Creativity and your muse

 Nearly all creative possibilities are related to the muses that inspire us.

From Daily Om

You will know that you have found your muse when you encounter a force that makes you feel courageous enough to broaden the range of your creativity.

and...

Once you have identified your muse, embrace it by giving yourself over to the creative inspiration it provides. No matter what you are moved to create, you will find that neither fear nor criticism can penetrate the wonderful bliss that goes hand in hand with the act of taking an idea and turning it into something the whole world can enjoy.

Beauty, a constant, a value we all know and share

I don't know which Greek philosopher might have said there are certain constants which are shared as values by all civilizations, all people...and it may not have been Greek.  Beauty, Truth, Love, etc.

So today's constant, I choose to celebrate Beauty.

Whether hiking a mountaintop, strolling by a lake or river, or enjoying an artist's image, each of us appreciates beauty from somewhere deep inside us.  Of course we have our own taste in regards to what we most like, but the constant is that we all know we like something these things have in common.

Beauty just is.  By itself.  To be seen, heard, smelled, imagined, tasted, touched!

As a visual artist I see what appeals to me, and translate it into shapes and colors that I hope appeal to others.  It's a driven impulse in me, to share that connection.  I am happiest thinking that someone else will someday see something I've made and enjoy it also.

I've got other "constants" to share...more on future blogs.

Today's quote:

Being aware of the connection between all things can help you in terms of the broader effect you may be creating. 

Madisyn Taylor

What a creative slump needs...

Last year I took time off to get physically rehabilitated.

This year I made very little pottery during December, and didn't even send Christmas presents on time.  But I wasn't incredibly stressed out either.

I came out of the holiday season ready to really dig in and create.

Some forms for several people who want pottery I've made

But there are sure times when I have a creative slump. Don't you, in whichever creativity you do?

The extent of my holiday decorations, already taken down and stored away!

Creativity may depend upon a muse, an ethereal inspiration.  But it also depends upon some discipline.

Did you pick a word for the year?

Another blogger, Cristine Kane, (HERE) suggested this, and I've been doing it for several years...most productively! The product has been a life with some measure of centering on what exactly I needed during that year.

Lake Tomahawk at noon in January 2017. Is it freezing or warm? Can't tell!

 Quote for today:

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. — Thomas Jefferson

My Mother's Day thoughts

Mother's Day is this Sunday.

I think I'll talk about mothering.  It's so different than fathering.  Yes, that sounds sexist, but I know of no men who give birth or nurse the babies.  So from day one, a mother has given life itself.  Then she comes up with this mysterious milk right out of her body also, to keep that life going for months...with regular demands for it.

By the time a child has begun to walk, talk and feed itself, a father can pretty well do everything a mother can do for it.  Though few do.

I loved how my children were waist high, then shoulder high, and then all surpassed me as adolescents.  These young men then knew more than I did, and acted like it.  They finished schooling, married really great women, and now I have 6 grandchildren.

Giving birth is not easy! There's seldom a remembrance of how hard that task actually was. 

As my grandchildren arrived, I found out I was not the mother who my son's honored on Mother's Day anymore.  The wives who had given birth to their children were the mothers in my sons' lives from then on.

It's as it has ever been.

I honor all who give birth to creativity and sustaining life...not just those who have a baby.

The mothers of invention need to be recognized, and we also need to acknowledge many mothers have babies who may not have been completely nurturing.  Honoring life and creativity is what it's all about.

My current "baby" lying next to the mask I made of Muffin many years ago, and the box under it with her ashes.  Besides them is another form of life (green) in a beautiful pot by my friend, Cathy Babula.

My life as background to creativity

Good November first...
All Saints day, for those who know saints.  I've learned a few from my Catholic friends.  And researched a few just out of curiosity.

I'm relaxing here with coffee at desk, on laptop with fingers stretching and wiggling again. 
They've been doing other things lately.  Not pottery, alas.

But next week yes!  Christmas is upon us full swing.  So something or another to celebrate that season.

Remember when stores didn't do Christmas till the day after Thanksgiving?  Ha ha.

I've got waaay more pottery than a "hobby potter" should have.  On the other side of that, I've got waaaay more pottery than a "clay artist" should have.  That's what I chose to call myself.  So there's lots of art, artistic things, and not so artistic functional things around my house.  And not all made by yours truly.

This afternoon I'm doing a House Blessing, to officially make this new apartment my own nest.  Some friends will help with an elemental blessing.  I'm looking forward to that.  (So far it's not raining here!)

Blogging has really been fun, my journalling of various experiences.  Should I keep doing this?  I'm kind of making it less about clay work and more my own life these days.  Mmmm...perhaps my own life has become the forefront where it will again settle into the background to creativity.

We shall see.  First see ya in the funny papers...

Quote for today:
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Carl Jung