The Hope of Creating Something Beautiful – by Ramona Heikel

I love watching others create beauty in sight, sound or motion. In the past year or so, I have enjoyed Shakespeare in the Park; small jazz and oldies bands; our high school musical production of Cinderella; a gallery of Dr. Seuss art; watching and joining in a folk dance; and the Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys.  In each experience, I marveled at the talent and inspiration behind them, and grew excited to work on my own artistic pursuits.

Miniature kitchen from the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys

Taking pictures while hiking or walking in a natural area clears my mind and fills it with the beauty of the micro and the macro--with few other thoughts--for hours.  Although it’s not my intention when I leave home with a camera, that focus and calm opens up my heart to creative inspiration.  As a bonus, it leaves me with possibilities to create something that will bring joy and gratitude to someone else, such as making my own greeting cards, or posting photos of God’s creative work on a website.

So I seek out the creativity of others for the sheer enjoyment of it.  And that often inspires my own creativity.  Maybe, I am also at the same time unintentionally, subconsciously seeking out opportunities to fill my artistic well, that author Julia Cameron writes about in The Artist’s Way.  Either way, it works!

I think my focus on writing, above all other arts, is inspired by that same desire to create something beautiful.  In this case, I want to create something beautiful in the mind of the one who reads it.  Originally, that first person was me.  I noticed this when I wrote some novels.  At the time, I couldn’t find what I wanted to read in others’ novels, so I tried writing one myself.  (Not as proficiently as most other writers, of course!  And I have since found more and more fiction authors who write exactly what I want to read.)

Flickr photo of Fish Creek Library by Raul Pacheco-Vega

My most consistent writing “date", especially in the cold months, is a trip to my local library.  The vastness of the open-air design and the 3-story-high windows welcome the sun’s rays and blue sky, or the calming sight of falling snow.  It satisfies my mid-winter longing for wide-open spaces, without having to fight the cold.  I spend some time people watching, studying the children playing with the life-sized chess game or the new colorful piano, and checking the New and Notables racks.  I may even make a trip up the three flights of stairs to the top floor to get some deep breaths and blood circulation.  Finally, I head to the 808.02 section to see if there are writing books I haven’t seen before.  By then my goal is to find an interesting writing prompt and a cushy chair near a window.

All of the people I’ve seen and conversations I’ve heard and inspiration I’ve inhaled have awakened my heart, senses, and mind.  Thoughts and ideas come streaming out, and I’m learning to let the words flow —without filtering, analyzing or editing. Any day that includes this kind of pure, joyful, open writing, with the hope of creating something beautiful, is a successful day!

Posted by Ramona

www.happilywriting.com

Artist’s Date by Sandi Somers

“Any extended period or piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well. Over-tapping the well, like overfishing the pond, leaves us with diminished resources.” So writes Julia Cameron, who says that the way to fill our artistic well is to go on a weekly “Artist’s Date” which will stimulate our senses and feed the artist in us. We must go to a movie, a play, an art museum, the library, the park, the beach—anywhere that will recharge, energize and inspire us.

Prompt: Do you have “artist’s dates”? Do you have a regular system for becoming recharged for your writing?

Oxygen to My Spirit

This last November, my mission trip to Bolivia took extra twists and turns. Due to luggage that got left behind, two of us had to wait in La Paz for several days for our luggage to arrive. On one of the days, we travelled to the beautiful Lake Titicaca, the highest freshwater lake in the world.

Now La Paz and Lake Titicaca are at altitudes of over 4,000 m (13,000 feet).  I experienced for the first time what it was like to live with a diminished supply of oxygen.

As soon as we stepped out of the plane at La Paz, we had to breathe harder to get enough oxygen in our system. The next morning, I forgot about the rarified air and walked up four flights in our hotel. Suddenly I was puffing hard and my heart was pounding. When we walked up the hilly streets of La Paz, I had to stop frequently to catch my breath; I felt more depleted than I had on a strenuous hike in our Rocky Mountains.

Exertion in La Paz was much harder on my system than at lower altitudes.

There’s a meaning here for our writing life. Sometimes our writing can leave us with a diminished supply of ideas and creativity. Our ideas don’t flow as easily. It’s harder to write.

We need life-giving oxygen to our spirits.

For several years now, my weekly artist’s dates have provided that oxygen of sensory impressions and relational experiences. Although I have a variety of “dates,” my most common ones include:

• Browsing through quilting shops. As I browse through the fabrics and explore colours and designs, brush my fingers along the textures of fabrics and absorb the displays of finished quilts, I breathe in rich oxygen of beauty and ideas for my own quilting.
•  Visiting my brother’s farm. I participate in seasonal changes of seeding, growing and harvesting times. I watch or help with cattle needs. As I work in the flower beds, I absorb the country air and the grand view of fields and neighbouring farm sites. I breathe in the oxygen of connection with my brother and an alternate lifestyle to my city living.
• Connecting with other people. Because I live alone, people times are important artist’s dates. A family gathering or a special lunch with friends, or a walk along the Bow River with my friend Jeanie and her dog Dallas, all fill me with the oxygen of relationship and a knowledge of how God is working in other people’s lives.
• Absorbing nature. I watch majestic sunrises on my morning walks, catch sight of mountains as I drive along Calgary’s streets, listen to a vesper sparrow as I walk along a country road in the evening or revel in the grandeur of the mountains on a hike.  The language of landscape flows into me and fills my spirit with the oxygen of God and His creation.

Now it’s your turn. Tell us your experience with artist’s dates.