Art Every Day is the way to play!

Play is a great idea. When we play, we have fun being creative--it's not work, it's not boring--if we're not having fun we simply stop playing. I remember when I was little, my two sisters and I would play all kinds of things: Detectives, school, bank, office, Barbies, monsters, etc. etc. It was a blast! But inevitably my eldest sister would drop out of the game and my middle sister and I, suddenly having much less fun, would soon stop playing as well. Play isn't play unless it's fun!!


Art has been my way of grown-up play. Especially in my thirties I've realized that it is something that has always enchanted me and has taken the place of those childhood games. With art you can create anything, from any point of view, and you don't have to follow stuffy rules. I like that idea. But after spending most of the last year writing about art and art-related events, lately it seems I've forgotten the idea of play and  begun looking at art as work. I don't like that so much. In fact, in the last few months I've started dropping out, just like my sister did long ago.


After realizing what is happening to my love of art, I have decided I need to make a change. I need to change my attitude and stop getting robbed of my playtime! Art Every Day Month is the perfect time for me to challenge myself to fall back in love with art and remember how happy it makes me. Sound like I'm trying to rekindle an old romance? Well, that's how it feels to me.


Tonight I'm heading to one of our downtown galleries to check out a new exhibit. The gallery is run by some friends of mine and I'm looking forward to immersing myself in the artwork. I'm sure it will be inspiring and I will be sharing my experience with you in a future post. For now I leave you with a couple of photos I took and edited during the first two days of Art Every Day Month. These apples made the recent return trip from Vermont to California. My fiance's family, who all live back east, sent these lovely reminders of nature's creativity home with us. (Man do they taste good too!!)

Vermont Apples

Vermont Apple

Intro post: Attempt #2 at Art Every Day Month

I’ll admit, yesterday my Art Every Day Month (AEDM) started off with less of a bang and more of a whimper. But that’s okay, because I’ve decided that I’m not going to put undue stress on myself this year. Last year’s effort (chronicled briefly in previous posts) fell flat after only a few days, mostly due to the insane pace I was keeping at the time, as well as the pressure I heaped upon myself to be no less than perfect. Ridiculous and unattainable, not to mention no fun at all!!


This year I’m looking forward to day-dreaming up creative pursuits, taking photos, sharing my favorite pieces, doing a little writing, and visiting some local exhibits for inspiration. I’ll be posting sporadically: Sometimes every other day, sometimes it may be more than once in twenty-four hours. All-in-all I'm expecting attempt #2 to be a more relaxed and enjoyable experience. Join me on my month-long art journey and please tell me about your own!

Art-entional.

All right, so I said I wouldn’t whine. I planned to be intentionally artful yesterday—and I was—though I had hoped to also have a bit more to show for it. However, though the day didn’t quite progress as I would have liked, I determined to stay “artentional”. The following is a list of the little things that made it so. As you will see, the items are not difficult, profound or flabbergastingly creative but just by keeping the art process in mind, all day long, I kept myself open to the muse and found myself getting excited about some new ideas which I will soon be able to implement.

Day 4, Art Every Day Month:

1. Wrote and posted short entry to blog stating that I would be intentional about art today.
2. Made contact with other artists. (Reached out through Facebook, Twitter, read other blogs/left comments to keep in touch/encourage. Was encouraged by those who reached back.)
3. Took photos of backyard “studio”. (Some good potential backdrops back here! Will make use of soon!)
4. Packed camera to take to work. (No good seeing the perfect shot if you don’t have the tools with you…)
5. At lunchtime, visited a charming boutique and bought the perfect business card holder—like a little piece of art itself—and felt refreshed by the experience.
6. Cleaned my work area and decided to make it more art-friendly. (May be at work, but why not be a little more artistic?Opened up space, made readily available doodle pads, office supplies organized, photos/comics/cool flyers decorating one inspiration nook of my desk.)
7. Talked about Art Every Day Month with co-worker and customer—got inspired myself!
8. Made a short list of projects that I would like to work on over this month. (Some things I’ve been meaning to do for awhile… AEDM gives me the right reason to stop procrastinating.)
9. Flipped through home decorating magazines—always a creative pick-me-up. Planned a trip to thrift/antique stores soon to find new items to refinish/repurpose.
10. Had an evening of food and fellowship with my family, and afterwards, a good night’s sleep.

Like I said, not quite what I had hoped. More like a day of “priming my artist’s canvas” rather than actually doing much “painting”. But I hope other artists are encouraged that we all have days where ground work is all that’s accomplished. And that it is a necessary and important part of the process which we can look on with pride. I am ready to create!!

Good intentions.

For me, creating art has everything to do with intentions. I have the best of them. But intentions don't seem to create art, as I can attest to most mornings when I wake up remembering that I had every intention of working on my blog the night before; I had every intention of editing photos, or making photos, or journaling, or even prepping my work space; I had every intention of cleaning my house, paying bills, doing laundry--all which did not happen. (And for those thinking that housework or taking care of finances is not creative work, I disagree--taking care of those things preps your soul for doing your true (he)art's works--taking those worries out of the equation allows you to be free from the nagging (if erroneous) belief that you should be making better use of your time.)

So again I woke up this morning with not-a-lot accomplished. And again I think of a word like intentions, but this word is much different. Intentional. I remind myself that laying in bed chastising myself for passing out last night instead of working is unproductive. But since I've woken up early, I still have time to do one or two of the things I missed out on yesterday. Therefore, this is me. Writing a little. Jotting down a short list of things I would like to be intentional about this Art Every Day Month. Letting myself breathe and enjoy the crisp fall morning (which will soon turn into a warm fall day. Bakersfield seems to be having a perpetual Summer/Spring season this year). I have a long way to go this day. But my focus is going to be about art. I will choose to find it where I go and in whatever I do. And I will come back here later and tell you how it was accomplished--and not whine about what I intended.

Who I am. What I’m doing.

Art Every Day Month (AEDM) was started by artist Leah Piken Kolidas seven years ago. The concept is simple: Create or experience art every day for the month of November. Why November? Another month-long creative project, this one for writers, National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), runs during November and challenges participants to write a complete novel in a month. Leah hoped to achieve something similar for art.

Art is on my mind 24/7. Writing an arts and culture blog, BakoArtistConnect, keeps me busy: hunting down events, researching local artists, photographing the action at various openings, films, festivals, etc. and making new contacts in the local art scene is a constant, daily routine. Thinking about art. Promoting art. Encouraging artists. Dreaming up new ideas to inspire the arts in my little corner of the world. It is time-consuming, energy-draining, poverty-making… and I love it.

Aside from the blog, I am also the mother of an artist, a full-time employee of the County of Kern and a part-time Bakersfield College student. My 16-year-old son is a talented, imaginative whirlwind of creativity himself: he writes, he draws comics, he creates videos and he self-teaches himself drums, guitar, bass and keyboard—all while using a room at his grandparents house as a make-shift studio to record his music and post his creations to the internet. He keeps me entertained (and educated!). As an employee, I put in a 40-hour week at my day job—working for the County Recorder. Not as much fun as you would think, haha, but certainly interesting. My student life consists of night and on-line general education courses as well as a concentration of art and journalism classes on campus. Currently, my multi-media class assignment of creating and maintaining a blog is keeping me quite occupied. (See previous paragraph.)

However, though art is so much a part of my life, I realize that less and less time is devoted to my own creative process. Although I take hundreds of photos a month, they are not of the sort that I might someday frame or sell at a gallery. Although I write frequently, the words are not of the variety that might one day sit, beloved, on a shelf, or that might cause the stirring of passionate emotion from a reader’s soul. Art Every Day Month reminds me of the need to find time to birth my “children”, those pieces that are growing in my
he(art) waiting anxiously to be born—to see the world and let the world see them. Thus begins Words and Pictures by LissaFudge—a place for my creativity to find a home. Also, I will use this space to post musings on the things that inspire me, locales in Bakersfield which are particularly refreshing, and links to others in the art world of interest or who propel me to greater heights as an artist. Feel free to drop by often!

I am an artist.

It all started yesterday. I heard about Art Every Day Month...

No, it started two months ago: I started an arts and culture blog for my multi-media class. No.

It actually started twenty years ago. I was 18; I wanted to be. A writer. A dancer. A poet. An artist.

Wait.

It started much earlier than that. At 17, 16, 14, 11, 9, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1.

Yesterday, I was simply reminded. So here I go again.