The Artist ~ Mind as Tool

What is it that makes an 'artist' an artist?

Must you have been born with an artistic gift, a passion to create? Does the art degree that took years to obtain automatic designate you an artist?
I'd like to think that each of us holds the title. It doesn't begin and end with a degree nor at the canvas, but born in the mind, with a thought or an idea. The mind never ceases to wonder, or at least it shouldn't....least not until death. Even then who is to say it stops?

These 'creative thoughts and ideas' are actually tools...the first tools one needs in order to begin their work. Tools that feel perfect to us, like an extension of our hand. When we create we use our minds making the connection between us and these 'tool' seamless. We automatically know how to use these tools. They are our most internal thoughts. The feel is most familiar. The mind is the most important tool to use in making your art for it is you; your mind, your thought, and your attitude towards making art.

When we go to an art workshop we hope to improve our art making abilities. We might gain a new technique, a new way of looking at things, or improve our skills. We may gain insight through critique. New territory is charted as we venture down different art avenues. We benefit from being with like minded artists and we feel validated by being with members of our tribe. It's often a very exhilarating experience.

But there's also another kind of workshop available to artists. A workshop thoughtfully designed to sharpen and hone your most valuable tool. You. Your mind and the way you look at your art making; you and your attitudes towards yourself, your own work and the world around you..how your environment influences the flow of the process that you come to create. The power of the mind, your first tool that gives birth to new creations!

Water, Shadow & Stone II

Calm the winds of your thoughts, and there will be no waves on the ocean of your mind.

This picture made me think

of this song.

Engaged In Contemplation

I took this shot on one of my travels somewhere along the California coast. There's something so totally mesmerizing as one sits and looks out to sea. It's mysterious. The sound of waves as they crash against the rocks parallels an unimpaired tranquillizing sound. It is pure.

When I sit, listen and watch the waves my mind is transported to an unknown place. At times resting on "blank." Some may call it meditating. I call it "letting the mind be."

Francesca

It's about LIFE, it's about LOVE.

I sat quietly in the dark tonight. Have you ever just sat in darkness, closed your eyes and meditated thoughts of the day? Have you allowed thoughts of the day filter through your being - become mindful. Have you let life breathe into your soul? Tonight sitting here I had a realization that manifested itself in the form of a thought. Love life by living it and live life by loving it.

What exactly does loving one’s life mean? And how exactly does loving one’s life count as have having lived it and not any other way? This can be explained by understanding the two main pillars that comprise that thought ~ love life by living it and live life, by loving it. Let's look at each individually and seek to understand how beautifully they go hand in hand.

Love

Love begins with ourselves. For example, if I can’t love myself, I can’t love anyone else. When a person can’t love his own self the way he is, there’s no way he can love others the way they are. Loving one’s self is not about gazing into the mirror all day in self-admiration; that’s vanity. Loving the self is about knowing your good and bad; its about accepting your flaws and working hard to overcome them and strive to become a better person; its about being steadfast and adhering to the values you have, no matter what. From this self acceptance comes love and from this love grows a strong sense of self-esteem, in which rests the seed of confidence. And confidence can do wonder's to a person’s life.


Life

Life in its purest and most basic sense is signified by the mechanism of the beating heart. As the heart beats, the person lives in the physical form of reality, but there’s much more to life than just the beating heart. For me, I can say that I fully live life if I can say yes to the following questions:

Are my days filled by doing things that I am most passionate about?
Have I made some positive contribution to the betterment of even ONE life in any way?
Have I made whole-hearted efforts to become a better person?
If the answer to all these questions is in the affirmative, it signifies that I have truly lived life.

So I love myself and I am living in the true sense. Is that all there is to it? Well, absolutely! It's that simple! They go together and become one, YOU!

If I have lived every moment of my life by filling each day with love ~ for self and others, passion (towards what I like doing the most) empathy (self-explanatory), and many other such positive virtues, I have truly loved this life. And when I love my life, only then am I living it!!!

ART and Ignatian Spirituality

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.

The above statement is the thought of Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J. I seemingly enjoy applying this thought to art. People tend to look at a work of art and search for the meaning of the piece. What is it the artist was trying to convey? One must go beyond that approach and look deeper into the art work...each artist has his/her own way of exploring the soul_ the 'spirit' of the work that is evolving. Yes, often a mystery. Thus, can we say the art work only makes sense when you perceive it as a mystery and that it makes no sense when one tries desperately to conceptualize it in his/her mind? Or, can it be said that the art work is a mystery and each one of us sees it in a different light...in which, that 'light' is the mystery unfolded. Thoughts?

De Mello was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist who became widely known for his books on spirituality. He hosted many spiritual retreats and was considered by some a gifted public speaker. I never had the opportunity to attend any of his seminars, but friends tell me they were an awe inspiring experience, that de Mello was a gifted charasmatic presenter. Click here to visit his Centre for Spirituality.
His quite controversial paradigm for Catholic dogma is mainly because many of his ideas were influenced by Thai Buddhist teacher and founder of monasteries Ajahn Chah - who, some say, was a kind of teacher to him. Despite the Church's condemnation, his works are popular especially among those interested in Ignatian Spirituality.





*De Mello died suddenly in 1987.
Painting: Acrylic on Canvas, Francesca

Broken But Working

You can hear the trickle of spring not far off as the melting tear drops of winter pour out their last cry. With the end of every season, a new one begins. A new chapter in the book of life.

As I walk around outside this time of year, when temperatures begin to warm, I feel blessed to get a close up glimpse of some pretty amazing images. Most people never notice these sure tell-tale signs of life and just walk by...usually without thought, without a glance. We must be careful not to allow our demeanour to become complacent for in so doing, we will miss the most simple yet some of the most beautiful attributes nature has given us.

A tiny tear.

A droplet

A drip. Life's life source!

Water!

The Melts

Broken But Working

Take a look at the beauty found even in the broken eavestrough. It is entitled "Broken But Working"...like so many people that are broken, and yet they still function...through their tears, great beauty is found and in their heart, new life can always be found. Can't you feel the freshness in the air...that sweet scent of spring? And listen to the sound! A trickling rhythm that boasts it's very own chorus!

"Choose to look for the positives in every situation. You will start to see possibilities for improving the situation. The negatives may diminish because you will be focusing improving things instead of worrying about all the catastrophes that probably will never happen."

Russ Stiffler, from Love and February

Photo Images: Mathieu Grégoire
Used With Permission

How fragile

Has the heat made you fragile or has it been something else? Interrupted sleep caused from night stirs as the windows remain open and you hear all the night sounds in the dark as nocturnal creatures come to life and roam the garden...you hear rustling leaves, soft paws crawling in the dark. Last night I hoped for rain. The air was moist and you felt that mother nature wanted to cry her soul to the earth, but it just didn't come...maybe today. How fragile we are, how fragile we are...





If blood will flow when fresh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Banana cake, pansies and daffodils

They're Coming Soon!

Below is my post from April, 2010  'Gone Banana's' and it's that time of year again. Cancer Month. This year I will be adding the colour purple to yellow in support of pancreatic cancer research.  Pancreatic Cancer Canada launched a campaign April  2012 in Ottawa. Pancreatic cancer is a 'silent killer' and much needed research is yet to be done in helping find a cure and treatment for this dreaded disease. Please think about giving. You can read more about Pansies of Pancreatic Cancer HERE.

Gone Banana's

The weekend.
Four black bananas.
Gorgeous weather.
Company arriving.
and what do you have?

You have the recipe for something very special!

As we talked about here, April is the month that the cancer society sells daffodils to raise money to help support the fight against this dreaded disease. Many of us have been touched by cancer in one way or another. Perhaps directly or through a close friend or relative. It makes it's appearance when you least expect it and can turn your world upside down. Have you ever wondered how you would react if you were diagnosed? Ever thought of a positive plan in case that would happen? We plan our escape route in our homes in case of a fire, we plan for our future, for retirement. We plan for our children's education and some seniors prepay their own funerals! We plan, plan, plan...but how many of us plan for a life altering illness? No, we don't want to think about stuff like that! We prefer to think positive and don't like thinking in the 'what if' department of life. Even if you don't have a strong family history of cancer it still makes sense to practice preventative medicine and a healthy lifestyle. Since April is the big fundraising month for cancer perhaps it's a good time to book that annual physical that you haven't had in ten years!

What has all this got to do with four black bananas? Banana cake of course! And healthy too because I made it with whole wheat flour, added raisins, didn't put icing on it and cut the required sugar in half! Then it was 'dressed up' in daffodils. After guests ate and enjoyed, a basket was passed around to collect donations for the cancer society. It was a wonderful weekend!

Rain Pain and Love

The previous post was about November rain. Seems this November brings rain in the form of tears...tears that come straight from the heart. A month that has stormed in with an unexpected trial of life with an upheaval of memories of our dear Sarah Amelia. In the last days of her life she also suffered lung pain, but many of us never realized just how severe this pain could be. It's that cliche that declares 'you don't know until it hits home.' You may think you know, but not until you witness the effects up 'close and personal' ..it really tugs at the spirit of the human soul.

It's about pain and suffering. It's about love. It's about not being able to be in the place your heart dwells. It's about life. It's about physcial, emotional and psychological pain. I believe most of us have suffered at least one if not all three at some point in our lives.

As I write, a very dear and close friend is suffering from a 'spontaneous pneumothorax' and from my past nursing experience and recent research I know and understand that the pain associated with this is one of the most excruciating and debilitating types a human is asked to endure. Loved ones witnessing this suffering are held captive by their inability to take the pain away. They suffer too. This morning I wondered which pain is worse. It should be simply stated that 'physical' pain is far worse, but I would challenge that right now. They're different forms of pain, one no less nor greater than the other. Equal in their own right pehaps. A reminder of how FRAGILE we are...oh how fragile we are. We watch as he lays with 1 1/2" diameter tube protruding through the most tender of skin. A tube forced in by surgically incising an area as it enters between two ribs in order to drain and remove air buildup...as each day goes by, as each x-ray is completed we wait and hope for good results. One day becomes two and so on. We pray. We encourage. We cheer him on, but inside our hearts the rain does fall. His pain is our pain. We endure together. He is not alone although there are moments when this feeling of isolation sets in. We must be ever present to let him know how much we love him.

How fragile we are.

Right Here - Right Now

There is a beauty about tonight. It's a calm silence that I'm listening to as I write this. A warm August night with a damp chill in the air...French doors swung open wide and Im feeling that this is the best part of the summer - the end of it... when you can literally hear nothing but stillness and crickets. I love that sound...and right this moment I can even hear the far off sound of a train in the distance. This is beauty!

Edge of Light

“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”

Richard Bach
American Writer, author of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', b.1936

In Solidarity

Thoughts

Prayers

Hope

&

Peace

*Image by Shin currently living in Japan.

Lay with me, let's forget the world.

maybe we'll chase cars too..

and you can show me a garden that's bursting into life.

Once in a blue moon we are reminded to slow down and take in the world around us. The lyrics of this song are pretty open to interpretation. I felt they were speaking. Lay down, slow down. Forget the world for a moment with all it's turmoil. Lay with someone. Let yourselves be...in the moment...before you realize it's too late and you've grown old. Enjoy the moment life gives you today!

I wonder what this song is saying to you???





We'll do it all, everything, on our own.
We don't need anything, or anyone.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world.

I don't quite know how to say how I feel
Those three words, are said too much, they're not enough.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world.
Forget what we're told, before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life.

Let's waste time, chasing cars, around our heads.
I need your grace to remind me, to find my own.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world.
Forget what we're told, before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life.

All that I am, all that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where, confused about how as well
just know that these things will never change for us at all.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world.

Wondering

Yes. Stone Parliament is still here. I apologize for not keeping the blog current and probably should have posted a note, but I didn't.





Having heard from many subscribers, I'm both touched and moved by your feelings about the blog. Right now I can honestly say that I'm not sure which direction it will go. For now, it's one day at a time.

Thank you for returning each day to 'check in' to see if we're here. We are.

Namaste!

Down The River, Into the Brain: Is technology making us stupid?

Take A Wilderness Trip to find out!

Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain.

Before the hiking and rafting trip, Art Kramer was concerned about a big grant. "Time is slowing down," he says on Day 3.
Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

A couple of professors did a little research leaving their cellphones behind and headed into the wilds where e-mail is inaccessible and laptops would be powerless. It was a trip into the heart of silence!



"Five neuroscientists spent a week in late May in a remote area of southern Utah, a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects..." Read the New York Times article HERE.

Impermanence

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.

