled order, an organic, spontaneous, stillness-in-motion, a secret cave. It took more than a month of working with those colors, deep orange and light grey-green, not an easy combination, looking for the energetic harmonies in 3D that could house them.

Oracle Cave, mixed media with mirror JS '09 (available)

detail, Oracle Cave: Citrine Urchin's padded throne

******************************

In the fall, my sweetheart was getting ready to drive off on a long trip. There were acorns all over the yard. I painted one with a heart in pearlescent pigments, and adapted a matchbox with glitter to house it and her other car-blessing talisman.

There is a cherishing involved in this tiny nest-making.

A week or so later, I saw my neighbor sitting on a big rock with his beloved granddaughter cuddled up in his lap. They were both curved around something she held cupped in her little hands.
"We like to pick up chestnuts," he said.

So then I had to make a chestnut nest. A celebration of the love of mundane treasures. There's a whole potential chestnut tree in there! Miracles abound.

Self-Treasuring Nest, fabrics, shells, chestnut, composition gold leaf, JS'09

I thought also of how common mussel shells are where I live, but how glorious. What's common can be overlooked. There's royalty in the humblest things.

The chestnut is removable--another found treasure could go there, or the gold leaf center of the soft encircling throne (inspired by granddaughter hands) could be left empty and open.

I found myself reflecting (heh!) that there was no mirror in this piece--they'd been showing up pretty much in every other shrine I'd been making. Then I wondered, what if the beauty, dignity, humility, simplicity and miracle of a chestnut is a mirror? Or the Place where a chestnut was... can you see your Self there?

We pick up treasures here and there, and keep them a while,
every one temporary, the memory of what made us want to
gather and sort them fleeting too.
Is it for the sake of the treasuring?
What's precious? The holding itself? The impermanence?
The little girl's hands, the old man's hands,
the chestnut, the breeze around them,
the ground that the tree could grow out of,
the light, the colors,
the whole world holding us all?
So that would include you too, wouldn't it?

******************************

Wilda in Wildanest

******************************

Book Plate

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:21:00 +0000

Librarian Ruth MacIntosh radiated humor, good-heartedness and dignity. Though I only knew her as a library patron, Ruth mattered to me a lot. Any encounter with her always lifted my day.

Ruth had an assortment of playful outfits: full Red Sox and Patriots regalia, a necklace of black bats that came out in late October, and a Wild Things t-shirt that I coveted, with Sendak's creatures dancing across it. They went well with the twinkle in her eye, and contrasted nicely with the aura of unruffled integrity that she always carried herself with.

I loved her lively, intelligent face and asked her several times over the years if she'd let me paint her portrait, or be willing to sit for photos. This request was met with a kind but absolutely emphatic no.

While Ruth was in the hospital, the friend feeding her beloved cat was allergic, and needed to run in and out with just enough time to set down food. I'm known as a cat person, so I was drafted to soothe the extremely talkative, distressed animal. It took a lot of petting and listening, agreeing with every meow, "Yes, I wish she were here, too. No, I'm not her, it's true." but eventually it wound down to purring and even some drooling.

Early this summer I was so honored when members of the library staff asked me to design a bookplate for the collection of mysteries being purchased in Ruth's memory. It's being printed in black and white on labels with a fancy border, so I made the inside part.

We miss her.

Here's a nice article about Ruth from her co-workers which includes a couple photos.

Working Small

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Grey Day, fabrics, 7.5x4.75 inches by Jude Spacks '09
Available for purchase.

I'm back into the fabric collage, working small, from small noticings.

Making little pictures seems to be creating an opening for witnessing more of the humble instants when a vision stills the talkative mind, leaving speechless awareness, aliveness, presence.

Trying to show that, however palely and inadequately, becomes worship. It doesn't have to be intense or hyped up with swooning string orchestras and godlight streaming from the sky.

There's something exciting and comforting happening, a cuddling up with how ordinary stuff is shot through and through with love.

This one is a riff on how light organizes everything, how everything visible is made of light.

Streetlight, fabrics, 7.5x6.5 inches by Jude Spacks
Available for purchase

------------------------------------

A friend stopped by with a lively new grandbaby.
I sketched very briefly, didn't get much of a likeness, but maybe just having a pencil in hand allowed the scene to imprint in some heartspace for retrieval later.

I frolicked in fabric with it for days, having a blessed run of that kind of concentration when you can't detach enough to take a sip of water, much less stop for dinner before midnight.

Though I lost some proportions from the drawing, on the other side, a sweet-comic rendition had emerged that I swear looks just like both of them. (Another friend who was there agrees. The grandma hasn't seen it yet, and perhaps will not recognize herself with blue face and pants a color like none in her possession....)

What felt so freeing was to start with a faint sketch of reality and zoom off from it into pure fiction, somehow winding up with something that felt true, maybe truer than a literal photographic version could have shown.

Meet the Grandbaby, fabrics, 9.5x12 in by Jude Spacks 09
Available for purchase

Detail Meet the Grandbaby

Some years ago, this same friend had commissioned me to make a portrait in oils of her mother and a great-grandbaby. The memory of that project gave another layer of association to working on this little one.

My friend didn't want a quite literal rendition of the photograph she gave me to work from, wanting to see her mother in a different colored shirt, among other things. So there had been a challenge of jumping off from reality into a bit of make-believe to find a deeper truth in that piece, too....

Portrait in oils, 24x32in, by Jude Spacks, '02

Green Head

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:45:00 +0000

"Would you help me with my head?" I asked, dangling the stuck-together plastic bag towards the young woman working the counter. My other hand was full of giant lettuce, plus previous purchases.

"What seems to be the problem with it?" she inquired, ushering the lettuce gently into the bag.

"Oh, I don't know, crazy thinking, probably. I thought it might help to just get a fresh head, a nice green one."

Later another woman at the cash register asked, "Just a head?"

I giggled, euphoric from the previous interaction. "Ya, I've been trying to get a-head in life, but I haven't got far. Still, it's amazing what salad can do."

"I like salad, too," she said. "Sometimes I just have to have some lettuce."

Karl Paulnack Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:31:00 +0000

Moving truth-telling on the purpose of music and other arts:

Speech given by Karl Paulnack,
pianist, and director of Music Division at Boston Conservatory

"One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, “you’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function.

So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment.

Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works. The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around firehouses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does. I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation. Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

Rosa Sat

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Fabric Portrait of Rosa Parks by Jude Spacks, '93

Just saw this lovely video of a new song for Barack Obama by Amy Dixon-Kolar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-0NvkuPHZI

"Rosa sat, so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barach ran, he ran and he won
So that all of our children could fly."

