I have been in a big preparation and transition mode for the past eight months building a studio - truly an incredible space that looks beguilingly like a humble one car garage from the outside, but a big open white luminous box inside, with a studio closet, also a long time dream of mine, and lights that aren't daisy chained clamp lamps.
I have completed laying and painting the plywood floor and my knees really hurt, but it's time to remember about being an artist again.

Also in serious process at the moment is a fourth book. This book is a truly new experience because it is fully and completely published by someone else, Tiller Press of Simon and Schuster in New York, and it will be coming out in March of 2021. It is on its way to the printer soon, but unlike with my other books, I can be vague on this point because for the first time I do not interact with the printer! Nor do I have to receive thousands of books and store them, try to sell them, and work as a tiny scrappy island of personal ambition. I am deeply grateful because in that department I think I am mostly tapped.

This is truly an exciting thing. I will share with you a little about this book. It's a new Contemporary Prayers, essentially a second volume with vivid, saturated ink drawings and eighty new prayers. These prayers were penned during the early pandemic, and so yes, it is a completely relevant book for our insanely wild ride of a world at present.

Do you remember imagining 2020 when it was like, 1999 or 2003 or so? I recall just trying to imagine what it was going to be like, that futuristic sounding year. I imagined scary stuff, but I have to say, nothing like the almost daily new series of developments that we're seeing now. So I am very very grateful for the timing of this book, for the fact of this book, and that hopefully, more people will get to play around with using prayer as a tool, without having to conform to a specific spiritual or religious framework to tap in and connect.

I have been asked to share more, show up more, in whatever way feels authentic to me, here on this blog. So, as I have done before, I will do my best to do so, and by getting more in the habit and playing around more with this medium of writing, perhaps you will somehow be served. You can be sure I'm not going to be speculating about elections, finger pointing and whistle blowing on this blog. There is a lot of that happening, and it is compelling to be sure, but what I bring you here is whatever I find in the moment to help you touch down, within yourself, to what's true and what's asking for your attention, right now. This is prior to stories, to ideas and stances. This is before your personality and your projects. I am also very open to requests, questions and comments, and will be as responsive as I can be.

until soon,

​HB

We have an official e-book for Elements: a love letter to all things everywhere  !!
I find the timing a little poetic, that the virtual version should turn up just when we need it most.

It’s 15.99, in epub format and really does look beautiful on an ipad. It’s the kind of eye-popping color I was looking at when I designed the book, and it was assembled professionally at 5th Avenue Press by Amanda Szot so it’s *legit*.

It's particularly challenging to create e-books for art books, and I am very grateful that I didn't have to do it myself. This e-book comes right as the Elements- all ages, interdisciplinary, kick-ass curriculum for occupying yourself and your kids in a mind expanding, playful way, comes out too! Learn more about that here, and see the bundled deals you can get at our shop

​hannahburr.bigcartel.com

Because pandemic, in my coaching calls, everything is different. I’ve been coaching since 2007. I’ve had one particular client since 2008, off and on. It’s been an incredible 12 year relationship and it’s been an honor to work with such a talented individual through so many passages in her life.

After Covid-19 reared up, the treadmill of the world ground to a halt. The tone of our coaching conversations definitively changed. At first it felt very odd: planning is pretty much out if it’s outside of a 24 hour window, and it’s challenging to vision much when all our hard work to bring things about is suddenly yielding something so unrecognizable and not often welcome. And then it began to shift.

The way I was initially trained as a coach, everything was set up around a goal and a vision.
After determining these, I help my client to charter a path to achieve that goal. There was a kind of go gettem' vibe to the whole thing. In the past five or so years, I’ve avoided the word "goal", in my coaching practice, unless a client is very goal focused already. I’ve avoided the word goal because it’s interlaced with pressure, pushing or force. The idea of *getting* and *attaining* was fun for a bit, but then became easily pretty painful. Lately that goal-oriented, ambition-driven approach feels like a record playing at the wrong speed.

Right now, this  appears to be a time to yield, give, show up with funny hair in your real life situation, to rest and to receive.

The sessions remain a space for opening to what’s already here, and for listening to what somehow we already know and even remember, about the life that is coming into view up ahead. Our job is to listen inwardly, and to open to what’s there.


My clients and I have been asking each other and ourselves: What does a business plan look like right now? How might you create one on the new earth? What does a work day look like?

Time itself feels altered. I hear people share about forgetting what day it is, and I’m astonished when it’s the end of a day or the start of a new one, or that it’s been three months since this halt began.

The guidance is still there but with a different access point and quality. It’s in the walks and the clouds passing overhead. It’s in those quiet words that spill out that are the truth, after a bunch of tears or challenging words. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the night.

I also notice a strong impulse to serve and to help coming out of us humans. I find it’s important to listen in to the tone of that impulse. Is it guilt? Is it a kind of free floating anxiety? If so, it has been proving very important to ground, to rest and to care for what’s immediately asking for  attention, very locally, before going out to try and *do* anything.

From what I can make out so far, this is a huge ship that’s being turned around, and right now all of the furniture is being rearranged while we’re still trying to use it. It’s going to take time. Or, to use another metaphor, a nicely arranged set of blocks has been thrown up into the air, and it hasn’t landed, and we don’t know what kind of configuration or chaos will be left when it does.​

And then there’s the grief. We have lost a lot. Our way of socializing, even a smile in the grocery aisle is gone. Hugs. Sitting out in public near others. A sense of civic normalcy. Libraries. Routines. Privacy. Touch. Trust in our governing bodies. Many deaths have come and many forms of security we thought of as normal, have gone.


