[-quick tip, practice-]

A Quick Creative Practice
~simple habits can have profound impacts~

Keep a tablet and a pen or pencil on your bedside table at all times!

DREAMS
If you wake with a dream still in reach, jot it down immediately. If you want to fall back to sleep, don’t worry about transcribing the full dream. If you write the most important words and images you’re likely to remember the connecting links later.

SOLUTIONS
Those transitional times just before falling asleep or waking—especially from a nap—are rich times for problem-solving and inspirational ideas. Having paper and pencil nearby will allow you to capture these gems that might otherwise disappear from your mind as the world crowds in.

SKETCHES
The tablet isn’t just for words. If you’re like me, you’ll sometimes *see* images that need to be painted or drawn. Make quick sketches before they too are lost to time.

[-writing, exercise-]

Writing takes activity. You have to write the words down on the page. Everyone knows that. But what’s going on inside as you make that effort to put a story together? Think about the issue of control and how it does or doesn’t work for you. We tend to think of energy, activity, the doing part of it as the most important. But consider another viewpoint. Here’s what Brenda Ueland says about it:

Willing is doing something you know already, something you have been told by somebody else; there is no new imaginative understanding in it. And presently your soul gets frightfully sterile and dry because you are so quick, snappy and efficient about doing one thing after another that you have not time for your own ideas to come in and develop and gently shine.

In this spirit, here’s a daydreaming exercise to foster the idea of letting go so that you can dream something up rather than just jotting something down.

Sit in front of your computer. Look at the keyboard for a few moments. Put your fingers on the keys and type a sentence. Type ANYTHING.
For example:

your thoughts:
• I am typing a sentence.
• This is a stupid exercise.
• I hate this.
• What am I doing this for?

whatever comes into your head, no matter how weird:

• Dogs with feathers would create nests in their sleep.
• Wallpaper hides cracks and peels when it’s old.
• My teeth might crumble before I die.

the most random nonsense you can come up with:
• Jumbled crossover blinks always allay floods.
• Accessing liverwurst can be the answer to pink socks.
• Everyone jousts because the ghostly phone didn’t ring.

Now here’s the hard part. As soon as you’ve put the period on your sentence, delete it.

As fast as you can, type something else.

Delete that.

Keep doing it for at least ten minutes, more if you can tolerate it.

Now begin your writing for the day.

This exercise does three important things:

1. It loosens your mind by making flighty associations and spurring imaginative juxtapositions on the page
2. It clears the mind of the top layer of dry, tired dirt so that the underlying fertile soil is available to you
3. It provides practice in letting go of words.
   This is a valuable lesson for a writer because we all tend to love what comes out of us. Our words are our babies and we don’t like to make them disappear once they are on the paper. But we have to know how as well as when to delete. This will help.

[-photo essay, art, process-]

Paint is commonly used to alter things, but Cynthia’s sense of color and her freedom about what and how she paints, take it into a new and fantastic realm. Here are some of her thoughts on the transformative power of color:

Painting is about color.
A friend of mine once told me that the easiest way to transform a home’s look is with paint.

Keep everything that you have but just change its color. It’s true. I’ve painted my walls, my chairs, my sofa. I’ve even painted curtains on my windows. In the past I’ve even painted my clothes, my purses, my shoes. I feel that as long as I have a can of paint and a brush, I can transform anything I want into something I want.

Color creates a state of mind.
Color is a state of mind.

Cynthia Korzekwa has an incredibly playful but also interesting and deep creativity. She’s been nice enough to share more of her work with us so click on the links below:
Art begins at home - Cynthia’s thoughts on the domestic side of art and her fantastically inspiring recycled art

Cynthia says of herself:

Visit Cynthia’s sites:
korzekwa | flickr site: los ojos | art for housewives | blog: paros - see more of her painted interiors | blog: ikastikos | email: cynthiak at tin dot it

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-tutorial, photography, alterations-]

by Maureen Shaughnessy

I collect images, mostly with my own camera, but also from old manuscripts, ephemera, found objects, cultural flotsam and jetsam. Sometimes I do digital collage, other times I work with paper, paint, drawing tools and glue in 2 dimensions or I make 3-d mixed media sculptures. I work in layers, often more than 20 or 30 layers, as I am trying to create something with visual, symbolic and spiritual depth. The stories of the objects I use are glued into the collage layers. Emotions, connections, poetry, unspoken words, events, songs, dreams and spiritual meaning are embedded in there too. Often the layering will only be apparent on a subtle level. What’s important to me is that I know the layers are underneath somewhere, giving the piece personal depth and intimacy.