It set me weeping again. Among people I know there's been coast to coast weeping to celebrate the inauguration. Such a release of the held breath, the grief about how stuck and combative we've been. Welcoming the joy, joy, joy of integration, personal and planetary. We are one, whole, this moment.

Layering

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:51:00 +0000

I love the tactile stuff of art-making. I spent almost 30 years messing around with the textures and colors and patterns of fabric art. And I get so excited about the feel of oil paint sliding off a brush, its luscious smell, that it's all I can do not to eat it. So I never thought I'd want to work digitally, by remote-control on a screen, unable to directly touch my picture-in-progress.

10 years ago I was still refusing to deal with computers at all. A lapsed Luddite, that's me. The first week after my computer moved in, I had nightmares about my brain rearranging itself to suit the machine. I kept trying to click on my memories in my sleep.

Times change. I've found myself experimenting in Photoshop lately. I have only rudimentary facility with it, so the process still feels clumsy. But clumsiness might be part of the fun--I don't have so many habits to streamline the raw experience of making.

I get utterly absorbed, if not obsessed. I lose awareness of time, forget to so much as take a sip of water--all the symptoms of surrender to the zone of creativity--even if it is virtual creativity.

I've used layers of sheer fabrics showing through each other. I've made works in chenille, which cuts down through many layers and shows them all. In oils I use a lot of glazes, building up an image from transparent layers of paint. But being able to decide the percentage of transparency I want in an underlayer? Yowz!

Some mysterious, dreamy images have emerged. I've been taking (even) more photos lately. It's not over....

Still Point Turning

This one, and the one at the top, Keeping Still, both started from the same puddle that my friend had dropped a rock into.

The Pause Between End and Begin

The one above evolved from the one below. Both made largely of hay bales....but the Pause used some steam from my teakettle, too, along with the sheep.

More:

Winter Walk

Make Yourself At Home

My current favorite:

Tunnel to the Unknown

Solstice

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 01:34:00 +0000

What Is (Solstice Invocation) fabrics and paint '08

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

Crossed Fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:32:00 +0000

My crossed fingers, with Obama vote tatoo (temporary) in front of portrait of Harriet Tubman.
We've come so far!

What Should I Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Criticism: Taking It and Dishing It Out

Feedback

How does your work comes across to other people? Is it almost done?
Does that awkward place bother anyone but you? If you're in need of a
reality check or just a fresh perspective, your wise and courageous
Creative Guidance System might announce that it's time to get some
feedback.

Great! A time honored part of the Process. Almost all writers give a
gush of gratitude in the acknowledgments for the sainted partner, friend
or editor who read every draft and "made this a much better book."

As Shirley Abbott says at the end of The Future of Love, "Sooner or later
a writer turns to friends and family. ('Tell me what you think. Pull no
punches. But don't hurt my feelings. And by next Monday.')"

Non writers, too, may need the helpful response of feedback. Seeing your
work through others' eyes can open you to a world of possibilities that you'd
miss on your own.

But feedback also means that ear piercing whine made by a microphone
picking up and magnifying sound from an amplifier--it can hurt! Unexamined
beliefs (about doing it right, seeking approval, etc.) and habits of self attack
can amplify the sound of feedback to a painful screech.

If you're very closely identified with your work, feedback can be like
hearing someone pick on your favorite child. While you're keeping
yourself from grabbing the offender by the throat, it might not be so
easy to open your ears and listen.

If you hear, "You are a dismal failure as a writer and a human being"
when your friend says, "I'm thinking this paragraph could be shorter,"
you'll likely miss the full benefits of your collaboration.

What Do You Say Now, Dear?

Feedback can be rough on the giver, too. A friend offers you their
precious creation to respond to; they swear they really want to know.
But what if you take a peek and reel back from the smell of rotten
eggs--what if it stinks?

If you Google constructive criticism, you'll find the repeated advice to
make a sandwich. Say something nice first--that's the bread. The filling
is made of mentioning what might could stand some trifling improvement.
Finish with another slice of nice.

You imagine trying to scrape together at least a couple crackers worth
of encouragement to make a rotten egg sandwich with, wondering if you'll
be walking on eggshells around your friend for the rest of your life.

Jude Walking On Eggshells

First, Take It Personally

Whether you're giving or receiving criticism, it might help to warm up
before you go tippy-toeing through the eggshells. Like anything worthwhile,
feedback improves with practice.

Want to explore some wholesome criticism? If you'd like to experience this
exercise, please take a few minutes to write it down--doing it in your head
won't work nearly as well, if at all.

1. Think of someone working in the same medium as yours who could
do better. Write out your feedback for them in an uncensored way. Don't
bother to have a humble opinion, just an honest one. What should they do
differently? What, specifically, bugs you about their work? It doesn't
have to be a big deal. But don't hold back.

I suggest you don't read further until you've done this. Give it a whirl!

Eggshells Walking on Jude

2. Now, very gently, reread what you wrote as if it were neutral,
factual commentary about your work, from someone who loves you
and deeply understands. Look for where it could be accurate.

3. To go deeper, write three concrete examples of how each criticism
applies to your work, and/or to some other area of your life--your
meditation practice, your gardening, your spending habits, whatever
comes to mind.

4. Next, look for ways that what each criticism points out about your
work actually (also) helps it. Something that seems like a problem
can turn out to be a strength in disguise.

(If in part 1. I wrote: They make everything so complicated, and in 2.
and 3. I've found specifically how I make things complicated, here in
4. I might notice: by making things complicated I invite people to look
more deeply, to understand a richer view and so on).

5. Finally, check out the opposite of each critical statement, and look
for where that's true about your work or your life, too. (I don't make
everything so complicated, or I make everything so simple). Find
examples. Receiving (and giving yourself) positive feedback can be
every bit as challenging as the apparently negative.

For Example

Say I think someone's article is repetitious. It says the same thing
over and over. How many ways can it say that same thing in one
paragraph? It gives example after example when I already got it. Don't
they have anything else to say? Do they think the reader is an idiot? I
can understand saying something twice to make sure it came across,
but this really belabors the point. Over and over, they just say the same
thing, sometimes in the very same words!

If I become quiet and receptive and look for where my criticism of them
is right for me, I usually don't have to look too far....

Play With It

You can play with this kind of exploration in many ways. When you
happen to overhear criticism of someone or something else, you might
check to see, with kind eyes, if it could be true about your work. Go
looking for it. The world tends to be generous with criticism. It might
be just what you need for a sticky spot in your work.

Those politicians all lie! Hmmm, yes, maybe I could be more direct
and honest in my piece. I'm being so political about how it might be
received that I've lost track of what I wanted to say. Brrrr, it's too soon
for it to be so cold out. Aha! The transition into the cooler colors
on the edge of my picture is way too abrupt, that's what's been
bothering me....