So, how do we do this?


Just the way we are doing this.


Bumpily, awkwardly, smoothly every couple of days for a little while, and then something else entirely. What’s in front of you? What feels right? That’s the next thing. That’s the next small, local, and perfect thing.

Before January is completely out, here are some highlights from Hannah Burr Studio in 2019, followed by what’s coming down the pike in 2020.

2019 was my second full year in Ann Arbor. It had a ‘getting the sea legs’ quality to it. We were snuggly situated in our Walter Drive rental home, in our second full year of marriage, and learned some great ways to share space as two adults who like their independence. The good news is that we’re honing our interdependent chops and married life is smoothing out nicely!

The petite garage studio that last winter got shut down due to freezing temps, is happily still functioning and in solid use at the end of 2019. The remedy of a heated blanket under a tented table keeps the most delicate things from freezing, and the rest I heat up as I use. It’s working!

This year my third book the Elements: a love letter to all things everywhere came out! It’s a beautiful print, and the first book where I used an editor and worked with a publishing team. Like the other two books that came before, the printing was paid for through crowdfunding. The first half of the year through June was focused on many many hours, weeks, and months of image file correction, editorial passes, alignment, style adjustments, and proofs sent from our overseas printer.
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The second half of the year involved sharing the Elements book first with the beloved crowdfund backers, the Fifth Avenue Press community here in Ann Arbor, and all of my lovely Boston friends and budding Ann Arbor community. We went to the Detroit and North Hampton Art Book Fairs, and the Boston Art Book Fair as well. The book is currently for sale at the Wexner Center for the Arts shop in Ohio, the LACMA Art Shops in LA, the Ann Arbor Art Center, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, as well as in the collection of the University of Michigan’s Library, Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts Library, and the Ann Arbor District Library. So, we’re starting to share it beyond the known realms and really fascinated to see where it gets taken on!

We created three large posters and a couple of smaller posters for all three of the books, as well as smaller prints and postcards of each book’s pages - this is a new experiment. The three large posters are now part of library art print circulation at the Ann Arbor District Library, and for sale at our big cartel shop! This involves shipping riddles and storage quandries, but we’re having fun and working it out!

​The Time is Color 2 Calendar was printed as round three of this celebration of my favorite ephemeral drawings and art for everybody. This year’s calendar was I think the most fetching so far and I might have two or three kicking around in the edition of 50 if you still want one (ps. they’re on sale at Big Cartel).

I had a solo show called ‘Temporary Arrangements’ at the Ann Arbor Art Center this summer, which included new painting and drawing, and was the first time I’ve shown overt abstract landscape and pure abstraction in direct relationship to each other. The show featured 23 works altogether and has spurred new work currently in development.

​In March of 2019, three conceptual projects were curated into an exhibit at the Sorenson Arts Center of Babson College called ‘Reflecting on the Sacred.’ The exhibit was a collaboration of curator Danielle Krcmar and the Interfaith Chapel of Babson. The works included were conceptual and interactive, titled You Are Legend, Salt Project and Send Love, Let Go. I was invited to run a workshop at the Chapel and it was truly a pleasure to work again with Danielle who added lovely new blocks to our collective block project installation built during the workshop. I don’t yet have all of these projects on my site but will soon enough!!

1. Stay in the body. ​
When manic holiday shopping or intensive socializing and activities are on constant offer, there is a tendency for my energy to go up and out. In the aisles of a store, the energy goes out through the eyes and the senses, or bores deeply into a list, and I can completely forget I have a body at all. At a holiday party or a tea with a friend in from out of town, I can feel a pull to match the bubbliness and superficiality that may be all anyone is capable of mustering as the weeks wear on. Another scenario that looks a little more like hibernation but also is a kind of disembodiment is binge-watching shows. Sometimes if holidays are lonelier, or there’s grief and loss as a part of this time of year, I can find myself wanting to manufacture good feelings by not one but a whole season of something, until I dream about the plot lines and characters, and my own life becomes of mash up of fiction and reality.
This is for most of us a norm at this time of year.

To stay in the body, here are some suggestions.

• Treat your body like a prized horse or dog, that you shower with the best care this season. You can care for this most precious animal the body by
• Getting enough sleep.
• Move the body often. If you have a lot of computer work, take a break every 45 minutes or an hour and try to touch your toes or walk around the block or up and down the hall with no other purpose.
• Adopt a pleasant and easy movement practice. My favorite right now is qi gong. It’s less performative than yoga, you can look online and find lots of qi gong flows, follow along and see how balancing and centering it is. Of course there’s yoga, the gym, lovely walks, feldenkrais, and the most fun and easiest for me, dance party for one, or two or three.
• Dry brush the body (your prize horse) before a shower.
• A shower or bath. Even better, a steam room or sauna.
• A basic one is, if you have to go to the bathroom, do so, get up and empty that bladder. Sometimes even this can be something we postpone to be polite or productive. Practice telling the truth in this basic way and caring first for this one body of yours.
• Eat nourishing foods instead of interesting or titillating foods. See how grounding this can be.
• Drink water.

