Perhaps a better way to look at the new year is not as a big bugaboo of resolutions, but simply a stepping over a threshold where there is opportunity to sit in a new chair, to look out a different window, to climb up the stepladder and choose a book you've been wanting to read, and maybe wander into a room that you've closed off for too long.
Think of this year as a new home. You can paint the walls whatever color you want or leave them showing layers and peeling edges from long-ago paint jobs. You can clean house. That's what we did this morning and yesterday morning, tackling one room today and one yesterday, and with just a little effort found the new order, the cleared out drawers, the scoured doorknobs and newly hung photos and art -- like sluffing off old skin and coming up newborn, with shining scales, iridescent in the sun.
I'll be facilitating an artist journey/artist journal workshop on the weekend of January 23.
This annual event has a history of setting the doorway and the threshold into good order. This session I'm planning to do less with calendars and more with process, less with destination and more adventuring through a mixed media exploration that sets the steps in motion, one after another. It's a rich process that puts the past year into perspective, allows for some healthy self-assessment (no beating up, no gnashing of teeth), and, with the quiet and boisterous sharing, gives us all time to share, envision, cut-and paste our way into the new house that is 2015.
We look with uncertainty
by Anne Hillman
We look with uncertainty
beyond the old choices for
clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
which is every moment
at the brink of death;
for something new is being born in us
if we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
awaiting that which comes…
daring to be human creatures,
vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love.
Hope to see you at one or more of these inspiring workshops:
Artists' Journey/Artists' Journal
Start out your sketchbook and your creative journey of 2015 with reflections on your work and creative process this past year, with new vision ideas for the coming year, and a creativity jump start to get your ideas in motion. We'll spend a Friday night (optional) with personal and peer critique on one or more pieces of completed or in-process work or series. Then Saturday and Sunday, dive into the new year with planning, calendar ideas, studio rituals, collage and the creation of a New Year's poster and/or artist's altar to take your studio or work space. This long-running workshop changes each year, but always contains elements that put us all on the creative path of artful reflection, journaling, collage and more.
January 23-24-25.
Supplies included other than sketchbook, favorite mark making tools and a glue stick.
Fee: $200, with all meals (except Friday Potluck) included.
Accommodations from free to $30 (private room and bath)
Email me for details and to reserve your space. Limited enrollment.
IPad Art Studio
Monthly
Each month I'll be hosting a guided iPad tablet creativity studio session at the Cabin in San Antonio, 539 Senisa, near Woodlawn Lake. These sessions, limited to 7 participants each session, will allow for individual consultation, critique, technical problem solving, app recommendations and more as you work on your own iPad, digital and print projects, including eBooks, collage work, Spoonflower digital print designs, photo editing, photo books, etc. When you sign up, send me an email with what you hope to accomplish so I can prepare a bit! Or just call at the last minute and see if there is space available. Each 4 hour block of time (you can stay as long or short a time as you wish) runs from 12 noon to 4 pm on the third Monday of each month. The cost for this guide-on-the-side and personal coaching is just $40 per session. January 19, February 16, March 16, and April 20. No reservation fee, but do send an email if you can!
iPad Art Basics
Friday, January 30
The best art, editing and organization apps to start with -- and a world of tips and tricks that will take you from FB or reading on the tablet to a whole lot more -- digital printing, improving photos, making simple (and complex) photo collages and start-up sketching tools. This is a simplified version of the iPad Art Adventure that I have been teaching (by request from folks who thought that one would be too advanced!) This 6 hour workshop includes several chapters of my soon-to-be-published eBook on the subject to take home for further study.. 9:30 am to 2:30 pm with a lunch break (bring your own or walk down the block for soup or tacos). 539 Senisa near Woodlawn Lake. Fee, including supplies other than app purchases: $80.