Before you ask for feedback and the influence that may come with it, you
can also take the direct approach, of writing out your own criticisms
for yourself. Put down whatever you're afraid someone else might think.
Look over what you've written as simply observations that may include
valuable guidance.

Equality

This kind of practice reminds us of our basic equality with a friend who
asked for or offered feedback. No one is the all-knowing expert on
someone else's work, and anyone can potentially be helpful.

If, before dishing out criticism, we've sampled the fare ourselves, it
nourishes our natural tact and courtesy. And if we've already gotten
the habit of taking in useful criticism, even in surprising forms, we'll be
more comfortable and curious about whatever our friend has to share.
Then the process becomes a fruitful, collaborative one, alive with
possibility.

You Are SO Right!

More Pointers...

Ask for what you want

If criticism is a sandwich, it's best made to order.

"Only tell me about problems; I'm allergic to high-carb flattery."
"I don't know what I want yet, so give me whatever you've got."
"I'd like 100% lavish praise, please, as long as it's sincere."

The person serving may say, "Sorry, not on the menu--I am really only
good for nit picky trouble-shooting."

Specific questions directed to what you want to know can help focus
feedback and make it more useful. If possible, keep your questions
open-ended, to leave room for a view you hadn't already thought of.
Essay-type questions will probably get you more to work with than
yes/no or multiple choice.

Use Genuine 'I' Statements

Even if you're on fire with the conviction that your opinion is correct,
don't pretend to be a burning bush delivering the Objective Truth. It
will be easier to hear coming from an ordinary mortal.

"I thought..." "My response..." "To me...." "My feeling is...." These can
help remind both people that they can only offer their own experience
of a piece, which is all that is needed.

Don't Defend, Explain or Justify

If you start to feel defensive when receiving feedback, check in with
yourself about your motives. Are you still in it for the sake of bringing
out the best in your work, or are you after something else now?

It might be time to take a break, or to revise what you ask for."I could
use some reassurance that you get what I'm trying to do here."

If you find yourself explaining and justifying, you've stopped listening.
Since you already know whatever you're explaining, how can you
find out something new that way?

Sometimes it helps to stay busy taking notes on what your friend says;
you can sort through your reactions later.

You Can't Make Me

Your friend might have given you some brilliant suggestions. But
if you rush to slap their insights onto your piece, you might find
yourself disconnected from the process, trying to get it right in
someone else's eyes. Then it's easy to become bossy, demanding
and ultimately dissatisfied with your work.

Take some time to digest feedback and make it your own. Then
your next moves will evolve organically, from your own creative
spark that has brightened through contact with another.

The End: On Finishing, Or Not

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:20:00 +0000

Night Driving, fabrics, 12x13in. Jude Spacks '99

Endlessness

Have you ever had a project that dragged on and on, like a
nightmare road trip?

Constant whining comes from the backseat, "Are we there yet?"

Far from it. No grand finale appears around the bend, no
billboards full of accolades.

Sure, you could toss the whole thing out the window into the
litter of false-starts and almost-dones beside the road, but you've
already put so much into it....

"Are we there yet?" Did we miss a turn somewhere, the way
to a fulfilling creative life?

How'd we wind up running on empty on a back road to nowhere,
cranky and out of ideas? What drives us on to the finish, anyway?
What slows us down?

Danger: Judgment Ahead

Embarking on a creative journey can bring a grace period of pure
potential. The work feels open and fluid. It seems too soon to
evaluate and not too late to change.

But as completion approaches, the form solidifies and seems fixed.
Judgments from within and without more easily grab hold. Trying to
protect against potential criticism can lead to the wheel spinning of
perfectionism.

When I taught elementary school art, I sometimes saw even very
young children consumed with intense hatred for what they'd made.
Nothing I'd say about loving their work could keep them from wanting
to destroy it.

I have recognized the same tendency in myself. I don't violently shred
something that didn't come out the way I wanted, but the threat of
disappointment and criticism from myself still feels painful.

The possibility of rejection, misunderstanding or indifference from
others adds to the fear of finishing. Meanwhile fear of the possible
negative consequences of not finishing pressures us to get on with it.

Fear makes it hard to maintain openness and zest for the work right
through to the end. Fear of failure might goad us towards completion,
but it holds us back, too.

'Hope is as Hollow as Fear'

Hope of success might be driving us to finish, too. What do you hope
getting done will give you? Maybe there will be rewards, but does
wanting them really help you get there? Is running after a carrot of
success any more effective than fleeing a stick of fear?

When I'm frustrated with trying to finish something, I tend to believe
that I can't have peace, freedom and fun until this thing gets done.
(And I can't have dessert 'til I eat my veggies, either).

If I focus on hope for a future utopia of All Done, I reject my current
condition. I divide myself. Attention disconnects from the present,
where the source of creativity always lives. No wonder the tank feels
empty, like I'm running on the fumes of some earlier impulse that has
abandoned me. My own thinking does the abandoning, by leaving

now for an imaginary later.

"Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance."

--Tao de Ching, Stephen Mitchell, trans

Finding the Ground

What I call PressureHead--the state of mind that believes it has to
keep hiking on that ladder--makes a misery out of the journey of
creating. When I'm in PressureHead, I simply cannot find a genuine
flow of creativity to coast on to a satisfactory ending. I cannot
fake, force or figure my way out of this fact.

Then I notice that I am not in charge. I am not the Creativity Queen,
commanding my inner muse to cough up a conclusion, under threat of
fear or lure of hope. Well, that's a relief. My feet touch the ground
of reality, and I can start taking one humble step at a time again.

Some things that help me get off the imagined ladder and onto the
ground of being:

Remembering the body and sensing its energy--stretching, conscious
breathing, movement.

Doing something else for a while, preferably outside--taking a real
break. Or a nap.

Doing The Work on the thoughts, hopes and fears that created
PressureHead, to find out if they reflect reality or are actually only
made up.

What For?

I got very frustrated in the finishing stages of a fabric hanging
recently. I worked doggedly for days trying to get it to lie flat
against the wall, and it wouldn't. I told myself it didn't really
matter, but the part of me that was determined to get it right
took no comfort from that. PressureHead was about ready to
blow her stack.

I remembered that the pain is in the brain, not the circumstances--
that stubborn artwork couldn't really be causing my aggravation,
only my thinking about it could do that. So I asked myself what
I thought it meant if the piece continued to billow out on one side.
Well, isn't it obvious? It meant that I was incompetent and
unprofessional, and people would make fun of me behind my back.
It was all about my self-image, and trying to prove I was ok.

