I'm still on swans.
If you've seen the movie, you might have asked yourself if you are the Black Swan or the White one.
That's totally the point too. Everyone has a bit of both in them of course.
I think socially I am definitely possessed by the mischief and passions of the Black Swan.
The White one, however is written all over me in this search for my creative future.
Timidity and reserve definitely hold me back; and for what? It just prolongs my development.
Fear. That's what it is. It's a fear of trying really hard and coming up short. It's a fear of spending so much time trying so hard on something that might not pan out - and then running out of time entirely and never getting anywhere. It's a fear of starting something new because it might turn in to one of the above. And it's definitely a fear of trying to be someone I'm not.
Except that I am. I just can't admit it to myself yet.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Swans
This is not a movie review...
Black Swan.
I just watched it for the 2nd time and felt the same as I did the first.
This is an amazing thing to me.
I'm not about to say that you should run out and see it; it's definitely not for everyone.
For me, it's not about the character development, the plot, the themes, the pretty costumes (though all these things are wonderful)... it's purely a reflection on the ability to write a captivating story. I feel incredible.
Black Swan.
I just watched it for the 2nd time and felt the same as I did the first.
This is an amazing thing to me.
I'm not about to say that you should run out and see it; it's definitely not for everyone.
For me, it's not about the character development, the plot, the themes, the pretty costumes (though all these things are wonderful)... it's purely a reflection on the ability to write a captivating story. I feel incredible.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Dish
Thinking of summer makes me think of picnics and patio parties.
Here is my wishlist for this summer...
Here is my wishlist for this summer...
Them
Perception.
It's a very funny thing. How you perceive yourself, and how you are perceived by others.
I'm fascinated with how different the two views can be...
It's always worth it to tell someone when you have a beautiful perception of them, or something they have done. It's far too often that we don't share these things with people, and how else will they ever know?!
It makes a world of difference in who they think they are, who they think you think they are, who they think the world thinks they think you think you are. Or they are. Plus a few more yous and theys. And all of the above.
It's a very funny thing. How you perceive yourself, and how you are perceived by others.
I'm fascinated with how different the two views can be...
It's always worth it to tell someone when you have a beautiful perception of them, or something they have done. It's far too often that we don't share these things with people, and how else will they ever know?!
It makes a world of difference in who they think they are, who they think you think they are, who they think the world thinks they think you think you are. Or they are. Plus a few more yous and theys. And all of the above.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Sun
It looks like summer outside and, even though I know it's -10 out there, I'm looking at spring dresses.
I hope they bring as much joy to your life as they do mine!
I hope they bring as much joy to your life as they do mine!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Borrow
"Love can be found in many beautiful things, from the decorations in your home to leaves falling from trees, it's time to see everything for what it truly is, beautiful inspiration."
This is a line I found on someone else's blog. I just thought it was perfectly suited to my mood lately. I find art in small simple things. Art is love, love is art. It's that clear.
Thanks, Someone Else.
This is a line I found on someone else's blog. I just thought it was perfectly suited to my mood lately. I find art in small simple things. Art is love, love is art. It's that clear.
Thanks, Someone Else.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Bevar
A little photo tribute.
Though there is no place like it where I now live, I wandered my new city today, reminiscing about this lost haven of mine.
I went to the neighbourhood which most closely represents the one in my heart, and took a few photos of things that made me feel like I was there.
Dedicated to Amy, Lars, and all who share the loss of a wonderful island for misfit toys.
<3
Loss
Sometimes you find a place that embodies all that inspires you. Somewhere you draw from and remember and fantasize about. Today I lost a little bit of that place.
It's hard to say goodbye to a concept, a moment, a culture, a feeling. It's especially hard when you know that place is just as and even much more important to thousands of other people. That just because one small group of different people don't want this place and have the authority to change it, that is the course that is taken. No consideration for heritage, sense of identity, the character of the community around it. It is truly a tragedy.
I am writing about this because it goes along with all my posts so far; about discovering one's artistic heart, learning to express oneself creatively and finding that source inside from where your art derives. I think these things are very strongly rooted in places. Places you find where you can let that side of you flourish, where it is encouraged and celebrated. It could be a school or a classroom, a studio, a park, a house, an entire city or a bum hollow on your couch. But wherever it is, it will hold a place in your heart forever. It is the place where you feel your creativity. You feel it, conceiving itself in your brain waves and flowing through your nerves into all your appendages. You feel it coming from your skin and through your breath.