If possible, only do the body things on this list that inspire you and feel easy. Please do not force yourself, bully yourself or pressure yourself to do the ones that don’t resonate, or become another to do. What on this list is low hanging fruit for you? What piques your curiosity? Keep it simple but prioritize the lovely vehicle and ticket to engage in this wild movie of your life, the bod. oh and hot water bottles. underrated.

Happy belated Thanksgiving.

​As the days get shorter and colder, I am now slowing down into this season of reflection, rest, and to the best of my ability, going inward. Someone recently pointed out to me that doing so poses a real challenge at this time of year because economic forces do not want us to do this, though for centuries it’s been a time for rest and falling fallow. At a grocery store three days before Thanksgiving, I felt and heard that constant jingle jingle jingle that spurs one to throw that extra holiday oddity into the cart, and just one more little gift. It’s fun sometimes, until it becomes a kind of manic autopilot. So, today, on the day after Thanksgiving, I’m going to start putting out some alternative points of focus to accompany all of that, or to do instead. I will do this in three parts.

We’ve got just over a month before the holidays are behind us. For myself, and for you if you choose, here are some ways to go slow and go in peace and stay healthier. I’ll outline these, and then go into more detail in the posts to follow.

1. Stay in the body.

2. Reflect.

3. Look forward.

Bring the insights of these practices to the more outward facing facets of this holiday time, and see how much richer an experience it can be! ​

This year there are only 50 in existence! We've already sold through about a third, so please claim yours before they're gone!

These calendars are a labor of love, and this is my favorite one yet. It is inspired by japanese vertical stationary design, and a desire to share my artwork without having to deal with the middle man of galleries, or require the expense of owning the originals. 

You get 12 beautiful prints (normally $10 each when I sell them at fairs), for $39. It's like having your own private exhibition and color therapy and inspiration all while staying on top of your schedule. Enjoy!
​

A little over a month ago, after 6 years of conceptualizing, researching, starting, stopping, presenting, sharing, reworking, building, editing, building, editing, refining, freaking out and head scratching, I finally got to meet the Elements book on its own terms. As my mother used to say as I was heading off to college: the biscuits are out of the oven! In other words, it's out of my hands now! 

So now, after a complicated and exhilarating month, I have handed out and distributed all of the reserved copies, shared the book at a talk in Maine, a book pick up party in Boston, one in Ann Arbor, an art book fair in North Hampton MA and another in Detroit MI, I'm stepping back to marvel and reflect. The feedback, I believe, made the book more approachable, playful and easy to delve in and out of with impunity. My favorite part happens now, as I learn what this project means for others, how it lands for you, and what it wants to be in the world. 

Here are some reactions I've gotten to Elements so far:

This is a book for poets married to scientists and engineers married to artists.
This is a book for the parents of scientists.
This is a book for families wanting a playful and awe inspiring entry point to science and to the world, objects, inner and outerspace. It's a wonderful learning tool for the whole family. 
This is a book that can create access to a formerly expert, specialized subject, for more visual thinkers or people steeped in other subjects for most of their lives.
This book can be used as a meditation tool, a page a day, a random flip open, to shift perspective or go deep.
This book is for synesthetes and those loving a lateral view, a different cross section of our world. 

It's been surprising and delightful to learn all of this, as people connect with it at my table at an art book fair, or emailed me after receiving it and sitting down with it for the first time. Hearing my retired uncle admit that they didn't know titanium was an element until this book. To watch my Waldorf teacher friend get super excited about it for a teaching block, my cousin Katie, an episcopal minister and teacher, send me a photo of it on her teachers desk as a dynamic entry point to mysticism. My 13 year old nephew start in from the first page, and get really into the paper legend and visual patterns hidden in the book. My favorite was a woman at the Northampton Art Book Fair, a biology major volunteering who happened to be sitting next to me. She asked to take a peek at my book, then clutched it to her chest, held it up over her head and shouted, I LOVE THIS BOOK! I need it! It's how I learn! And then too, discovering across from me at the Detroit Art Book Fair that Flower Press had made a bumper sticker that read: MORE TEXTBOOKS BY WOMEN. And I thought YES! That's also what this is! 

So far I've broken down 25 boxes, as I send and hand out the books. That's 575 pounds of Elements book out in the world!

Upcoming are two more events to date: On November 10 in Ann Arbor, the book will be shared and launched along with 8 other authors publishing through 5th Avenue Press. I'll be giving a very brief presentation of the book.* And on November 9 and 10 in Boston, I'll be at the Boston Art Book Fair to share this and the brand new calendar, as well as the concept of WE AM, a collective in development. 

*My presentation will be a recorded talk, and Guy will be there to share and sell the books, all of which will be signed copies. ​

​Walt Whitman's writing arises itself from a very unified understanding of being, objects and the world. 
On the eve of sharing my third book with all of you this September, I share this part of his epic poem Song of Myself. 

17. Song of the Broad-Axe
The shapes arise!
Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,
Shapes of two-threaded tracks of railroads,
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches,
Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft,
Ship-yards and dry-rocks along the Eastern and Western seas, and in many a bay and by-place,
The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for knees,
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,
The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane...

I love about it that it's a list of things, that it's about the mundane, observing what's here, and just letting it awe one. The full title of the upcoming book is Elements: a love letter to all things everywhere. As you can see here, this poem is clearly a love letter to all things everywhere. And it is a song of Walt Whitman's Self. In this new book you will find lists of objects, arranged around each of the 118 known chemical elements that make all the stuff, all the shapes arising.