After doing The Work on these and related thoughts, I realized that I
actually had nothing to lose and nothing to gain from finishing or not
finishing, from doing it well or poorly, from getting my way or not. I
was incompetent at prevailing over the physics of heavy paint on light
fabric. So sue me! I'm already ok anyway. And if people make fun of
me, I hope they enjoy it.

With that release of self-image, a realer self reappeared. I fell back
in love with the artwork. I felt infused with an enthusiasm made of
total indifference to outcome. Of course, completion came easily then.

Someone asked me at the show how I had gotten the piece to billow in
that wonderful way--she loved how that added to its movement.

Integrity

When you're struggling to finish something, you might ask yourself: if
you knew you had nothing to lose and nothing to gain, would you still
do it?

If you answer no, maybe it's time to consider ditching the project. If
you simply quit, voila, that makes it done! You can go out and play.
Or you could choose to continue, motivated by what you believe you
stand to gain or lose.

If you answer yes, you've rediscovered the freedom of a deeper
motivation than the reward/punishment tricks the mind uses to feel in
control. The same untamable creative source that started the project
rolling is still here, whole, always new. It provides just what your
project needs, but only in the present moment, when you've given up on
the win/lose game.

You may not enjoy every minute of your finishing-up work--most
adventures have their share of hardships, calling for stamina and
fortitude. But when you reconnect with that ground of integrity in
yourself, you will love your creation like the precious child of your
heart that it is, flaws and all....

Are we there yet? Nope, we're still here.

"There is no there there."--Gertrude Stein

Halloween Mask

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:55:00 +0000

What Goes Around

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:39:00 +0000

A few Sundays ago I sat at a picnic table on a hill in a park, waiting for my laundry to cycle at the laundromat. It was a beautiful, quiet fall day. I wasn't thinking about anything. Suddenly it came to me that Obama would win the election. I felt calm and certain. I wept a little with joy and relief.

One day more recently, that certainty had left me. I felt anxious about the world. I saw a friend in the market. "How do you handle it when you get worried about the election and everything?" I asked. "Well, I remind myself that you got a psychic message that Obama was going to win!" (Someone else had told her).

"Actually, I got the same thing myself just this morning, so I can pass it back to you," she continued. "Also, I go outside. That helps. And I take chamomila homeopathic remedy." "Do you have any with you?" "Yes!" and she dug the little blue vial out of her purse....

Before Completion

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Before Completion (Fire Over Water)
Hexagram 64 of the I Ching
fabrics, threads and paint, 10x21 in, Jude Spacks '08 $549

I love that the I Ching ends before it ends: its final hexagram is called Before Completion. The text describes the transition from a state of standstill or stagnation, to one of peace. "It points to the fact that every end contains a new beginning. Thus it gives hope...." (all quotations from The I Ching Book of Changes, Wilhelm/Baynes trans.)

Before Completion is a more auspicious oracle than the preceding one, 63, After Completion, which describes an evolution from peace to standstill. When everything is done and all in order, movement stops: "For it is just when perfect equilibrium has been reached that any movement may cause order to revert to disorder."

(This reminds me of a couple I heard of who were both studying Alexander technique. The woman found her husband lying on the bed. "Don't touch me!" he said, "I'm perfectly aligned.")

Young Fox, fabrics (prints available)

A key metaphor of both hexagrams is of a fox crossing an iced over stream. An old fox has the experience, sensitivity and alertness to cross successfully. A young fox may impetuously try to rush things to completion, and wind up with the humiliation of getting it's tail wet at the end.

"Success. But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets his tail in the water, there is nothing that would further...." Then, after crossing, it's important not to turn back and get your head wet. When it's over, let it be over.

Before Completion, detail, viewed from the side

Completion calls for the tricky job of differentiating and harmonizing factors that don't easily accord with each other, like fire and water. The text explains that the only way to do this is to be in right relation with ourselves first. "...in order to handle external forces properly, we must above all arrive at the correct standpoint ourselves, for only from this vantage can we work correctly."

Before Completion, detail

Working from the correct standpoint in myself on this piece meant being a beginner. I'd never made anything quite like it before. It kept me surprised the whole time, following unexpected directions from inner guidance, like the idea of hanging one section of the piece from the other.

I experimented with a chenille technique and with making fringe out of some special threads (see The Support of Water). I didn't realize the title until the end, though I'd had some passing thoughts about fire over water. After it was "complete" I saw that the fringe suggested a fox's tail. Maybe it also implies the unraveling of ends--things coming and going from one form to another.

Another recent piece used thread to suggest fire. It also references endings and beginnings in the image of a phoenix, that burns and rises anew from its ashes. The hexagonal mirror can place your face between incarnations of the phoenix above and below.

Phoenix Mirror, Jude Spacks '08 $549
fabrics, threads, paint, and mirror, 12x21in

detail, Phoenix (chenille and threads)

Fun With Your Plastic Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:12:00 +0000

In an earlier article, we started exploring
non-obvious creative blocks.

Now we'll take a look at how recent
discoveries about brain plasticity
might help with getting out of such mind-ruts....

Neuroplasticity Success Story

My partner's friend suffered from chronic pain for years. She experienced her first sustained relief after working with a healer whose methods apply new findings about neuroplasticity--how the wiring of the brain can transform itself.

She continues to practice what she learned. When she first feels the painful sensations, she reminds herself that the pain occurs only in her brain, not elsewhere in her body (where physical causes have been ruled out). Then she redirects her mind to something else, like singing a song.

Simplistic as it sounds, changing the channel this way has been revolutionary for her. She has stopped reinforcing the neural pathways of pain and has tangible evidence that they are dwindling. She is relaxing into longer and longer pain-free periods.

The Pain is in the Brain

This friend's experience suggests a powerful way to look at transforming your own mental pathways. The first, crucial step is to realize that the difficulty you face is happening in your brain.

This reframe looks simple, and sometimes it is. It might be easy to remind yourself that pain is in the brain if you already believe it doesn't really indicate something wrong in the body or the world, even though it might feel like it does.

But often it may seem irrelevant or inaccurate to see the pain as in the brain--especially when it looks like a difficulty lives outside, in our circumstances, with the brain only passively, objectively pointing it out.

The Mind is a Magician

The mind's job is to project its interpretations outwards and to believe its own conclusions. It creates the often highly adaptive illusion that its interpretations actually are reality.

This illusion makes for useful efficiency in many circumstances. We can go with our brain's best guess without being distracted by even knowing that a guess was involved.

Usually the show is seamless. We might only become aware of the brain's magic of projecting interpretations as reality when there's been a misinterpretation of sense stimuli for some reason--when a mirage dissolves, for instance. But we're also influenced by a skillful illusionist when we believe there's no interpretation happening at all.

The Brain Behind the Curtain

Remember in The Wizard of Oz when the dog Toto pulls back a curtain, exposing the Wizard as he manipulates the mechanisms that have been producing such an impressive illusion for the heroes? The magician brain sometimes has these Wizard-of-Oz moments, intoning "Pay no attention to the one behind the curtain"--it tries to hide its own role in creating our experience.

Someone I know suddenly lost hearing in one ear. When she's in bed, the window is to her right, the side where her hearing loss is almost total. So now she hears sounds from outside the window as if they were coming from the left, inside her apartment.

But for her, there is no as if. Her brain confidently informs her, for instance, that a dog is barking outside her bedroom door (since she has no dog, she finds this unnerving). Her brain continues to interpret information as it did when she received sound data from both sides of her head. She gets to see the magician brain at work, spinning a story which might just as well be fiction as non-fiction.

What About Creative Blocks?

It looks like a (forgive me) no-brainer to say creative blocks and their pain happen in the brain. For instance, if you get harassed by jeering critical voices when you try to work, obviously the problem is in the head; where else could it be?

But it can often feel like blocks are just the way things are, as if they were simply happening to you. Without really noticing, you can experience the discomfort of a habitual block as if it occurred out of reach of the brain that actually creates and projects it.

You might believe that the pain of those critical voices was caused by people who said mean things like that to you long ago. If so, you're believing the fixed story of a past. However insightful it might be about the origins of the pattern, such a story hypnotizes you into forgetting that the pain now is being invented in your current neural pathways, which can change.

Working Worst Under Pressure

Maybe as a deadline careens towards you, the pressure starts squashing your creative ideas into roadkill. Begging for an extension or blasting yourself into caffeine orbit look like the only options. However you got here, and whatever your resolutions about how to handle it better next time, right now you have a real difficulty--you didn't make it up.

If only you could get another few days! If only there weren't so many distractions! It seems so true that the problem is objective, happening outside the brain's jurisdiction--the oldest slight-of-hand in the mind's bag of tricks.

When you stop to consider, you see that the pressure problem comes not from the actual deadline, but from your reaction to it, salted with ideas about your limitations and priorities, with a side of self-concepts about your worthiness, and so on. All that originates in your brain, not in the calendar.

The Future is an Act of Imagination

You might be watching a gripping mental movie about how not meeting that deadline will lead to your being fired, eating out of garbage cans and applying all your creative zip to reorganizing the plastic bags in your shopping cart.

"Fix it! Emergency! Emergency!" Your protective mind just amped up its job of convincing you that what it shows you is reality. "This pressure is real," it insists. And it is real, inside the mind that is experiencing it. As real as the phantom limb pain that the brains of amputees locate in a body part that no longer exists.

Future Fear

Fear can sound as certain as a meteorologist predicting the chance of dawn tomorrow morning. But fear does not have the predictive power it seems to. Maybe you'll find yourself pushing that shopping cart on the street, or maybe you'll be loading it up with gourmet goodies in the supermarket.

Where does fear exist? Is it in the future circumstances and consequences you want to avoid? They haven't happened yet, they have no actual reality. Fear occurs only here and now, in the mind and the bodily sensations that reflect it.

All creative blocks involve fear in some form--fear of failure, success, or embarrassment, fear of change, of loss, of people's opinions. And no matter what their content, fearful thought patterns can change, once you realize that the pain is in the brain, nowhere else.

Got it. Then What?

OK, so now you're convinced by your reframe: you have your brain to thank for the experience of a creative block, not external circumstances, past, present or future.

Based on the success story we started with, your next step would be to find an effective way to change the channel and stop reinforcing the mental pathways that got you into this pickle. With practice, that old road to suffering will disappear from disuse, as new mental pathways strengthen. Brain research confirms that this is physically the way it works.

Where's The Remote?

How exactly to change the channel? This is a creative endeavor of its own, calling for experimentation. Getting creative about freeing your creativity has to come out of the particulars of your challenges. What might happen if you noticed the specific mechanism of a creative block and then consistently interrupted it with a change of focus at the first signs?

Here are a few approaches you might want to play with. Play 'dangerously'! You might need some courage and determination to break out of ways that have become habitual. Take a chance, and let me know how it goes.

Stop.

For brain circuitry to change, it first has to stop doing what it's always done.

When people can't use an arm because the relevant part of their brain has been disabled by stroke, re-training the brain begins with stopping using the arm that still works. The 'good' arm is bound in a sling so that some of the neurons that direct it can re-wire to control the other arm. Intensive practice with the 'bad' arm creates the new pathways that are needed.

Experiments have shown that neurons that fire together wire together--if different neural pathways are often used at the same time, they begin to physically integrate with each other until it is difficult to re-differentiate them.

The habit of a creative block may be made up of a lot of different coordinated factors. To stop, to put the pattern in the equivalent of the 'good' arm's sling, might mean to practice inhibiting one or more factors in an almost mechanical way.

For instance, I write very slowly. I've never been able to write a quick and dirty first draft, and I've tried. (It might be dirty, but it sure isn't quick!) The functions of editing, rewriting and writing new parts are usually all mixed together for me.

I've noticed that I often go back to the beginning of a piece and reread, while editing, to orient myself before writing what's next. Sometimes that's useful, but I'm guessing it's often part of how I slow myself down.

So I'm trying out stopping rereading what I've already got. When I don't know what's next, I simply stop myself from backtracking. I'm not being rigid about it, but my hope is that this might start to differentiate rereading and fresh writing from each other, and give me more efficiency and flexibility in my writing process.

What part(s) of your block could you practice stopping?

Curing Illusion with Illusion

Neuroplasticity research has led to relief for amputees with phantom limb pain. Often a missing limb is experienced as painfully stuck in a position it was in before it was removed. New treatments use mirror boxes constructed like the props for a magic show. In them, the brain 'sees' a mirror image of a missing limb and moves it; this allows the brain to stop sending out its message of stuckness.

When affirmations work, perhaps a similar trick is involved. You convince yourself that your illusion of stuckness has already been resolved. You might experiment with giving yourself tangible signs which mirror that the block or problem is already over.

For instance, if you chronically start worrying about money instead of giving yourself over to your creative work, you might open a special bank account that you tithe a percentage of your earnings into, to symbolically or literally fund creative time. There are some other ideas about breaking through money blocks here; (remember, the pain is in the brain!)

Attention!

Our friend at the beginning of the article takes her attention off apparent pain sensations and throws herself into singing. When attention engages freshly, its previous focus disappears.

We've all experienced this. While you're ripping open an envelope containing the answer you've been waiting for, you don't notice the toe you just stubbed. And if you don't feel pain, it's not there.

