Embedded Files
Potential Themes to get you started on a piece of artwork. Sometimes a Blank Canvas is too Blank.
Potential Themes to get you started on a piece of artwork. Sometimes a Blank Canvas is too Blank.
5/12/20 New Habits. Sweeping Change. & Ninja Rabbits.
5/12/20 New Habits. Sweeping Change. & Ninja Rabbits.
Sorry I missed a week of Musing posting… The pause button got stuck.
This past weekend I worked in the garden. Well, I bought the flowers, but I haven't put them in the ground or pots yet. I am planting an herb garden in a planter on my deck! I also helped my dad by holding boards level while he screwed them in. We are building raised bed boxes in our hillside to grow vegetables! It was fun helping my dad and I felt like I was doing something useful.
Here is my (most recent) “QuarenTime Coping Tip” that I started on the really nice (non-raining) mornings. It might make “sweeping” changes to your daily habits. I go out to water the plants on the deck and while I am there I sweep off the deck and stairs (yes, every morning). It reminds me of all the Japanese homeowners sweeping off their steps and watering their plants I would see on my walk to work during the summers in Tokyo. It is a nice calming habit... I know, I know,... sweeping?... but it is just a few minutes of time, each day, where I am taking care of my space. I am starting to claim that space as a new living area and want it to look nice. I will post photos once I get it "Elle Decor" ready (and yes, I typed and deleted a few different magazines to be featured in...)
What habits are you falling into? Are they habits you had before? Are they habits you wish to change?
I am trying to remember and take stock on why I didn't have time for things like sweeping my porch before. What did I spend my time doing? One thing for me was the tv. My head injury broke me of my bad habit of spending the whole day watching tv on a regular basis. A few weeks ago I felt myself needing some downtime and fell right back into that habit for a few days. It was soothing as it was a familiar stress reliever. But last night, after dinner, I put the fireplace on the tv and got out my collage stuff and started making a collage in my sketchbook (that hasn't really been touched... being honest…{I am also chuckling as I can hear me in my teacher-voice saying… “I went to CollEge to learn collAge”}).
I enjoyed myself so much and felt recharged in a more positive way. I am happy that I recognized myself falling back into the old normal. I am trying to find ways to remind myself to keep these “positive” habits going when the "normal" resumes. Honestly, I don't want "normal as it was''. I want the “better normal” with me choosing how to spend my time in productive ways.
Maybe we can help each other with this. I am going to write a letter “to myself in 6 months” reminding myself of the old habits I have broken, or want to continue trying to break. To remind myself of the positive things I have noticed in my life because of this QuarenTime. To remind myself to keep going on the goals I set out for myself. To tell myself how proud I am of me!
I might then create a piece of artwork to inspire me in 6 months. I will incorporate it into my letter, or seal in in the envelope with it. I might even make 2, one for the letter and one for my bulletin board as a quiet reminder.
Pause. Play. Slow Forward.~
Pause. Play. Slow Forward.~
I have been thinking about the idea of PAUSE. A temporary stop. Temporary inaction especially caused by uncertainty. A break in a verse. A brief suspension of the voice to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts. A button that stops the show, so I can move my attention to something else.
So many things are on pause right now. I wouldn't have thought that I would need anymore pause in my timeline. Yet, this week, a pause was required. Although Life is different right now, Life is still happening. Sometimes the stress of it all can overload the system and a pause must be taken.
On Wednesday, I closed my computer... after so many meetings and gotta catch up on this, and gotta plan that, and oh, gotta design this, and oh, don't forget to do that... and I paused. Spending my days in Fast Forward was not the way I want my show to be played. I took a deep breath...took a nap...and ate dinner with my family.
Pause.
It is temporary. It is not Stop, or Delete.
Play.
I am going to play with some art. I am going to play with some words. I am going to play Wii with my dad.
I am going to move forward, but a SLOW FORWARD. Like what happens when you move forward from a PAUSE in a show.
How do you know when you need to PAUSE? What do you do to enable the system reset during the PAUSE? and How do you move out of the PAUSE without jumping right back into Fast Forward?
Take a PAUSE. The show will go on.
Growth ~
Growth ~
4/15/20 Musings from Boss Broyles
I love having flowers in the house. It brings calm to me. I recently grew some Paper-white flower bulbs in my house. My dad laughed when he saw the dish I had them in... apparently, I had them upside down. Well, now I knew why they weren't growing. Checking the water, adding a little bit more each day to keep it level with the bottom, gave me something to take care of each day which felt good. Eventually, they started to grow roots that helped them stand up in the tray and reach for the light. Some days they grew more than others. They also all grew on their own schedule. There was one bulb that grew so slowly. I almost thought is was not going to make it, but it just needed some time, and is the only one left now. Each day the leaves would be facing a different direction as I kept turning the dish. I liked seeing them change and flex, and I had to come to terms with my notion of just trying to get them to stand up straight. They did what they wanted. I eventually tied them all together for support because they were growing so tall and needed to lean on each other to not topple over! This experience has allowed me to think of GROWTH.
How do you define GROWTH? What helps you to keep GROWING? How would you like to GROW during this time we have (in any way)? Specifically in art or technology, How would you like to GROW during this time?
Home ~
Home ~
So I found this photo of an Interior Design project I did a few years back at SCAD Hong Kong Educators Forum. The idea was to think about what Home meant to each of us (coupled with the different notions of Home (limited living quarters) we were exploring in Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po area.
This brought joy to me today as I, we, have resigned to stay in our homes. I go back to the conversations we had about what makes a home...family, love, memories, personal artifacts, warm feelings for some (distant feelings of others)... and what we mean when we answer the question... Where is home? Is it where you are from? Is it where you are? When does home feel like home?
I hope you are settling into your notion of home. It is more than the clean doorknobs and the neatly folded laundry. Home is the experiences, the memories shared, and the collective togetherness of all things.
Take some time to think about what Home means to you and what you can do today to better it.
Report abuse