Exploring A Creative Life

I think this is what I am doing. I am exploring, attempting, and sometimes obsessing, about getting the hopes, ideas and plans out of my head and into reality. I am exploring what it really means to live a more creative life, from painting, repairing, and exercising, to gardening, cooking, playing, and just living a more healthy lifestyle.


I've been blessed with a commodity that is widely sought after. Time. But I haven't really used it to the fullest.


I hope that keeping a blog will be a motivational tool for me to use the that artistic and creative gifts that God has given me.


The last time I had painted anything was during the Nixon administration, so it's not a stretch to say I felt a little rusty. I enrolled in a watercolor class at the art college that my daughter was attending. I didn't finish my main painting, just the classroom exercises we worked on. And for some crazy reason my sweet husband persuaded me to paint something for our church fundraiser. I did. The painting sold. I was thrilled. I did another painting that I was very happy with, a gift for my Mom. Then a few others, and then none. I found excuses for not starting a new painting.


And then I got back into sewing. And tried to find a way to start a small business around it. But, again, didn't follow it through long enough.


Then I got hooked on trying to re-purpose thrifted, flea market finds. And it happened.


I found my people. I didn't even know they were out there. I found blogs about turning an old door into a chalkboard memo board, remaking a discarded 80s chair into a modern accent piece, and how about using old weathered pallet wood to create an outdoor love seat? How incredibly talented and thrifty is that? There were even people who were at total odds as to what styles they were drawn to. Hey, that's me! As in: "I'd like this room to be a beachy cottage look. No, wait. Danish Modern all the way, that would be fantastic. Oh, but that Queen Anne desk is calling me. Can't you hear it?"


And it was enough to propel me to action. And it was somehow made clear to me that it's okay, even very good, to want to pursue many different avenues of a creative life. I don't have to settle on 'one thing'.


So perhaps all the thoughts in my head, the scribbles and sketches, and my hesitation on throwing away perfectly good and useful junk will take some shape in the real world. The only way to know for sure is to begin. Andf this sounds vaguely like you, explore with me.


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We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot