Semanas piece: Week 51 - Strength 5 in. X5 in.
This art piece is from a 52 week art project. I participated with a group of women in 2004. We each created a weekly art piece. We called the project Semanas (spanish for weeks). This is the piece I did for week 51. I put my writing with each piece - and this is the little bit of writing that went with this piece:
This piece was an experiment. I’ve been playing with beeswax as a collage glue and effect. So in that spirit I sat down to just combine some different things and see what develops. I feel as if I have gone through a transformation with this year of semanas. I feel as if I’ve gained strength. My art making muscles were weak, but now after 51 weeks I feel stronger and able to fly on to other art projects. Most significantly, I feel as if I’m back in the habit of starting and finishing an art project.I realize after rereading this text that creativity and art making and life all ebbs and flows. In 2004 I was feeling like I'd gotten back on track, but in the meantime my husband and I started building a house. Most of 2005 stopped me from focusing on my little art projects or more honestly I choose to let it stop me. I could write so much about the Semanas project and I could write so much about the process of building a house, but what I wanted to write about here was how I see there is larger vision of creativity moving as a spiral. Sometimes it feels like a lot is happening. I'm in one of those periods now with the blog and the Artist's Way and a ceramic clay renewal. I also see that I really wasn't so far off track last year although at the time I felt very empty and desperate. Yet look at how quickly I've dropped back into my creative world.
Our Semanas group evolved last year into a new art project we are calling Luna. Named for the moon and the plan to make a larger monthly art piece. I think that every one of us is behind on our work or hasn't really done the work as we had originally intended. I wanted to work with the cycle of the new moon and life just got in the way. I don't want to try to go backward and recreate work for each month that has passed. I want to just begin again where I am at currently. So tonight our group will meet after several months of not having a face to face meeting. We will share whatever work we've done. I plan to share some of my daily lumps. I am considering sharing my blog address as well. I feel like being able to write for my blog has given me such a creative renewal. I'm not sure I'd have work to share tonight if I hadn't started this blog nearly 2 months ago.
It's all cycles. There has been an ebb in the Luna group. We haven't stayed as connected and life has brought us all different challenges. And I realize this - we named our group after the moon partly because several of us had heard an artist Meinrad Craighead say "the moon is the patron of artists because like artists it begins again and again and again." Upon reflection this morning, this I know deep in my heart- that we can always, always begin again. The creative flow is never the same each time we dip our fingers and toes into it - and sometimes it seems to dry up completely - and yet it's there. It's there!
So, I am going to the Luna group tonight and leaving this post to say I begin again within this Luna group. I share this at the beginning of week 8 in the Artist's Way - the topic is strength which is why I picked week 51 of the my semanas to show you. I haven't read the chapter but I believe that we build our strength as makers, creators, artists, and dreamers by showing up and being willing to face whatever creative cycle the flow is giving us this day. Creative blessings to you my readers......
