“She Likes To Pick Flowers On A Cloudy Day”
Here’s what has been touching me deeply and making me sad. Since I started posting pictures of my art on Instagram and Facebook I can’t tell you how many people have written to me and said, “You’re so brave, I wish I could make art, but I’m too afraid…” This just breaks my heart. And I write to them straight-away and say “You CAN make art, DO IT!” and I tell them all the things I’ve said in these last days, it doesn’t take hardly any money at all — I use a pencil, a black pen, and a child’s watercolor set. You can get these things at the Dollar Store or cheaply on amazon. And then most important, don’t judge what you can do against what you see anyone else doing. You do you, and that is absolutely perfect!
When I started drawing in the spring of 2013, just before turning 59, I was really just doodly-dooing about. I made a circle. I put in eyes. a nose, and a funny lopsided mouth. It was lumpy and bumpy and cattywompus and lopsided, and “The 100 Ladies Project” was born. I drew those Ladies for 5 years and loved them dearly but I never got past just drawing their heads because I could sort of DO that. Bodies, whole pictures? Oh no. Finally, it’s why I stopped doing them. They were fun but they had run their course. I put them aside and didn’t do anything at all because I didn’t know what to do. I finally decided I needed to jump in, and even though I don’t know how to draw people who really look like people, and I don’t know how to draw whole bodies and hands are a nightmare, if I didn’t try I’d never get past a thousand funky heads with stories. I have realized that I have started to draw someone who is my alter-ego. I am drawing my life, and in the process I am feeling a kind of deep compassion for myself that I haven’t been able to come to any other way. And they are lumpy and bumpy and cattywompus and lopsided. It seems that’s just how I draw, what I am able to do. I’m further along than just drawing heads, I have moved into uncharted territory for me, but with each drawing I do I gain a little more confidence. I don’t believe I will ever stop now.
Not long after the fire in 2014 I taught a class called “The Spontaneous Art & Life Project & Women’s Circle.” I absolutely loved it. About 30 women signed on and while I only did the project for about 6 months because I was just so overwhelmed and devastated after the fire the women’s circle stayed together until just last December when I finally closed it. It was one of the most wonderful things I ever did, I made friends for life with those women, it was an amazing experience. And it is something I still get contacted about to this day. People want to do it, they ask me if I will resurrect it, and I have always said no. With the resurgence of my work, as I wrote about yesterday, it is one of the things I am thinking about bringing back. It was important work for a lot of people, it was a joy to create and to teach. I would have to re-evaluate what I want to do with it but I think it was worth considering.
What I want most for people is to open their hearts to every bit of joy that they possibly can, and for many that means finally making art, something they have longed to do for much of their lives but are afraid to try, they lack confidence and belief in themselves. The project was a combination of art and writing. Here’s what I wrote at the top of that page…
“PLEASE READ THIS ONE STATEMENT IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE! Before you turn away because you think you are not a writer or an artist, and you don’t want to be, know this — you don’t have to be. A stick figure and a few simple words are enough. This process is about shifting something in your brain and in your heart so that your life can be transformed, so that you can heal, so that you can find and live the life you have dreamed of and hoped for. Let me explain…”
Life is short, and it passes all too quickly, and I am here to tell you that if this is something you have always longed to do but never had the confidence to try you better start right now! or you will regret it. They say that at the end of life, as people are dying, they don’t so much regret the things that they did but the things that they didn’t do. Please don’t let that be you. Pick up a pencil or pen and start to doodly-doo your way to more happiness than you may have ever dreamed possible. As I ask my students all the time, “If not, why not? If not now, when?” I am asking you the same thing.
And if you are interested in a revised, updated version of “The Spontaneous Art & Life Project” let me know. If enough people are interested I will get it in the works. It might just be time to begin again.
And if you are afraid write to me in the comments below and tell me all the reasons you are NOT making art. I will then tell you why those reasons don’t hold water and I will help you get started!
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
Dear Maitri,
I am interested. I am so tired of saying I can’t draw. Your pictures are sweet and draw me in to want to know more.
Thank you,
Lauren
I would love to have you Lauren. Thanks for the input! 😀
Well, I loved the Spontaneous Art and Life Project! A reappearance would be welcome.
Thank you Lisa honey, and I loved having you there! 😀
tell us more about how the Spontaneous Art and Life Project works (would work, if you resurrected it).
i remember spending a year of my life (age 34-35) only writing with my left hand (to increase the right side of my brain’s facility) and during that year, I also did alot of sketching with my left hand, which was so freeing, because i couldn’t “try” that hard, the hand was less worried about how things would look, and more carefree, like “let’s do this!” I love those sketches. i think i will start doing them again (left-handed).
xoxo
ka
Katya honey the link to the page with the information from when I taught the class is in the post above. 🙂
And your left handed work felt fascinating. And yes you should start drawing again! I’d love to see some of your art!
M. xoxox
Maitri,
You have inspired me to dig in my yet unpacked moving boxes and get out some art supplies. I would be interested in your Course if you resurrect it. I would at least want to know more.
Oh good for you Maggie! Make art! And I would love to have you. You can get a lot of information about how I taught it on the page at the link in the post above but then it was meant to be a year long journey and the women’s circle was a big part of it. Much as our writing group is now. I can’t do two long projects with women’s circles at the same time so it would be a shorter eCourse but the teaching part would function the same…
Well, I do have the desire to do art or something creative, like writing… BUT… I always seem to find something else to do. And it just gets shoved aside. It happens in periods. Sometimes I can create about 2 artworks (and I feel alive and brimming with possibilities) and then BAM ‘real life’ comes knocking on my door to do allll the things that need to be done 🙂
Like now, I look at the clock and it’s bed time already… Haven’t written or arted anything. (I probably need some discipline and set aside time for creative stuffies…)
Big hug!!
Hey Mieke honey, yes, really it requires discipline to accomplish something ongoing with writing or art. And if you can get into the routine of doing something it feels really good. This 365 day blog project for example which is in the few weeks now was a lot of work but it was just one blog post a day and the discipline of doing it led to so many good things in my life it has, well, been life-changing. Someone once said people make time for the things they really want to do. Make time. Reward yourself with a steady practice doing something you love. It can change your life…
hi maitri!!!
LOVE your dragon fly stories.. also your quest.. we are part of the SARK page…
i am attempting to do art once again. yes. no try ;do!!!
walk in beauty,
claudia
Hello Dear Claudia! Good to see you honey…
And yes, as Yoda said, Do or do not, there is no try. I have found that to be absolutely true. So yes DO your art again. As I always ask my students, “If not, why not? If not now, when?”
Indeed… 🙂
Take care,
Maitri
I will, too, be interested in the art class but not if it’s a long-term commitment. Maybe just long enough to kick my butt about getting my gifts moving. LOL!
Hi Marge, I would love to have you but no, it wouldn’t be a long commitment. The first time I taught it it was meant to be a year long journey and the women’s circle was a big part of it, like our Sunday night group. But this would be an eCourse, several weeks long. And it won’t be happening until 2019 some time…
I’m in!
Well alright! 😀