This is a place shared by countless artists, in all forms (visual, musical, theatrical, conceptual, spiritual, et al) where creativity not only thrives, but it is the driving force behind the entire community. How many places on earth can there be like this? The whole Western world that I know is build on mathematical infrastructure. A world of left-brained learners with practical, academic jobs at the top of the list, and organic, free-flowing creation on a distant, even overlooked lower rung.
Schools are dropping extracurricular projects and cutting arts classes, drama and music. Municipal governments are continually cutting funding for cultural programs, museums and galleries. Every year there seems to be less and less allowance for culture and creativity. I find it so challenging to discover my artistic potential, even having had all these things at my disposal. As I watch them slowly disappear, I watch potential for artistic greatness and beauty disappear also. Where are my children's children's children going to find their creative home?
It's hard to say goodbye to a concept, a moment, a culture, a feeling. It's especially hard when you know that place is just as and even much more important to thousands of other people. That just because one small group of different people don't want this place and have the authority to change it, that is the course that is taken. No consideration for heritage, sense of identity, the character of the community around it. It is truly a tragedy.
I am writing about this because it goes along with all my posts so far; about discovering one's artistic heart, learning to express oneself creatively and finding that source inside from where your art derives. I think these things are very strongly rooted in places. Places you find where you can let that side of you flourish, where it is encouraged and celebrated. It could be a school or a classroom, a studio, a park, a house, an entire city or a bum hollow on your couch. But wherever it is, it will hold a place in your heart forever. It is the place where you feel your creativity. You feel it, conceiving itself in your brain waves and flowing through your nerves into all your appendages. You feel it coming from your skin and through your breath.
This is a place shared by countless artists, in all forms (visual, musical, theatrical, conceptual, spiritual, et al) where creativity not only thrives, but it is the driving force behind the entire community. How many places on earth can there be like this? The whole Western world that I know is build on mathematical infrastructure. A world of left-brained learners with practical, academic jobs at the top of the list, and organic, free-flowing creation on a distant, even overlooked lower rung.
Schools are dropping extracurricular projects and cutting arts classes, drama and music. Municipal governments are continually cutting funding for cultural programs, museums and galleries. Every year there seems to be less and less allowance for culture and creativity. I find it so challenging to discover my artistic potential, even having had all these things at my disposal. As I watch them slowly disappear, I watch potential for artistic greatness and beauty disappear also. Where are my children's children's children going to find their creative home?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Grow
When I was in the 8th grade, our class was given a career-planning survey. Each student answered a questionnaire which sought to define your ideal work environment and, thus, best career choice. I took my test very seriously. I considered each question with real intent. I pondered and weighed my choices, reflected on how well they really represented my identity and what was in my heart. It took me a long time to complete that little booklet. When I was done, I read it over and over, making sure I was absolutely happy with my decisions.
Our packages were sent away and returned to us a week later. Each student got an envelope. Sealed inside was the explanation of our ideal career, our professional future; just handed to us, simple as that. Folded quietly inside that envelope was the potential for me to realize my dreams before I even thought of them myself. I opened mine excitedly, anxious to see what wonderful, creative, artistically genius possibilities awaited me.
Chimney Sweep.
I got... chimney sweep.
I remember staring at my paper for a long time before I made any kind of reaction. How did my quiz answers lead to this? I tried to remember the questions; stuff about liking the outdoors, not worried about getting dirty, meeting new people every day, being independent, an ever-changing workplace. Yes, they do indeed all point to chimney sweep. But is that really the only thing they point to? Did chimney sweeping even survive as an industry past the 1900s? Is this what my heart's desires really lead to?
I do realize now that it was some company's arbitrary list of professions attached to a computer rendering program. I meditate on this memory a lot though and think about how limited a school curriculum can be for artistically inclined students.
Growing up as a right-brainer in a left-brained household, school and community, I literally didn't know creative professions were an option until midway through High School. At that point, I probably should have just rebelled and gone crazy, started dressing like Cyndi Lauper, speaking in tongues and doing whatever my little big brain thought up without regard for social acceptance. Unfortunately, as previously whined, I had a habit of taking myself way too seriously.
Now I get to struggle with my bohemian "coming of age", enlightened starving artist stint at a time when I should be working a 9 to 5 and contributing to a retirement fund.
No negativity here though. Just excitement. And maybe a little bit of resentment for chimney sweeps.
Our packages were sent away and returned to us a week later. Each student got an envelope. Sealed inside was the explanation of our ideal career, our professional future; just handed to us, simple as that. Folded quietly inside that envelope was the potential for me to realize my dreams before I even thought of them myself. I opened mine excitedly, anxious to see what wonderful, creative, artistically genius possibilities awaited me.
Chimney Sweep.
