BLOG/VLOG Link: How to Avoid Resolutions!
I’m switching up the order of items in my blog post…putting the juicy content first and then the studio diary and announcements below. We’ll see if you like this better. Let me know!
Anyway, there’s no real announcements this week anyway. Except that it is my mom’s birthday the day I’m writing this. Her 90th birthday, mind you. Big feelings!
Oh, and I wrote a guest blog post. Here’s the link if you want to read it. There was a nice lady named Teresa who did a wonderful job of turning my random typing in to an actual story of interest. Thanks, Teresa.
https://engageart.org/can-kingdom-work-make-me-happy-esther-l-jones/
Big Book Time
I know I know…how can it be time to start thinking about 2023? But we will be there in less than a month, gentle-humans.
Many of us do some evaluation and goal setting toward the end of one year or at the beginning of the new year. When I was younger I used to try to make “resolutions”… those determinations that are made and then so easily broken.
I learned after awhile that those were pretty pointless for me. Not only did I give up on them quickly, but I kicked and shamed myself for months after. That’s not healthy or productive; not practical, either. Practicality is something I can usually attain, given enough time, so I discarded the practice.
A few years ago I began simply writing down answers to some questions I found that I thought would be helpful. This was so productive and successful that I’ve kept up the practice since. For a week or so I’ve known it was time to get out my Big Book.
Writing Notes and Taking Names
The Big Book is just a large sketch book my daughter gave me as a gift at some point.
I started with pretty random sketches and stuff. It was around that time, though, that I discovered the book The Artist’s Way, and I was so inspired by some of the affirmation statements I found there that I wrote them large, one per page, in bold, black sharpie. (I tweaked them a bit to reflect my own theology a bit better.) Sometimes when I’m feeling defeated, I pull out the Big Book and read them again.
I’ll make that a blog post some day. Today, I want to list out for you the questions I will be answering in writing over the next three or four weeks. They have been very helpful for me to consider each year.
- “Imagine there are no limits. What would I want for 2023?”
- “What gets in the way? What do I need to say ‘no’ to?”
- “What area of development would make the biggest impact?”
- “Imagine it’s the end of 2023. What looks different for you now?”
I often find that there are other things to note down, brainstorm, and journal when I work on this. That’s fine. It’s not a hard and fast sort of thing to do. It’s more about setting a “trajectory”.
What’s Done is Done
The Big Book then gets closed and put away for another six months or a year. I rarely go back and look at what I’ve written during the year unless I need a hard reset. That happens sometimes.
You might think that doing all this work of writing and brainstorming and journaling is kind of pointless unless I refer back and work on the vision during the year. It doesn’t work that way at all!
I find that the simple act of writing it down cements it somewhere in my conscious or subconscious mind because when I come back to it at the end of the year, I’m always amazed at how many of those ideas, thoughts and trajectories have come into being!
Any of them that haven’t were not meant to be. I don’t beat myself up about them. They may or may not go onto the next year’s list: it depends on whether they seem valid for the next year or not. I check them over, read them and celebrate successes.
And then I turn the page to a new, white page with no mistakes on it yet.
Ah…newness of life. A new start. A clean slate. Bright, shiny future.
Hope
Studio Diary (aka This Week in the Studio)
I have been on a mission to HAVE FUN in the studio this week. To play, to try out new ideas, to let loose and let go of the results. It’s been fun!
For instance, I painted this:
And I created this!
This is a new process for me that I hope will turn into some really fun ceramic mugs, charcuterie boards, and whatever else I might decide to put it on. The video I made of doing the transfer will be on the TLDR vlog video, if you want to see it. It’s pretty interesting!
I also decided to expand the experiment. Part of the process is to create the drawing first. Here’s the (extreme cuteness warning!) drawing I made next:
I’ve since transferred part of the design to a couple of mugs. Just waiting for some new tools I’ve ordered to finish them up. Is that not the cutest hippo you’ve ever seen? I mean, besides Fiona.
…And since I said “hippo”, it’s time to remind you that there’s someone over here hoping for you. Hoping that you will join with me …
…looking for the music, listening for the colors, reaching for the magic, and discovering the wonder and worship in our hearts.
Godspeed, friends and unicorns. Oh, and hippos, if you’re out there reading this.