Shinichi Suzuki

Anicca or impermanence is understood by Buddhists as one of the three marks of existence, these being anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) and anatta (non-self hood). All things in the universe are understood by Buddhists to be characterised by these three marks of existence. According to the impermanence doctrine, human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara), and in any experience of loss. This is applicable to all beings and their environs including devas (mortal gods). The Buddha taught that because conditioned phenomena are impermanent, attachment to them becomes the cause for future suffering (dukkha).
Conditioned phenomena can also be referred to as compounded, constructed, or fabricated. This is in contrast to the unconditioned, uncompounded and unfabricated nirvana, the reality that knows no change, decay or death.
Impermanence is intimately associated with the doctrine of anatta, according to which things have no fixed nature, essence, or self. For example, in Mahayana Buddhism, because all phenomena are impermanent, and in a state of flux, they are understood to be empty of an intrinsic self (shunyata).

A glossary of Buddhist terms can be found HERE.

The Storm of Art

Summer has finally blessed us with an amazing heat wave that should stick around for a couple of weeks. You can hear people start to complain. I'm not sure why, but Canadians love to talk about weather. I wonder if Americans are as obsessed about their weather as we are?

On any given day you can walk into the supermarket or the bank and the first thing people greet you with is: "Sure is hot today!" or "Oh it's freezing out, can't wait till it warms up!" It never ends. We talk about humidity, sleet, rain, fog, the scorching sun, freezing rain, impending snow storms...it's endless! If a storm is predicted enter any supermarket and you'll find people buying supplies as if a famine is about to occur with the idea they'll be housebound for months...even when they live three blocks away. It's getting to the point of ridiculousness and instead of complaininig about the heat I guess you could say I'm complaining about people complaining about the weather!

Heightened Alert I

Acrylic on board, 30 x 30

Speaking about the weather, we would like to introduce the work of Michelle Manley. Her paintings are inspired by environmental phenomena that are both socially troubling and aesthetically sublime. Her severe storms and crashing waves address the concept of 'force' and 'clashes with nature' and illustrate the alteration of weather systems, bodies of water, and land as a result of human agency and waste. She often evokes the form of human anatomy to question and obscure the physcial boundaries between corporeal tissue and the elements, in order to emphasize the inevitable symbiosis of the material products of civilization and the biological makeup of the entire terrestrial ecosystem. View more of her paintings HERE.

Severence
48"W x 36"H
Acrylic on Board, 2008

Morning E-Mail with a message!

Thanks to MaryAnne, a fellow committee member from Development & Peace for sending this!

"Development and Peace is the official international development organization of the Catholic Church in Canada and the Canadian member of Caritas Internationalis. Inspired by Gospel values, particularly "the preferential option for the poor," the goals of Development and Peace are to support initiatives by people in the Global South to take control of their lives and to educate Canadians about North-South issues. Our education, advocacy and fund-raising work here at home is carried out by Development and Peace members from coast to coast." Read more HERE.

Gloria Martin Receives A Star on Canada's Walk of Fame

Youtube Addition:June 8, 2010 8:08 PM

Around 9:30 AM. The voice on the other end of the phone - my cousin Gloria. I could tell by her voice that something was up. Her news which she could finally divulge was about to explode into my day setting it into a wave of ecstatic emotion! SHARING in another's GLORY is the BEST feeling there is! Your spirit is in orbit!!

Congratulations Gloria!
We are SO proud of you! Well deserved!

TORONTO - Officials with Canada's Walk of Fame are preparing to unveil the names of the 2010 inductees today however one special inductee's name was announced early.

Co-founding Director Peter Soumalias joined 680News showbiz editor Gloria Martin, live on the 680News morning show for a very special and surprising announcement.

Gloria Martin was given an honorary star on the walk of fame.

This is only the seventh honorary star given out.

The Walk of Fame is 13 blocks of sidewalk on King Street West in front of Roy Thomson Hall, the Princess of Wales Theatre and the Royal Alex.

Every star on the walk of fame acknowledges the achievements and accomplishments of very important and successful Canadians.

Everyone at 680News congratulates Gloria on this wonderful honour.
FROM HERE.

* You may remember Gloria from the Cotswold Cottage here on the blog. Read more HERE . HERE & HERE
Photo by: Christine Chubb/680News