When I’m looking at one of my own layered collages or someone else’s, I tend to judge it based on first my emotional response, then on the craftsmanship of the execution and finally based on some intellectual understanding of the piece. Sometimes I want my work to be wild and spontaneous and passionate. Other times I’m aiming for an almost cool control, which in itself can convey an experience or an emotion as effectively as a more passionate piece. It’s hard to say what makes a layered piece “work” for me. It’s intuitive. Can I connect with something the artist was trying to say? Or does it leave me cold? Really, it’s such a personal thing … one viewer may respond to a piece that another person thinks is inferior.

Here’s a little about my altered photograph, “Ghost Root Tapestry.” The main image I used was of the lower trunk of a tree. When I first saw the tree, the roots looked like they were twining together in a Celtic knot shape. I have some background in fiberarts and weaving, and I thought of trying to bring out this aspect of the roots – that they were threaded and knotted together, not only around each other, but around the rocks and pebbles on the lake shore and down into the earth, around the leaves and soil and micro-organisms that live down there. I wanted to make something that looked like a tapestry, like threads and cords and knots, textural and subtle and fine.

I used Photoshop to alter the tree roots photo by blending it with a photo of the frozen lake surface and another, of branches against sky. I choose photos based on their dominant shapes, lines and textures. For example, to create the look of a tapestry, I needed lots of texture, so I chose photos with lots of different line weights and shapes going on. The different textures of these three photos contribute to the feeling of woven cloth. Likewise, if I had been going for a minimalist feeling, I might have chosen only photos with simple shapes and few lines.

After I played around with the colours and blended the three main photos, I rotated multiple copies of the image and blended many layers to make something like a tapestry with the appearance of depth and criss-crossing threads. I like that it’s not perfectly symmetrical … very much like my actual woven tapestries used to turn out.

This series of altered photos is in a set I call “Dead of Winter.” Sometimes I come up with a title for a series that almost contradicts how I really feel about the subject of the series. Yet to me, it fits. I hope the title makes people stop and read it twice, to puzzle out why I might have chosen those words.

In this case, “dead” is the opposite of what I think winter is. Winter is very much alive – it is just sleeping; it is the Earth dreaming, growing secretly underground, holding the light of short winter days in her heart, in her belly, holding it in until everything is ready to leap out again, be born, and come back to the warmth and the air and the green. It is a time for meditation, concentration, inner-focus, silence and dreams and spiritual contemplation. With that in mind, I tried to bring out the subtle, quiet spirit of leafless trees, frozen water, and strong, connected roots. Not all of the photos in this set are altered. In fact, some are just as they came out of my camera. But they all belong together because of the thread of winter-quiet.

All images: © 2005 - 2007 Maureen Shaughnessy all rights reserved | see the entire “Dead of Winter” set on flickr | see more of Maureen’s altered photos on flickr | Maureen’s blog

Other articles in The PCQ by Maureen Shaughnessy:
The Thread of Winter-Quiet: images.
Doodles from Maureen’s sketchbook

about the artist:
Maureen is a: landscape designer . artist . gardener . writer . companion to her soul mate . mom . daughter . sister . friend . independent sort . lover of nature music animals plants beauty sunlight&darkness. Maureen lives in Helena, Montana. She is working on a personal website but is almost too much of a perfectionist to finish. She likes to quote da Vinci, “art is never finished, only abandoned.”

Originally published as cover art on the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-essay, process-]

by guest essayist, Paula Gregorowicz

When I first started in the sport of cycling about 9 years ago, I was very nervous about hitting things I didn’t want to – trees, holes, rocks, drainage grates, or pillars depending on whether I was riding on the road or on a trail. The thing I noticed was that if I focused on the obstacle by looking down at it, more often than not I hit it. Of course, this convinced me even more that I needed to be ultra safe or I’d be doomed (much like the mother in A Christmas Story who is convinced Ralphie will “shoot his eye out” if he gets the BB Gun), I continued to concentrate even harder on the obstacle.

You can guess what happened. I hit more rocks, holes, and tree roots while narrowly avoiding the really painful obstacles like poles, trees, and cars (thank goodness). It didn’t take me long to figure out both by trial and error and by reading bicycling magazines that you need to look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go. Alas, the moment I started looking ahead of the obstacle and envisioning a clear, clean line to ride past the obstacle, miraculously I breezed by without incident. As I got more experienced I not only could do this consistently, I could do it effortlessly without a death grip and body tension fueled by fear.