This part of Whitman's poem is not in the upcoming book, but there are other words of his included:

Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I was intrigued by Whitman's use of the word 'atom' because the atom as we understand it today in scientific terms, was not actually discovered during Whitman's time. It turns out that the word 'atom' is an ancient greek word meaning 'indivisible.' The smallest unit possible. Now for us, an atom is made up of smaller parts: protons, neutrons and electrons, and smaller particles including quarks. And we keep discovering that an 'indivisible' thing is made of other things, defying/expanding our understanding again and again.  The concept and word 'atom' is ancient, and used by Whitman in his writing and poems, in sum. 

An element, by the way, is a uniquely structured atom, with a set number of protons, and electrons, and its own atomic weight (based on these). There are 118 known such elements, or unique atoms, that bind and react (steam, smoke, fire, farts, fireworks, rust, yogurt and so on) and make all the things we are, eat, have, and see. The lightest one has one proton and electron and the atomic weight of 1 (Hydrogen H). The heaviest has 118 protons and electrons, and the atomic weight of 118 (Oganesson Og -recently discovered and named if you haven't heard of it). 

Here are a couple of other Walt Whitman snippets that I considered including in the book because they hit upon these themes of awe, union, and inseparability that inspired my book:

15. To be in any form, what is that?…
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.

__

14. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same…
_

18. Songs of the Open Road
The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

I can't wait to share this book with you. Thanks for tuning in.

UPDATE! The Elements book is now for sale here.

There are three things in this post: A celebration, an outline of my ten learnings from Elements so far, and some actual dates for celebrating with me and getting your books in Ann Arbor and Boston. Read on!
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This early June, the peonies are taking their luxurious time to open here in Michigan.

Yesterday, I finally communicated to the printer of the Elements book, the following phrase:

I approve this book for printing.

This is a big moment in printing a book. ​
It means that the book is complete: edited, proofread, spellchecked, gone through page by page probably 200 times, updated, and then sent off for proofing again. There’s the proof where you’re checking that no pages are upside-down or out of order, that no headers went mysteriously missing, and that the layout is as expected. That’s called the indigo or ozalid proof. The color looks like crap and there are weird inconsistencies in the ink, but you are supposed to ignore that.

For this project, I approved a wet proof as well. This one roll of paper, about the size of six posters, cost $800. The printer has to set the entire press up with the actual paper and actual ink and final settings, so you can see if the cover is the right tone, the text is dark enough, and how the ink sits/absorbs on the uncoated creamy paper stock I chose.

That in itself could be another round of proofing, but I decided I couldn’t front another $800 to see what a slight modification in the cyan would look like. Most projects don’t wet proof unless like this one, you’re using different paper and have a lot of color artwork in the book.

This book is 428 pages. Early in the process, I had to play about a week’s worth of tetrus to figure out how to consolidate down by about 12 pages. This process involved looking at other books, playing mental scenarios out, and drawing lots of page grids and sketches. 

My last two books were 125 pages each, with a single line or two of text on most of the pages. To be honest, back in 2012 when I started working with my first overseas printer, I had no idea what I was doing, and was yes, using a lot of prayer to sleep ok at night and trust that it was all going to work out. I didn’t think much about the paper, I had no idea what exactly I was supposed to be looking at with the proofs that arrived, and I was too intimidated to ask many questions. 
Comparatively and in hindsight, I now see that ignorance is bliss, and that a shorter book takes a lot less time to prepare!
​
On this project I had a book designer Amanda Szot from AADL offering guidance, ideas, and a lovely Periodic Table of Elements.Working with Amanda and learning some of her process made me aware of my very real learning curve with InDesign. I think back to Leila Simon Hayes working on the layout and cover design of the last two books, and how challenging it must have been that I was so fly-by-night and chaotic in my approach. Alas. But I am also fairly detail oriented and scrappy, which is how I probably got it to the printer at all. I’ve learned a lot from the people and process that become woven into the making of these books.

I asked for a lot more help on this project than I had before, and help arrived in very cool forms. 
a) I met Patrick Barber, a book designer, at the Detroit Art Book Fair last fall, where he was admiring my paintings. He recommended the overseas printer I ended up working with using his recommended contact. We through books his publishing company had printed with this printer in his Detroit living room, as I scribbled notes and asked all the questions I could think of. 

Later in the process, I proposed we barter: His expertise and consulting for artwork. Since then he’s been helping me decipher complex emails, strategize approaches in response, understand the focus and motivation of the printing team, and understand rich black versus straight black, the invoices and purchase orders, exports to PDF, and how to approach each round of proofing. All with enthusiasm, which makes me feel so glad I have work to barter!

Nicco Pandolfi took on an early round of editing, and was paired with me by Sara Wedell, the overseer of my publishing team at the Ann Arbor District Library. This was my frist experience with an editor or a publishing team (of which designer Amanda Szot is also a part), and it both raised the level of support, the bar for the finished product, and my awareness that my one month timeframe to get this book to press was wAAAAy unrealistic. 

So, it’s been a LOT more of my life and time than I thought possible to bring this book to the point of printing (one month became five). 

I have learned ten things. I have learned to 

-ask for help (1)
-set up an ergonomic workstation (2)
-take care of my eyes and body with breaks and limits to my screen time (3)
-slow way down, take the time needed (4)
-consider that I may not know how to spell all words (5)
-put lots of mental emotional padding between me and emails that might otherwise raise up the hackles.(6) For example, the email where I thought the book was going to cost 2000 more than the highest quote (beyond all raised funds), because of a misunderstanding about the number of color pages. 
-be curious and open where I might before have been a compact singularity of stress (7)
-tell the truth and extend a deadline which, up until this project I’d prided myself on never having done (8)
-handle things gently and with love, first and foremost myself, and everyone else from there (9)
-navigate around lots of technical stuff in Lightroom, InDesign and and way more about the business of printing in general (10)

...and maybe on the next project, make the book a tiny bit shorter!

In other words, I have changed in significant ways because of this project.

The peony next to my monitor went from deep hot pink to soft light pink like a fading curtain over the last few days. The petals have mostly dropped onto the table. And, there are more adventures ahead with this project.

One more proof, the F&Gs, are my opportunity to remedy tiny smudges or printing anomalies of the final, already printed book before binding, and then it gets delivered.

​To be safe, we’re saying the delivery date is September. I plan to have a pick up party in Boston on September 7th, and another in Michigan on September 13th. I rest well in the knowledge I’ve done my best while taking good care of this project and myself, and I trust everyone who has invested their time, interest, money and expertise, as well as emotional support, to get us to these words:
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I approve this book for printing. 

[Originally posted in Spring of 2013]

​A few weeks ago I was driving home at night through Brookline. In one of the town's many rotaries was a simple mound with many, many daffodils in bloom. It was raining and I noticed them on my left.

Normally, I'd cluck over their beauty with a heightened sense of goodwill. But in this instance, I was surprised by what I saw there instead. I had a similar sensation once while looking at stars in Maine. I saw depth in the night sky, where before I'd seen more of a blanket or curved plane of stars like in the planetarium. Seeing the flowers in the rotary gave me a similar feeling of vastness, or vertigo.

I saw while passing the flowers that the whole mess of them, the entire mound of hundreds, was actually one conscious presence or force, like a collective brain. Something far less diminutive or poetic than what I'd previously percieved. The green shoots, threading roots filtering the dirt, meet as a single mind under there.

Our lives are lived at times with the leaden feeling of no-one-gives-a-shit/sees me/understands.  As a woman living alone turning 40 in a month, the daffodil revelation is important. The cars circling the rotary, people on a train platform, a group listening to a concert is the same. We get so caught in the mire of being individuals. The tangle of speculation, obligation, association, doubt and doom - Doing  and aiming for a high perch on the hill, or we fear mediocrity and failure. I want to be a success, don't you?

When I can feel the ground underneath, or the weather as it mixes with the tiny hairs on my arm, use my senses to reconnect to the situation I find myself in at any given moment, just as it is and just as I am, recollected.

Those flowers don't have long. They get a few weeks if they're lucky to kappow in yellow.  That depth and connection is also available to me and you, as is the profound beauty of our vulnerable, short lives.

6 Insights into Falling Back in love with your work, creative practice and life.

Every so often, I hear from an artist friend or in the pages of my studio journal, a sense that our work as artists is boring or repetitive, or not all that interesting. I’ve heard this from artists whose work delights and inspires me and many others. I’ve also seen and felt how these thoughts can feel paralyzing. 

We may look at one body of work and think: I love this, but it was too easy to make, too much fun, too simple, doesn’t have consequence, doesn’t address an injustice, isn’t clever….

or similar stories. 

It’s a little like how you might feel about your hair: It’s frizzy. It’s flat and lifeless! It’s oily as soon as I wash it! I don’t have any! It’s heavy, thick and weird! It’s graying, it’s thinning, it’s such a blah color. 

Whatever you do with it, your hair is your hair. Even if you’re bald, it is what it is. It’s what you have. Art and Hair: not always in our control.

When a friend of mine expressed her relief at finally deciding to let her hair be: go grey, look like it does, it was uplifting and liberating to me too. 

As for art: the fact is, I can’t make someone else’s work, and if I try, it’s not going to go well. I can learn from them, try out a technique, but if I’m being honest in the work, genuine and deeply engaging the work, it’s going to be singular. And what it is, is independent of me and whatever I think about it. 

From this meandering thought trail, I pull a few insights:
1) I am not my artwork. I am not what people think of my work. I am powerless to change or even truly know what others think of it. Some people will like it, some people won’t, it is what it is, on any level of notoriety or obscurity.

2) I am the steward of my work, it’s foster parent say, and it’s my job to honor, to care for it, and to see it. To be curious about it and learn from it, to show up for it as best I can, which’ll be human, imperfect and OK.

3) Genuineness and your relationship to work comes through, so explore, discover, and pay attention to what you enjoy doing, what you love to do. It is also sometimes the case that you may simply need to see something through, or to break through to something else.

4) It’s not always fun or pleasant, nor does the work always come together - but the messes themselves have great things to reveal.

5) Want what you have. Practice this as a discipline to enjoy your life, work and creative practice more. Wanting what you have is a discipline that helps you feel lighter, clearer and more in love with what’s actually here in your life. Do this by becoming curious and playing with this line of inquiry. Ask yourself:

What’s happening here?
I wonder where this’ll go...
Hmmm. Now this is happening!
What do I appreciate and enjoy in my life?
(Nothing is the answer that will make you feel the worst so dig a little deeper and come up with something)

6) When you see something amazing in another's artwork, life or career, see it as something your heart is waking up to in your own life, something being remembered about who you are and your inherent worth and abundance, and say YES, THAT. That’s amazing. I choose THAT! from the catalogue of life experience. I am open to experiencing that in my own life. 

Prior to this practice, it might feel somewhat like an impoverished, smouldering jealousy, comparison or rejection of that other. For an easier experience, see it as a mirror. This plane we live on is dynamic and collaborative. Your part is to know what sparks joy in your life, art and in others.

And further, even if it’s scary, practice the expression of appreciation and gratitude to others. You may find as you do your heart expanding, relating, connecting and serving, instead of - as was my case for much of my twenties, contracting, retreating, judging, comparing, hiding and becoming brittle in the comfort of familiar and inaccurate stories.

To reiterate: 
When you see something amazing in another's artwork, life or career, see it as something your heart is waking up to in your own life, something being remembered about who you are and your inherent worth and abundance, and say YES, THAT. That’s amazing. I choose THAT! from the catalogue of life experience. I am open to experiencing that in my own life. ​

With the normalized practice of awareness - not the zen-stylized kind with rice paper and bells, but simply: Oh, here I am seeing something. Here’s driving. Here’s noticing. Here’s irritation. Here’s tiredness. or, What do the hands feel like right now? or noticing, warm water, clinking dishes, bubbles. 

The more that : awareness - becomes normal in my world and life, something entertaining starts to take place. 

When say, at a family holiday gathering someone does or says some outrageous but predictable thing, flossing with a plucked hair or trying earnestly to set you up with your second cousin, or something less interesting like a stony silence from your child when you thought all was well…

When this type of ‘thing’ happens, for some reason the phrase that springs to mind recently is: And now This is happening!

This phrase has a surprisingly humorous and helpful effect: It has within it a sense of engagement, interest and also a kind of acceptance built into it. 

Try it right now: And now This is happening! 
Look around and see what ‘this’ is. 

An empty room with a reasonably quiet refrigerator running within earshot.

And now This is happening.

The urge to pee or an ache somewhere. 

This occasionally thought phrase is so easy, and it’d be easy to read about and consider but not try. Try it! Try it for 5 minutes and see if your life doesn’t take on even a quality of simple interest, dare I suggest even a playful, creative engagement. 
It's also fun to do while working on a creative project: the paint spilled or the colors ran into each other. It dried funny, or something went not according to plan... And now This ​is happening...

The holidays are challenging. 
1)There’s festivity pumped into everything like hormones into a purdue chicken.
2)There are genuine invitations to celebrate, give and receive, mixed in confusingly with the corporate branded version
3)There’s just a tremendous amount of PAIN - layers of painful memory, loss, violence, loneliness and disappointment circulating through the pepperminty air. 

It’s a confusing time. A pressure cooker for many. A lot of socializing for some, when being alone is often preferred and needed, and not enough connection for many many others, accompanied by feelings of unlovability, resentment, hopelessness or grief. 

Every year the holiday season has it’s own special flavor, according to the life events that befall us all in different ways, times and degrees. 

I have found it useful as a general practice in my life, to first Lower my Expectations as much as I can. This heads off disappointment. But to lower my expectations while also Acting As If, things could go smoothly and well. I just won’t cross my arms expecting it to happen where it often has not. 

A phrase or prayer if you like, that makes this more actionable is from Chogyam Trungpa and some ancient Tibetan slogans: May I be free from attachment and aversion while still continuing to care. 
Another similar thing I can mutter to myself along the sloggy, jingly sidewalk on my way to that work party: May I act as if it could be fun and enjoyable, while having no expectation that it should or will be. 

I have also found it useful as a general practice in my life for entirely selfish reasons, to notice the details of what is working, what I can feel grateful for: these boots are warm and dry, I am a woman and I get to live alone undisturbed and free, I get to vote, I get to drive as a woman. my socks match, I am holding a warm beverage, I heard from a friend today. 

When I can ratchet up this practice a little further to include what really does not feel OK - to have gratitude for that, strangely, it opens up for me a whole new level of freedom.

I don’t find it easy to do this. When the hot water runs out, or there’s a cancelled flight, I have one friend who actually says Thank You to the ether in these moments. I’m not there myself. But I can ask: 

How is this cancelled flight or cold shower the best thing that could be happening right now?

or

What if this is as good as it gets? What if this is the last week of my life? What if I never get that project done or find the right partner? And now this is happening!

When I apply this kind of twisted logic, I find it liberating and empowering. 

I can also preface the situation with And now this is happening! to pipe in a little playful acceptance. 

These lines of inquiry help me to actually consider that maybe I’m right where I’m supposed to be, that all is well, that I’m unimaginably ok, not a hair out of place, even though I wouldn’t choose this and it’s not comfortable. 

If you look back on your life to date, you may also discover this makes sense in retrospect. 

Think of a shitty time in your life. How did it lead to what followed? How has it turned out ok? How was it the best thing that could’ve happened at the time? 

The point isn’t to lie to yourself or to be fake. The value I find is in the reframe. The loosening of the calcified familiar story for something unknown, open and dynamic. 

Last night, I hauled and dragged a christmas tree four blocks to my house. When I got there, I kicked the halloween pumpkin, which had been disemboweled by a single-minded, grapefruit-shaped squirrel, off the stoop into a bush. Time for new seasonal holiday flora. 

The tree is now up, wrapped in lights and covered in the sparkly sentiment of ornaments. I keep looking at it surprised, like: How did that get there, all decorated? I do remember one-pointedly deciding to go for it, get a tree and decorate it last night, and being in motion for a couple of hours, but somehow it still surprises me that at some times, a thing is not there, then it is. And even more surprising, I’m the one that brought it there and set it up. 

Everything is kind of like this: a fluid action of things arising and passing away. Last summer, after leaving the 2017 tree to dry out back, I limbed and fast-burned its crackly remains in our fire pit. Now its ash beneath ash 10 inches or so down, currently being covered with snow - freed gases long gone. All the summer fires: where are they now?    .....

The way things change form, burning in fire, dissolving in water, being eaten, decomposing, ending, beginning, growing is relentless and unstoppable. The way we charge about on energetic days, doing things, moving ourselves and our stuff, preparing and presenting, exploring and changing, all of this - where *is* it? Perhaps it’s in our records: memories, photographs, websites, objects, other people’s memories. Is that the semi-satisfying gesture of social media, sharing and looking, witnessing this relentless stream of event, view, moment? On this particularly quiet snowy day, I just feel like asking. 

In your life, what’s now here that a day or so was not? Make a list. I’ll do it too. 
Here's mine:
snow
the food in our fridge
the tree, decorated!
an interesting email from a local artist I hadn’t heard about til today
the sounds coming from the other room
the particular arrangement of objects on my couch
a current list of things to do
memories of the weekend

What’s gone that was here a week ago?
a mostly in-tact pumpkin
a mild fall climate
herbs in the garden
all the food we’ve eaten
everything that has gone down a drain
concern over last week’s upcoming events
anticipation and preparation for thanksgiving
an open space in the livingroom where the tree now is

After making these lists, what do you notice?

TWO OFFERINGS:
1. My third book about the Elements of the Periodic Table, similarly explores the constant in and out flow of states and forms. Check it out here. and Purchase the book here.

2. A related art project is called You Are Legend, and you can see it here.


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I am knee deep in this book project on the Elements. It’s the third book, it is currently being crowdfunded, and I’m going to share in a little more detail with you about what’ll be inside and where I’m at with it. 
I have completed all of the artwork for the book. There are two sets of drawings, one completely monochrome, silent and abstract, and the other vibrant and descriptive of each element. The monochrome works on paper are in the Element Index section. The vibrant, colorful, descriptive drawings are in the Element Sketch section.    .....

There will be some quotations in the book that range from scientific to mystical, and essentially say similar things from recent and ancient and moderately older sources: Einstein, Rumi, Buddha, Walt Whitman... 

The Element Index section takes what’s shared playfully in the Element Sketches sectoin and presents a more comprehensive list of every single place I could find where this element *is* in our world. Originally the book was just going to be the abstract Index image paired with this list, but it turned out to be a little too  a) austere and b) dense for many of my early readers to get into. Hence the new Sketch section. 

There is also a Legend in the book, that pairs with each Element Sketch. This legend shares other information that the sketch paper and its treatment yields about each element. For example, if there’s a fold in the paper, the element is magnetic. If there’s an orange stripe along the bottom, it’s radioactive. If there’s an odd shaped hole-punch, it’s used in technology. I hope this is both fun and illuminating as the reader explores and discovers. 

I look forward to learning your questions and sharing more as we embark on this book-making, book-realizing adventure together! Back the project here, or share it using the share buttons!

Last year, I made my first, limited edition calendar. It was so much fun to share, to infiltrate your walls in a new way, that I’ve done it again! This may become a tradition folks. 

This year’s calendar Time is Color 2019  features my own selection of favorite works on paper, most are ink and graphite on paper. I had great fun selecting and then pairing the images with each month of the year. Also, I listened! and learned from last year that y’all want boxes for your days so you can keep track o’stuff, instead of just elegant and floating numbers. So boxes you’re getting!      .....

My life has been included times of extreme, big, scary, and sometimes all-at-once change.

Three times, I’ve lost a job, a relationship, and had to move within the span of a week. Can you relate? Certain things have been constants. Family nearby and an art practice I’ve always had. Last year I moved half way across the country, and now family is far away too: The world itself appears to be going through relentless unfolding processes, losses, big shifts in understanding, incredible challenges: big effin’ change.
This summer I’m taking some major action on things I’ve dreamed about for several years, chewed on, but never seen a way to make happen. In the last month I’ve begun learning how I might Scale Up by doing these 8 things:

• build an online learning community on how to collaborate with the universe
• finally make ebooks for books 1 and 2
• share my third book, and raise funds for its printing in this fall
• present my books at art book fairs in the region this fall
• find sales reps for my books, and an editor for this new one
• expand my coaching commitment and offerings
• do these things while maintaining a spacious, abundant feeling: A life that prioritizes relationships, genuineness and presence.

What has kept me from diving into this stuff before, as far as I can tell, has been fear, overwhelm, distraction and inertia, a rich inheritance of these. Picture a little Roz Chast character in my head throwing up her hands.
I’m sharing this post with you because this is one on a long list of scary things I’m doing right now to get honest and stay accountable. I’m managing my time in a more specific way, working up the nerve to share things via video, re-alphabetizing a lot of index cards and solving strange problems. I’m also listening to people to whom I can’t relate very much, who share what they did to find their audience, and taking their suggestions. I’m showing up to practice what it feels like to be seen going through this, instead of only sharing the finished product as if it was seamless and delightful to pull together.

7 Reasons Why I’m Doing This
1. What I have to share is genuinely, practically useful, tested and delivered uniquely.
2. I’m here to share what I make. Why not master the sharing part?
3. I’m curious and interested to see what’s going to happen. I know what happens if I do things the way I’ve always done them. What if I go about it full boar instead of half-assedly?
4. I like learning, and man, is there a steep learning curve right now! Every day, I’ve got about 8 new major questions to answer. It’s a self imposed boot camp.
5. It says in some 12-step literature I value: I can’t transmit something I haven’t got. Anywhere I’m staying small and Eeyore-esque, is an area where I’m not able to be useful to others.
6. Freedom. Did I mention? I don’t do anyone any favors by staying small.
7. My success is your success, and your success is mine. Somehow, it really comes down to my relationship to you. I don’t understand why or how, but it’s clear to me that I’m not supposed to, and can’t do this without you. We are deeply, all of us, interconnected. I’m swashbuckling through new territory and so are you. You can steer me clear of the ditches as I share practical process, metaphor and creative work to support you right back.
By sharing this with you, I’m taking a risk, but I’m also hoping that you will keep me accountable, human, and honest throughout. Sometimes I may have to be honest about being full of shit. Or thinking something was a good idea that turned out not to be. But I won’t be alone. We’re like a field of daffodils, all opening under the same sun, interwoven and strong in a root system that is our collective.
As I do this, I’d love to hear from you, support your conversation with one another, and know what you value. I want to be responsive and in conversation with you.
What edge are you working right now? How uncomfortable is it? What/who is supporting you through this transformation? How are you caring for yourself? Why are you committed to this change?

Update:

​Looking back on this ambitious list, I notice a few things. Several items on it didn't happen and several of them did. I took a lot of actions and kind of twisted myself up in knots in the process, but also, some of those things bore fruit, and some of them didn't. That's how it goes. I think growing up as an artist and a business person means risking failure, or unfinished stuff, without giving up or packing up. 

This update is from March of 2021. The Elements book became a reality, and also had a publisher of sorts through the local imprint 5th Avenue Press. That wasn't my goal, but it was a great new experience, following the successful crowdfund. 

I investigated sales reps, and I ended up in that invesitgation being offered a book deal from a major publisher for the 2021 Edition of Contemporary Prayers, which comes out this week!! I could not have planned that.  So none of my own sales reps, but a publisher with their own fleet of them, is what turned up.

The online school was a bit of a u-turn. I spent a lot of time on it, but I also wasted some serious clams on the endeavor, and it wasn't the right time. Maybe in the future, maybe not!

And I continue to coach, and to love it. I have begun working with a new mentor of my own and this expands very much how I think of this kind of one on one work. I am happy with things as they are, never finished, always in process, and never really in any way, about me. 
​

I came across this short film about the profound impact that turning and seeing the earth from space has had on astronauts: The fragile bubble of atmosphere that we see down here is described as endless, impervious blue sky, the profound aliveness of the planet itself, its backdrop, it's indivisibility. They describe an experience of looking into a cosmic mirror - and the open, awake quality revealed through spiritual inquiry and meditation for many hundreds of years.
​It's worth a watch!

The other day Guy brought home water balloons. He sometimes does this: gets something plasticky and colorful at the dollar store that brings him an inordinate amount of delight. He wanted to play catch with them after filling them up with hose water, as one does.
As we stood there, barefoot on the lawn, I had a visceral memory of being 8 or 7 or 10 with my cousins up in Maine, standing around absorbed in a mission, out in the grass and heat.
I had had a crappy day working on some new business strategies and feeling a little bit like a fish out of water. What I excel at is coloring, drawing, zoning out and looking out at the leaves fluttering in a tree; less so the roll-up-your-sleeves and get-in-there and fall-down-and-get-up-again attitude of much of the business world. And yet I am a business owner, and lately have taken seriously the notion that it’s up to me to care for and run the business as professionally as I can. 
The game was to toss the water balloon back and forth, and to take a step away from each other with each turn, like a colorful and wet version of Russian Roulette. At first I noticed that my teeth clenched every time I went to catch the balloon, as if in anticipation of something bad. Not only does that make my neck veins pop out and my face look like a scary, cornered, feral animal, the clenching is unpleasant and a waste of valuable life energy. The body automatically reacted this way, but it's the mind's faulty logic that imagines this kind of contraction to be in any way helpful. It's saying to the body: Brace yourself, this could be bad...
So I began to play around with consciously doing something else with this face and body of mine. With the full threat of balloon breakage upon me, and the body on edge, I tried bouncing a little side to side, lowering the shoulders and softening the face a little bit, and even putting a something between a smile and a slack jaw expression on my face instead to see how that felt. 
As a kid I was always the sensitive one: running away and crying, easily hurt, even though I was pretty tom boyish. Of my cousins I was probably the least rugged, as well as the youngest. I found myself often sniffling in a corner, feeling lonely, after an outburst. 
Consciously softening and lightening my face muscles while reaching up to receive this water balloon that might instantly explode was a great metaphor for how to ‘be’ with all these scary new things I’m trying professionally.  
I’m not sure if it’s true but right now I seem to be getting the message that I need to move out of my comfort zone if I want things to change. That includes the real possibility of visibly falling on my face, skinning knees, bee stings, and having the next water balloon explode all over me. And even the possibility of having bystanders point and laugh. 
Giggles, camaraderie, and expanded sense of possibility may accompany that next bursting balloon.

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