I got... chimney sweep.
I remember staring at my paper for a long time before I made any kind of reaction. How did my quiz answers lead to this? I tried to remember the questions; stuff about liking the outdoors, not worried about getting dirty, meeting new people every day, being independent, an ever-changing workplace. Yes, they do indeed all point to chimney sweep. But is that really the only thing they point to? Did chimney sweeping even survive as an industry past the 1900s? Is this what my heart's desires really lead to?
I do realize now that it was some company's arbitrary list of professions attached to a computer rendering program. I meditate on this memory a lot though and think about how limited a school curriculum can be for artistically inclined students.
Growing up as a right-brainer in a left-brained household, school and community, I literally didn't know creative professions were an option until midway through High School. At that point, I probably should have just rebelled and gone crazy, started dressing like Cyndi Lauper, speaking in tongues and doing whatever my little big brain thought up without regard for social acceptance. Unfortunately, as previously whined, I had a habit of taking myself way too seriously.
Now I get to struggle with my bohemian "coming of age", enlightened starving artist stint at a time when I should be working a 9 to 5 and contributing to a retirement fund.
No negativity here though. Just excitement. And maybe a little bit of resentment for chimney sweeps.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Pieces
I've always been a creative thinker. My mind has always been a chaotic mess of great ideas.
Somehow in High School and University while everyone was messing around and "discovering themselves", I was taking myself way too seriously and not getting anywhere.
I haven't trained myself to let that creativity flow the way it has the potential to do. Actually, I suppose it's a lack of training I need; an un-training, to stop trying to fit my ideas into a practical mold. Creativity isn't practical. It would be silly if it was.
Over the last year, since I've been on my own, I've been working really hard at listening to all the silly voices in my head and using them to create things.
The problem is, there are so many of them, it's hard to hear one over the other. I focus on one idea for a few minutes, hours, days, sometimes weeks.. and I work really hard at it. Then another voice up there becomes louder than the one I've been listening to, and takes over. Suddenly I'm on another project, in another discipline, from another world.
What I've learned recently, is that it's all part of the process. Instead of looking at unfinished projects as failures or laziness or lack of motivation, I have started to look at them as small discoveries. Little clues along a path that may lead to something amazing or nothing at all - but I'm learning all the while.
It's a liberating thought, and it's hard to stick to. I'm constantly anxious about where I am going and how I'll make this trivial thing (a painting, a photo, a story, a song), into some kind of a socially acceptable success.
This is a constant struggle. Success is so relative, I know that.
But taking myself too seriously is ingrained in my head; it's the loudest voice of all.
Somehow in High School and University while everyone was messing around and "discovering themselves", I was taking myself way too seriously and not getting anywhere.
I haven't trained myself to let that creativity flow the way it has the potential to do. Actually, I suppose it's a lack of training I need; an un-training, to stop trying to fit my ideas into a practical mold. Creativity isn't practical. It would be silly if it was.
Over the last year, since I've been on my own, I've been working really hard at listening to all the silly voices in my head and using them to create things.
The problem is, there are so many of them, it's hard to hear one over the other. I focus on one idea for a few minutes, hours, days, sometimes weeks.. and I work really hard at it. Then another voice up there becomes louder than the one I've been listening to, and takes over. Suddenly I'm on another project, in another discipline, from another world.
What I've learned recently, is that it's all part of the process. Instead of looking at unfinished projects as failures or laziness or lack of motivation, I have started to look at them as small discoveries. Little clues along a path that may lead to something amazing or nothing at all - but I'm learning all the while.
It's a liberating thought, and it's hard to stick to. I'm constantly anxious about where I am going and how I'll make this trivial thing (a painting, a photo, a story, a song), into some kind of a socially acceptable success.
This is a constant struggle. Success is so relative, I know that.
But taking myself too seriously is ingrained in my head; it's the loudest voice of all.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Once
Blog attempt No. 3
Technology and the universe of web tools don't exactly agree with me.
Anyway, here lies my open brain, waiting for creative thoughts to pour out onto the keyboard and into the Internet.
I am not a writer, nor a painter, nor photographer or musician but I do all of these things.
I don't share them with the world for no good reason and I think it's time to start.
Maybe some day I will choose one as my title or, GASP... profession.
Technology and the universe of web tools don't exactly agree with me.
Anyway, here lies my open brain, waiting for creative thoughts to pour out onto the keyboard and into the Internet.
I am not a writer, nor a painter, nor photographer or musician but I do all of these things.
I don't share them with the world for no good reason and I think it's time to start.
Maybe some day I will choose one as my title or, GASP... profession.
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