While you may not want to ever put your behind on a saddle and pedal along on two wheels, you probably do want to move through your life in a manner that makes it easier to move past the inevitable obstacles along the way. And, when you find yourself in an unwanted situation where you’re temporarily in a bowl of pits instead of a bowl full of cherries, you can use this skill to keep the faith and move up and out of the hole.

As you can see from the bicycling example, your energy flows to the very thing on which you are focused. As a result, you get more of that particular thing; in the case of riding the bike, you get impact with a physical obstacle and an unpleasant ride. Conversely, if you look where you want to go and focus your energies there, you give more power to the very thing you desire resulting in a more effortless and enjoyable ride.

How this concept translates to your life and business is very similar. If you stay focused on your vision and goals while taking action to move forward, you are far more likely to make them a reality. Even when you find yourself where you don’t want to be and feel like you’re stuck in a black hole, the ability to focus on where you want to go versus obsessing about being stuck in the hole can mean the difference between progress and a dead end.

Since so many of the thoughts we think each day are unconscious and our minds are filled with chatter, it can sometimes be elusive to determine where our focus really lies at any given moment. Considering the fact that our focus possesses so much power, it really pays to become aware of our thoughts and where our sights are set at any given moment.

Consider the following questions:

• * What do I think about most often?
• * What is the ongoing chatter and broken record that keeps playing in my head?
• * What do I spend my time talking about when I interact with others?
• * Am I talking about what’s not working or am I talking about what’s right in a situation?
• * Am I where I want to be with my relationships, business, career, physical health, etc.?
• * If not, am I focusing on the problem or working to reveal the source and explore solutions?
• * Am I looking where I want to go or where I don’t want to go?

© 2005 - 2007 Paula Gregorowicz all rights reserved
About the author:
Paula Gregorowicz is a business and life coach, writer, and owner of The Paula G Company. She specializes in helping women and business owners tap into their authenticity so they can design a life they love. Visit her website at http://www.thepaulagcompany.com for more articles, free resources, and to learn more.

Published with the permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-journaling, art-]

Today the line between journal, sketchbook, memoir, altered books, scrapbooks, and assemblage has blurred. Maybe it’s time to expand your ideas and practices with regard to journaling and see what the possibilities are for you. Here are some thoughts from a favorite contributor, Cynthia Korzekwa and some pages from her books.

words and art by Cynthia Korzekwa

The Greeks invented the hypomnemata, a notebook used as a material support for memory. The Japanese invented Pillow Books, notebooks kept near the bed to write down observations and annotations. And who hasn’t, at one time or another, kept a diary, a record of personal activities, reflections, or feelings?

Journals, often, have been kept as a foundation for a book to be published and now artists take those published books and alter them. And what about scrapbooks and daybooks? All suggest that the inner self just has to come out and materialize itself.

The sketchbook, once point of departure, is now, often, arrival itself.

This is a cover and two pages from a notebook entitled:

THINKING ABOUT THINGS TO DO

When drawing calligraphic strokes, the inner energy passes through the hand to the brush and then onto the paper. This energy is manifested in the final work. I like writing my thoughts out by hand and not by typing them out onto the computer. Because I like the physical feel of writing. My thoughts are more easily synchronized with the pen as opposed to the keyboard. Does writing by hand as opposed to typing change the way our thoughts are processed?

I have many notebooks that I use to draft out my ideas. Once my ideas are articulated in this way, I transfer them to the computer. Then, once these thoughts are printed and archived, I physically obliterate the written words in my notebooks. The rapid and repetitive motion of my hand moving the pen is like a form of meditation and relaxes me.

Cynthia speaks for herself:
My name is cynthia korzekwa. I was born in Texas. My childhood was greatly influenced by our housekeeper. Her name was Fela. She was from Piedras Negras. I grew up speaking Spanish, eating bean tacos and listening to rancheras. Almost a Mexican. The first drawings I remember doing were done in my mother’s books. I did a series of scribbles in Webster’s dictionary. My mother wasn’t impressed. I think I got into trouble. But I kept drawing anyway. That is until I went to Catholic school. There they had rules about everything. Even about drawing. Stuff like: don’t draw to the margin of the page, don’t go out of the lines, don’t put pink next to red. All those rules made drawing a stress. Then I grew up and realized that those rules weren’t for me. They were for somebody else…..Some people were born to be foreigners. I’m one of them. I can’t be homogenized.
email: cynthiak at tin dot it
websites: cynthia korzekwa, art for housewives

You can see more of cynthia’s book work at: www.cynthiakorzekwa.org/books.htm

Cynthia’s other contributions to The PCQ:
Art Begins at Home
On Colour
See all of The PCQ’s articles on Journaling

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations