Set a direction rather than a goal.
It can be disheartening to not reach a goal. We can get 99% of the way there and still miss it. Does that make you a failure?
But if you set a direction, even if you don't get a long way, you can celebrate each step you make. It's the difference between a lifestyle change and a diet.
What are you going to concentrate on?
What will you put your energy into and toward?
Will you expand your horizons or hone in on one thing?
Things to be considered...
With Christmas fast approaching I'm only finding a few minutes each day to work in my journal, but that doesn't mean that I'm not 'arting' in some way or another. These canvases now have their edges painted black and are just about ready for exhibiting, so I thought I'd show you another batch of five.
In this Christmas season of peace and goodwill, may the storms of life pass through quickly and as quietly as possible.
Branches - wide or high?
When a plant grows, it can put it's strength into growing up or growing out. There are people who grow 'tall' by being really good at one particular thing. They tower over others in that area, but they don't necessarily have a wide canopy.
Other people grow wide. They spread out, producing many branches. They may not be as tall as the other plants, but they have a large canopy. They try their hand at lots of different things and can bring those things together in new projects. Height may come, but it takes longer.
Neither is 'right' or preferable. They are just different ways of approaching life.
Just keep going.
Whenever I find myself stuck in art - when I find myself continually doing the same things and boring myself with my pages - I just keep going. It's funny that I've made a breakthrough on canvas, but my journal is boring. Maybe it's that I'm a bit busier in this season. Maybe I just need to do a few exercises to remind myself of techniques I've forgotten about. Maybe I should pull out a different palette.
There is a way forward if I keep going.
Those times that seem the most quiet can be the ones where the most is happening internally. The quiet life of everyday obedience has a lot going for it, even if it doesn't look very exciting from the outside. The depth of personal growth it can provide is often under-rated.
Our underlying motives... and how they can affect our actions.
When we get hurt by something, when there is an injustice, we can set up rules or hoops for people to jump through so that it doesn't happen again. Often we don't even know we are doing it.
It can be the same when we go through an unexpected situation such as the storm that we have just endured in Adelaide. Now people are going out to buy all those things that they wish they had had before the storm. It is unlikely that we will go through the same thing again for decades, but it makes us feel better.
So when someone acts in a way that feels odd, maybe there is an underlying bit of history that we are unaware of.
The time of waiting. Advent: the arrival.
I find that the liturgical calendar brings me to times of waiting twice a year - both times leading up to the major festivals. These times make me ponder about how we live through a season of waiting. Are we impatient? Expectant? Hopeful? Peaceful? Or all of the above?
Sometimes these times in the waiting room are forced upon us as we wait for test results, deliveries, approvals. These times of waiting give us time to think, reflect, and grow. Or maybe to whinge, stamp our feet, and be irritable.
How we wait can say a lot about us.
So here are some of the canvases I've been working on - Storms of Life. You can see that there are elements that turn up in all of them, even though the palettes are very different. I think I'm more or less done with them now, apart from painting the edges black and varnishing.
Now I just need to find somewhere to exhibit...