We often practice this kind of common sense anyway; now neuroscience explains that it actually rewires our brains. So when you catch yourself being stuck, put your attention somewhere else. Get involved in something completely different--go for a walk, or set a timer and doodle for 10 minutes , or, or, or....

It takes focused attention to recognize that a block mechanism is in process, and to then redirect that energy elsewhere. You don't have to know the solution yet; simply to interrupt and redirect might give you very tangible results.

So how do you apply all this
to the particular patterns that keep
your creativity from flowing freely,
in life, in business, in the arts?

I don't know. I was hoping you'd tell us!
Please comment, let us know what you try and what happens!

Red Envelopes

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:50:00 +0000

.
I have a friend who briefly went to a school to study Feng Shui (the Chinese art of balancing energies in an environment). She learned that traditionally, Feng Shui practitioners are paid in 9 red envelopes containing money which is also in multiples of 9. This is supposed to empower the 'cure' for the environment, like the crystals which are on 9 inch strings, etc.

I felt inspired to thank her for the good advice she'd given me about my apartment. So I gave her 9 red envelopes, which I made. (I thought making the envelopes might empower the cure even more; but even though it's way better than it was, clutter still reigns around here, so I'm not certain that's how it works.)

Inside one red envelope, I put a check for $18, in others, 36 shiny dimes, 9 five dollar bills, 54 pennies, all polished, and so on--I remember it added up to being quite a lot, and it was fun to give. She was touched, and slept one night with all of them under her pillow. Here are 5 of the envelopes--I can't seem to find a picture of all 9:

Since then, I've set all my own prices and fees in multiples of nine (though I skip the envelopes!) I like how the exchange of monetary energy with this association to Feng Shui acknowledges the positive power of paying for the client along with the obvious benefit to the practitioner who is supported to continue their calling. And maybe it really does increase the helpful potency of the work, its transformative magic--who knows?

There are other potent associations for 9--months to grow a baby, a transformation in itself, number of types in the Enneagram, a map of human personality that I refer to often in coaching, and the fact that 9 is 1 shy of 10--so it's an automatic bargain ('just $9.99!')

Doing it this way has helped me receive money in the comfort of an open, light-hearted reverence that heightens gratitude. I don't have to tell the client anything about it, but I imagine they sense the energy of integrity, that I stand behind my prices in a way that works for my quirky self.

Sometimes in setting prices, I also privately reference the numbers of the I Ching hexagrams, which I often study. (See posts on Hexagram 60, Limitation and Hexagram 3, Difficulty at the Beginning).

So, the current price on the artwork The Support of Water, which was made with spiritual intent, is $549, or 9 times 61. 61 is the number of the I Ching hexagram for Inner Truth. Maybe when this piece moves into someone's beautiful home environment, it will quietly broadcast a bit more of the energy of inner truth for having been purchased at that symbolic price. I don't know, but I am happy to have odd clues like this from my own inner truth to follow in the strange and challenging exercise of setting prices on the intangible value of artwork.

The Support of Water

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:18:00 +0000

The Support of Water (or:Water With a Haircut),
paint, fabrics and thread 10x15 inches 08

If you took the first part of the tour of the show I've got up at the Belfast Free Library this month, here's one of the pieces we didn't get a chance to talk about yet. It's another exploration of combining painting and fabric art.

The inspiration came from a particularly sweet moment swimming at my favorite pond. I became aware of how light and safe and complete the touch of water is, how effortlessly it floats us. This seemed a close metaphor for the gentle power of the 'still, small voice' of spiritual support. So trustworthy.

Also, visually, I'm endlessly fascinated by how water reflects and refracts all the colors around it, and simultaneously shows its own cumulative blues with such extreme contrasts of light and dark so smoothly connected--great visual contrast in harmony, always new. And I love the depth and variety of movement. Such a challenge to respond to in a static medium.

Here's how it was made. The painted parts were on a heavy dark denim. I started by blocking out some shapes with tape resist and painting over them with an opaque fabric paint medium mixed with a little pure pigment. Later I added many layers of transparent fabric paint, acrylics, hand-mixed pearlescent pigments and even some glitter. Some of the layers were scored with a palette knife or other things (including a comb!) to scratch through to layers below.

The unpainted cloth parts were made by adapting a chenille technique. There are seven stacked layers of different fabrics, sewed in wavy rows that decrease in interval (to give a sense of 3-D perspective). They are cut away in the channels between the sewing to different degrees and different levels with a chenille cutter and small scissors, and then ruffled up to different degrees too. I think this works to give a feeling of movement and variety and depth.

The fringe on the sides was made with antique silk threads I was given by a friend whose mother had been an avid seamstress. They are in beautiful, luminous colors, too delicate now to sew with for most things. I chose colors to echo and unify the other parts, and to give that feeling of how light and dissolving water is.

I thought of the alternate title, Water With a Haircut, with a giggle, as I was trimming the fringe. For me, this completed the communication of the piece; I experience that vast, loving support as including humor...where would we be without that?

More on Show

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:13:00 +0000

Want to take a little tour with the artist? Step this way....

As you come in the door to the Belfast Free Library, directly across from you next to the elevator hangs this Portrait of Rodney Dennis.

Rodney Dennis was Manuscript Librarian of Houghton Library. He lived in Cambridge, MA and Union, ME. Thanks to Christie Dennis for commissioning and loaning the painting.

Across the room, you'll probably notice first the big picture called What Is, of Kathleen Hannan, conducting singing up to a high note at an interfaith celebration.

It's at the end of the wall across from you, which you might glance at...

...before you see that right next to you, as you still stand by the door, is a wall of little mirrors, ending with a small angel altar on the left.

At the right side of this wall is the artist's statement. Want to read it?

The first two (glass) mirrors have little vases inset in front of them, with an offering of a few small flowers. They are both called Made Mostly of Water, like the flowers are. If you look into them, you might consider that you are part of that same flow and freeze and melt, the drops and waves of life.

These two pieces were very loosely inspired by the photos of water crystals exposed to a variety of concepts, in Masaru Emoto’s The Hidden Messages of Water.

They're roughly 12" high, made with layers of handmade papers, some sewn together and then cut with a chenille cutter and raised in grooves. The one directly above has composition silver leaf crumpled and inset at the top.

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The piece in the middle is called Mirror of Transition. When my soul-sister died, I traveled out with her into the night sky. I heard myself say, "I'll go with you a little way, Joanne" as I lay in bed miles away. I experienced an indescribable sense of expansion, spaciousness, peace and awe. The next morning I learned she had passed at just that time.

Maybe 20 years ago Joanne gave me the piece of black lace with shot through with shiny hot pink threads that veils the mirror. (The post Anger tells one small story of what I learned from her). The veil refers to the Jewish tradition of covering mirrors after a family member has passed. As you look at yourself through it, you may see a mystery.

Every transition is a little death and ascension to a new and unknown form, or into formlessness. This piece has layers of transparent and semi-transparent fabrics; it tiers back and back as you look through, into an undefined light essence rising, a distant evocation of that moment of letting go into transformation. Or, that's what I was going for. What's it like for you?

Here's a detail of what's under the veil--a small advantage of a virtual tour, since I know in person you would never pick up the veil to peek, it's very delicate.

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Next comes Mirror of Aging Beautifully. Look in--obviously, you are (aging beautifully--admit it!) Here the mirror reflects the What Is picture across the room. To the left, the little angel altar; you can barely see the composition gold leaf inset center focus in the shelf from this angle.

Maybe you recognize this piece from the flyer that's up around town about the show:

It's intended as a magic mirror, like the ones in fairy tales--"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

Something happens when you donate your face to the composition, right up close. All the symmetry and non-symmetry and near-symmetry, the dynamic balance of vivid and soft colors, the flowing, expanding lines of crows feet, or wings, the rising and falling and circling around of the shapes, all that harmonizes with your beautiful, changing face in this irreplaceable moment....

Well, sorry, guess you had to have been there....

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Let's take a quick look at the opposite wall, shall we? This one, Inner Reach, is a particular favorite of mine.

It's a new departure for me to show more abstract pieces like this. It's done with fabric paints on canvas, and colored pencil, sewn onto a heavy dark blue denim backing.

I like how you can't really tell what's on top of what, but you wind up with an impression of depth or spaciousness, full and open at once. Maybe it evokes an enlarged section of an imaginary scan of your mind...or maybe not.

Someone at the opening said he saw an unhappy face with slashing claw marks across it. Hmmm. The eyes of the beholder, that's where art lives...

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This one at the left corner is called Stick With Love. The story behind the piece is in Dogged Dedication. The image was done with pastels and glitter on black fabric, the border, with fabric applique.

An theme of the show is experimentation with ways of combining fabric art and painting/drawing. I worked primarily in representational fabric collage for 25 years and then returned to painting where I started, in oil portraiture. So I'm interested in how to integrate the different media.

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There's three more to look at on this wall, and I seem to keep talking your ear off here. Is that enough for now? Personally, I can't look at a show for too long without getting a little jaded. Want to go upstairs and get a book out? We can come back in another post to look at the rest. As you head for the stairs, you'll see the corner on the left:

And looking down on the right as you climb the stairs, maybe you'll want to check out this Phoenix Mirror and Angel Altar later...

Oh, one other thing. Yes, most of them are for sale, but since it's a free library, the prices aren't mentioned on the wall, and there's not even a price list out.

But if you see one that might be for you, send me an email at judespacks@gmail.com and I'll be glad to tell you more about the piece, and the price.

Hey, thanks for looking and reading so far! Seeya later.

Invisible Creative Blocks

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Do you have an invisible creative block??

Some creative blocks are obvious. That dead smell coming from the drawer with the unfinished novel in it, the cobwebs across the studio door--these might be clues. But maybe you're not stalled or tortured, not scratching your head raw hoping a light bulb will sprout out of it. You've tamed the worst of your procrasto-gizmos, and things are coming along quite well, thanks, whether you're creating in the arts, at a job, or in daily life.

Some blockages to creativity have subtler symptoms. Here's a random sample of hidden jam-ups that may mute your joy, ruffle your peace and stunt your leaps as you create.

Groove Turns Into Rut

You're grateful for your success. But you've been doing the same thing the same way for so long that you can do it in your sleep, and you do (snooze). People clamor for more of what you're known for, what you do so well. You wouldn't want to risk a flop by trying something new. You're not sure you could get along on short rations of approval or money now that you've gotten used to having them.

Bound for Glory

If your internal talk-radio shouts fiasco predictions while you're trying to create, it's no surprise when you lose momentum. But if that inner DJ spins out lavish praise in advance, woohoo! you're flying and feeling no pain. While you're imagining your outfit and planning your humble acceptance speech for the big award, you don't have a whole lot of patient attention left for your masterpiece-to-be in its current gawky faze. You're so busy being a genius that the mundane spadework of creating doesn't actually engage you much.

Ball and Chain

You have the discipline and determination to see your project through. In the satisfaction of steadily accomplishing what you set out to do, you hardly notice that you haven't surprised yourself in a long time. While you were keeping control of yourself and the process, the thrill and the fun sidled out the back door without saying goodbye--they didn't want to interrupt your serious work.

Anti-Perfectionism

Those poor saps who niggle at every irrelevant detail have really got a block (yes, they do). You, on the other hand, are zipping along, making good time towards your destination of being done with this project and on to the next thing. If you cut some corners, well, you were built for speed. You're the kind who sees the forest and doesn't bother with the trees. But did you really see the forest (much less take a soulful walk in it)? In your rush to the finish did you deny yourself the beautiful depth of view that was down a side road, off the exit you blurred right on by?

If you find yourself bound up in these or other blockish patterns you recognize, congratulations! Finding where you are is the first, crucial requirement to moving on. Even Houdini couldn't get out of a box he didn't know he was in.

All creative blocks originate as fearful thoughts--fear of failure, success, or embarrassment, fear of people's opinions, fear of change, etc. And no matter what their content, thought patterns can change.

The good news about blocks, hidden or obvious, mild or miserable, is that they happen in your head. Recent research shows that your brain is much more flexible than previously known. It has a huge capacity to free itself from its own old patterns and structures as needed, and to create new ones.

The topic of neuroplasticity is on my mind (pun intended) because I just finished reading The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD, a 400+ page tome that could be a good anti-altziemers mental workout on its own. I'm very excited about the implications and applications of this material for creative life and work.

It will take another article or two to
address new ideas about how to clear creative blocks
based on the science of neuroplasticity.

If you want to get started now, the first step is to identify a block that pesters you. Notice everything about it, from self-talk to bodily sensations. Find out what it likes and where it hangs out, so you can see it coming and call it by name. This can be transformative in itself....

Want to watch a Dan Rather report on neuroplasticity that shows what happens in the brains of experienced meditators? It's online here.

Show Up

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:46:00 +0000

What Is, fabrics, fabric paint, pastel, acrylics 36"x56" '08

I've had an intense month of finishing work for a solo show in the gallery at The Belfast Free Library. Now it's up, for the month of August! The opening happened and most of the left-over snacks have even been eaten. In my little apartment, the walls are blessedly clear, and almost all the pins have been swept up off the floor.

First to try the snacks

I ride my bike down to the Library most mornings to check on the flowers in the pieces with mirrors and tiny offering vases, and to see if anyone's left me a note in the book. If you're in Maine and can find time to stop in, please do.

The piece What Is at the top of the post is the biggest and sunniest in the show--it gets to be a focal point in the room. Read about its beginnings here. This is the photo that inspired it:

More to come....

Procrasto Gizmo

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:47:00 +0000

What Does It Mean? canvas collage, fabric paint and thread, 05

Thanks to Websafe's comment on What Does Stinkwanink Mean? for the vocab enhancement of "neologism" ....

Anyway, a semi-neo one of those has emerged in my personal lexicon lately:

procrasto-gizmo (n): A network of beliefs, some of which may be convincing, that serve to keep something from happening, without the host even noticing.

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Most Recent Example:

I was really sure that I must learn how to use my web design software before I could work on the website content. I'm very visual, don't you know, and if I can't see how it's going to look and be able to mess around with that, it's hard for me to even think.

So I have tried, for two years now, to teach myself Dreamweaver from library books, and I still can't figure out how to center a table on the screen. I have unsuccessfully sought a tutor (probably any 8 year old would do) to answer the million and three idiotic questions that arise the instant I try some new technofuss like this. (The definition of technofuss is self-evident, isn't it?)

I had a membership in an on-line forum (Molly Gordon's Shaboom County) that might help me tremendously with the website content, and I hadn't used it once, though the subscription time was already half over. Hmmmmm.

Once I got started, I realized it had all just been a procrasto-gizmo, and a good one. I had been just a wee bit intimidated and confused about the content (oh, that). There's more than plenty to do without the layout yet, and now it's underway, with the support, feedback, wisdom and humor of the wonderful Shaboomers; Dreamweaver can wait.

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Please add your own examples in the comments, and tell us what other new words you've been saying lately, too.

Art First

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:13:00 +0000

It's happened again. The sneaky habit that puts off creative work has latched on like a leech. Days fill up with looking for bacon to bring home, and other necessities and frivolities. And in the back of the busy buzzing head drips the sad old song: when will I ever get in the studio, visit that Zone of creative flow?

So I'm taking my own good advice. (Someone has to do it!) I assigned myself 10 for 10 again--ten days of taking at least ten minutes daily for creative right-brain-led play in any medium, without focus on outcome. If you sign up for my monthly newsletter on the left, I'll send you an article about this and more. And/or read this post.

That was three days ago. Already I feel SO MUCH BETTER. I am once again amazed at how much can happen in ten minutes, how it leavens the day, how it pops the bubble of believing in Not Enough. And I know a longer session of studio work will come around at the right time, when that wave is ready to lift and carry me. I'm in no hurry--what a relief.

People Who Have to Do The Dishes
Before They Can Get to Work

Unconditional

noreply@blogger.com (Jude) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:01:00 +0000

Double Portrait of Buddy, oil painting 8x18" '02

See the world as yourself
Have faith in the way things are
Love the world as yourself
Then you can care for all things.

--Tao de Ching , Stephen Mitchell, trans.

Fred, fabrics, 30x33 '91 (prints available)

Fred was three legged golden with a big heart. His person used to talk about him as a true mirror of God (dog spelled backwards); she found it inspiring that Fred had no idea that there was anything lacking in having 3 instead of 4 legs. It was obvious that his essence was love, he had faith in the way things are and could care for all things.

We kind of expect a dog to be a mirror--knowing the cliché of people looking like their dogs--but sometimes we might forget the compliment to the human implied in that.

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Sam, the boatyard dog, was part of the same family later on. The painting was commissioned as a surprise gift, and the only photo that could be spirited away without notice was this wonderful black and white one (below) that I worked from; (Sam had died and we'd never met). A friend snuck in and stole a color snapshot off the fridge, replacing it with a color xerox, so I could study it for color hints.

Sammy, oil painting, 28x35(?) '03

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A client who loves dogs has never felt able to live with one. She said she just couldn't handle taking in that much unconditional love, it made her feel unworthy and also over-responsible somehow. And she thought she could never recover from the loss of a dog, that her heart, once opened, could simply shatter. There were other conflicts she projected on dogs, too, like seeing powerful people as "top dogs" and herself submissively slinking off with tail between legs.

She took my suggestion to watch some Dog Whisperer videos. (I see Cesar Millan as a profound spiritual teacher, almost as much so as the dogs he works with.) She was entertained by the shows, and she found some good applications of Cesar's much-repeated advice to remain calm and assertive--with herself and other people, if not with a canine. But a breakthrough came much later, by surprise.

Ayla (detail) fabrics '91?

On a trip to Mexico, at a sacred site, she was approached by a thin mother dog, with hanging teats and ribs showing.

"I was instantly afraid; if I opened to loving her there would be a whole rescue project, shots and red tape and trying to bring her back to the States," she said.

"But I couldn't close my heart. So I shared my crackers with her. Maybe I should have been scared that being a wild dog she'd bite my hand off. But at the time I didn't think of that.

She took each cracker with great delicacy. She was so present receiving them, as if she were taking communion. She enjoyed every sacred crumb. And then she gave me one grateful look in the eyes and just...left!

Later I saw her working some other tourists for their crackers. And I got it. There was no guilt trip, no rescue mission, no obligation. She knows what to do. She's held. She's fine! So I got to know what unconditional means, I got to meet it in myself."

Jingles, fabrics '90?

Later, she was working on her food issues, berating herself for eating a whole bowl of chocolate pudding.

"What would your Mexican-mother-dog-guru tell you about that?" I asked.

"She'd show me to enjoy every lick. She'd tell me that how ever much I'd had was the exact right amount. And you know, I did enjoy every morsel of that pudding. I curled up on the couch with the bowl and ate it slowly and just savoured it. It's not true that I shouldn't have!"

Holly, fabrics, '88?

Since then, Mexican-mother-dog-guru has been shortened to the obvious holy name of Dog-Ma. Dear DogMa, Bless our food. Teach us gratitude. Mirror the unconditional in our hearts. Show us Enough, here and now.

Why Do You Ask?
for Donald Hall

I can't make
any story
about my life

tonight. The house
is like an overturned
wastebasket;

the radio
is predicting
more snow.

I ask my dog
to tell me
a story, and she

never hesitates.
"Once upon
a time," she says,

"A woman lived
with a simply
wonderful dog..." and

she stops talking.
"Is that all?"
I ask her.

"Yes," she says
"Why do you ask?
Isn't it enough?"

--Kate Barnes

If you like your unconditional love in feline guise, check out Cat Love and Wilda, where I admit I gush.

And if you want more dog-love, read about Lady, the Canine Creative Life Coach.

Lady

Stick With Love fabrics, pastel, paint 14x17" '05 (available)