{by Sarah Bloom}

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{by Jenica McKenzie}

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{By Jessica at One Wild and Precious Life}

Today the earth is pressed against this wide white emptiness and there is still this gap in me, this hesitation.

I’ve been thinking about painting.

My fear was the blank canvas and nothing to paint.

{by Jo of Mylestones}

Sometimes I feel like the pit of my stomach is an airtight word container, precariously latched, desperately shoving against my heart to spill onto the open page. Sometimes my soul must labor to breathe because of thoughts lodged in my lungs, freed only in the coughing compulsion of tippity-tapping on the keys.

I don’t always feel it, but when I do, it nags at me until I can’t think of anything else but letting it out. And most of the time, I don’t even know what it is I’m unleashing, until it is there in front of me in words I can finally read.

But that’s nothing new, right? Just a common ailment of a writer? (Or in this case, of a girl who is still reluctant to call herself a writer or even admit that she wants to be one.)

What troubles me is how this feeling gets in the way of my daily life, how it diseases the moment I’m in. And what troubles me more is how in my melancholy, I savor these symptoms as if it is soothing to be sick.

I despise how easily I can disappear into my head and miss the rich flavor of the moment. I know I won’t be offered another taste of those sixty seconds, yet I persist in fasting from the present.

It strikes me at the library, surrounded by foam puzzles and board books. It strikes me at a party, surrounded by friends and frivolity. It strikes me on a run, in the car, in the middle of a conversation. It strikes me, and I think, “I must start writing, or I will explode.” (I am wrong about this. I will not explode. All that ever happens is that I grow weary of feeling on the verge of explosion.)

And here is the bottom line, if I’m really confessing, if I’m really naming the fear. I’m afraid that if I don’t let the container spring wide open and write, then I will never know what the deep-down me is trying to say. And if I don’t find out, if I (the daily I) do not listen to her, then no one will. She will never be heard.

{by Nicole of 60piggies}

{Originally Published on Rimarama}

In my violin teacher’s living room this morning, I was fumbling through a rhythm exercise I had executed perfectly just hours before in the privacy of my home.

“I want you to know” I said, “That I sound so much better when I’m practicing by myself and doing it backwards. But then I come over here, and by the time you’ve corrected my hand position and bow hold and reminded me to relax my neck, everything just goes to pot!” I said, by way of a joke.

My teacher considered this, but did not let it roll. “I will always be correcting you,” she said. “That is my job. You can’t come in here, no matter how hard you’ve been practicing, and expect to play perfectly. It’s not like one day you’ll show up and I’ll say, ‘That’s it! You’re done! On to the symphony with you!’ There is always room for improvement, and I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t point that out.”

I was dying to explain myself further, to stress the fact that I wasn’t expecting perfection, I only wanted her to know that I play much better when she’s not breathing down my neck. But if I’m honest, in my heart of hearts I am always sort of hoping that one day she’ll say, “You know . . . you have real talent!”

But she continued: “Being so hard on yourself is no way to live. When you expect perfection of yourself, it spills over into your relationships with others. You expect them to be perfect, too. And no one wants that.”

She had imparted this wisdom with no hint of malice or judgment, but still my jaw dropped to the floor. Was my violin teacher lecturing me about personal relationships? The last time anyone besides my mother had offered up unsolicited advice was in 1997, when a close friend counseled me to quit the job I hated or stop bitching about it, already.

And then my teacher brought up my old nemesis, the adorable eight-year-old violin student.

“I think I’ve mentioned him to you before” she said. “He can barely get through one measure without me adjusting something, but do you know what he does? He just laughs, shrugs, gives me the cutest little impish look, and keeps on going! He is totally unfazed! And SO JOYFUL! I wish we could all be more like him!” she said, sunbeams shooting out of her ears and reflecting off her dangly silver zen earrings.

Originally posted at My Marrakesh:

It’s morning, and I am meeting my friend Benoit, a French interior designer.

We are meeting at Bab al Khemis, which means Thursday’s Door in Arabic. All around Marrakech’s old city, known as the medina, there are babs, or huge carved entryways. Each bab has its own name, and Bab al Khemis it is the entryway to the city’s equivalent of the flea market. Outside the bab, vendors are beginning to throng, displaying broken bits and bobs, as well as an occasional gem or two.

Benoit arrives, and we kiss, French-style, on both cheeks. For a number of years, Benoit designed interiors for the King of Morocco. Now he and his young family have moved to Marrakech and recently have bought a piece of land. Close friends of ours, Benoit and his charming wife Zoo, also a designer, are giving us a helping hand with our guest house interiors.

In T-shirts and cargo pants, we are ready for action. Today we are looking for antique doors and other architectural remnants that will help give our guest houses some character. We have brought along with
us one of Chris’s employees, Khalid, who can be counted on to negotiate in Moroccan dialect so fast that it makes your heads spin.

{Originally published on Pepper Paints}
first appeared on Blog Nosh Magazine on June 25, 2008

Our afternoon started like this; with some Jackson Pollock splatter painting:

Then like this:

Then they realized how much paint they had on their bodies and it could have been all down hill from there.

But, really it ended up being the kind of experience that we (crazy parents!) hope for!

{Originally Published on Artists Who Blog}

Leah Giberson’s paintings are beautiful, and how I wish I could see them in person! I’d love to hop over to Boston and have a studio visit, but for the time being I’ll have to be happy with the possibilities the Internet offers us. Leah is not only a gifted artist herself, she is also one of those artists who encourages others. It’s been great to get to know her online this year, so I am especially happy to have her as a guest this week. Leah sells top quality archival prints of her work, as well as a selection of originals in her Etsy shop. She has a blog, and posts frequently on flickr. Enjoy, and please don’t miss my questions for you, dear readers, at the end of the interview

Why did you decide to start a blog?

To tell you the truth I really hadn’t paid much attention to blogs up until last March when I opened my Etsy shop. Not only did I soon discover a world of other artists selling their work online, but I also found a seemingly endless world of inspiration on their blogs. I’ve had never had any interest in public journaling about my personal family life or reading about others quite frankly, but when I discovered how artists were using their blogs to share artistic inspiration, new work and news, I was thrilled. Then when I started getting visitors to my own blog with their clicks, views and comments I was hooked.

{Originally published on Three by Sea}

This simple little sign hangs inside the armoire in my studio. And by studio, I mean the dining room that I’ve taken over as my studio! That same sentiment is also next to my computer and inside my notebook. I read it somewhere a few months back and it resonated within me. It reminded me that life is what you do, not what you plan. Sitting there pondering, and wondering, and thinking, and surfing the internet, and reading about things you would like to do is not the same as doing them.

Holly at Decor8 wrote a great blog post as part of her Creativity Series about “Analysis Paralysis”, whereby one is so overwhelmed with information that they are unable to make a decision. It seems to be a common affliction among creative types. Holly goes on to give advice for moving from inaction to action. The post is well worth reading. Having gone through this myself, I thought I talk about the things that help keep me from getting side-tracked during my journey of starting a business from home.