To the Beloved Women Before Me...

A Mother's Day Tribute

"When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be, let it be." -The Beatles, Let it Be.

Let us pray for all of those who have ever undertaken the profession of motherhood and all the women who have come before us who helped shape us into the women we are today.

This is my beautiful and spirited Mother in one of her musicals (circa 1945). She was a singer and a dancer. She loved music. She had a radio show for years. I used to listen as a baby with my beloved Grandmother Annie Niland. A tale from my childhood: When I was about three, I missed my Mother. I was precocious, to say the least. I thought if I could get her out of that radio box, she would come home. I sent Annie to the kitchen to get me some juice. While she was gone, I took the opportunity to knock the radio off the stand and break it. Annie came rushing back in and found me standing amidst the pieces of the radio. Looking up at her with wide-eyed expectancy I announced, "Mommy will come home now." She didn't come home.

Me with the said radio

Mother and I circa 1953

My beloved Grandmother Anna Rebecca Casey Niland 

(she was in a play called The Girl of the Golden West)

My Beloved Grandmother  Emma Constance Bledsoe White

My beloved Great Grandmother "Nana" Casey

My beloved Great- Great Grandmother Penrod

Today's Intention - Tell your Mother how much you love her - in person, by phone, or in a prayer lifted up to her by angels.

U Be Creative Today!

this little feather...

this is a peek into my creative mind...how my imagination works and where it takes me...

i found this little feather on the beach tuesday....

it gave me ideas and when i held her up to the sun, she danced...i was smitten...

this is what i saw...


this is the creative result...

the contrast that gave birth to this desire...

There will be a time, not so far from now, that you will look back on this phase of your life and instead of condemning it or beating up on it...Instead of blaming or guilting, you will feel appreciation for it, because you will understand that a renewed desire for life was born out of this time period that will bring you to physical heights that you could not have achieved without the contrast that gave birth to this desire. -Abraham

Cre8Tiva is my muse as well as my alter ego...she waits patiently for me to return...as i have neglected her of late...and i miss her...i miss creating on a daily basis...i have let the circumstances of my life overwhelm my creativity...i have even quit my daily journaling which i have done faithfully since i was a child...

"Little Blue Boy"

my mother used to sing this to me...and i would cry and cry...

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little tin soldier is red with rust,
And the musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“‘Now, don’t you go till I come,’ he said,
‘And don’t you make any noise.’
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of his pretty toys;
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our little Boy Blue–
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

“Aye, faithful to little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place–
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.”

a room of one's own...

what is the importance of having personal space for your creative life...or even your life?

All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.

Virginia Woolf A Room of One’s Own

i MUST, absolutely MUST have a space of my own...and i MUST go there often...

do you have a special place set aside, it does not have to be a whole room but just a little nook carved out of your everyday life that is your own...to daydream, write, create, muse?

my studio is a special place...for me to create and no one may enter without asking... (excuse the mess please)

my bedroom is also a special place...for me to pray, relax, unwind, center myself...

my beach, however,  is my favorite special place...

this is my alter area where i stop to offer a blessing every time i pass thru...

my lanai is a place with a fountain to meditate and pray...

tell me about your room of your own...

and please if you like this post and others below, become a follower at upper right...thanks...

heart broken open...

i was going to post the results of my weekend adventure with the twiggleberry-dews, but that will have to wait until tomorrow...i had such a profound experience during my meditation this morning, i feel compelled and led to share a portion of the awakening...

'heart broken open' - 2009, journal sketch

i do not usually bring something so personal to this place but i am encouraged to believe that it just might help others who are struggling with something at this very moment...

during my meditation i was feeling heartbroken, desolate and in pain...both physically and spiritually...as i look inward, i find that i am unable to ask for help and, even when it is offered, i find it difficult to accept...yet, i have the capacity to willingly offer and give help as empathy is a large thread running through my nature...and i admit that i might, just might, need help at this time...

while journaling after my meditation this morning, i had a moment of clarity when i wrote, "the brokenness of my heart might, just might, be necessary for me to open my heart and accept help from God, friends, and even the universe."...albeit a forced opening, but an opening nonetheless....

'heart in a box' - 2007, acrylic on paper

now this opening of my heart is extremely painful...no, it is excruciatingly painful to the point i want to keep my heart in a box so it will be protected (actually it has been in a box for most of my life...you can read about it here and here...and even here...I write about trust issues a lot)

so my heart must be broken in order for it to heal...healing comes on gentle whispers to me, not in a roaring flood...healing is a gradual, sometimes difficult and almost always painful, journey for me...

'pieces of my heart' - 2009 acrylic on canvas

this opening up and pouring forth from my heart to yours is perhaps necessary for my healing to begin for a step toward acceptance begins the long journey into healing...from what was a small fissure, the tiny crack in my heart seemed to grow and the pieces of my heart were flung asunder...like a million tiny stars that blanket the sky on a clear night....

gathering these pieces of my heart together, fusing and mending it slowly is where the healing is leading me...that tiny fissure that i thought was bad and frightened me at first glance...is perhaps best viewed as a good thing, a necessary thing...for true authentic healing comes by going through the pain and coming out on the other side better...stronger...more alive...

i am not writing today in sadness or self-pity...that road has taken me nowhere over the past year...i write wholly within acceptance and awareness of my smallness in this vast universe of ours...embracing the fact that i am in the midst of healing...my spirit and my life...and it is painful...

my heart is indeed broken open...pouring forth to those of you who are ready to hear my story...and begin your own journey...

if you like this post and other here, i would love you to become a follower of my blog...please click the link at top right column...and i promise to keep the posts thoughtful and artful...

standing in my own way...

"standing in my own way" - 2009 acrylic and plaster on canvas

this painting just happened as so many of mine do...most of you know by now that art is prayer for me and i believe The Artist is a Spiritual Explorer...so i will share my creative process and let you peek into the experience of this painting...

when i create i set an intention asking the universe (God for me) to let flow through me what i need to know...this opens me to any possibility and clears they way for happenstance and synchronicity to emerge...

i sit with the canvas and my palette...when i feel pulled toward a color i dip my brush and off we go...i am usually going to paint a background for future work when something appears that takes me in a surprising and new direction...this is what happened during this painting session...

i have been troubled lately by thoughts that i am off my life's path...a feeling of wandering helplessly without any destination...like i am moving under water, v e r y   s l o w l y....

so this painting started with a thin coat of venetian plaster (so it will have a fresco look and feel)...then it went to aqua, very wet with lots of movement...then yellow as the sun shining through the water...the figure began to emerge and became more distinct, too distinct i thought...so i scraped it back a little with the edge of a spatula (the tool used to apply the plaster)...as i scraped the second figure appeared very close in front of the first figure...with bright light bursting forth...

at this moment i understood the message...i am standing in my own way...for a variety of reasons that i do not need to share here...yet the message came through loud and clear to me...

when i finish painting i usually sit with the painting and let it speak to me...i usually journal during this process...this painting had much to say to me...if you look closely to the left of the standing figures you can see another figure seated in a chair...with head slightly bowed...it is my spirit waiting patiently for me to get past this obstacle and get back on my life's path......

WOW! POWERFUL STUFF...

i am sending your here to read a powerful post...it is exactly where i am today....that crossroads is here...choices i so do not want to make or hoped i never would have to make are upon me...and i must step out blindly on this path of mine, not knowing what lies ahead or even if there is an ahead...but i must move on anyway...my heart beating and i wonder why...

Today's Intention...to get out of my own way and resume my life's journey...

don't wait for perfect...

'home work' - 2009  natural objects, beads, string, found objects, and acrylics on paper

this is a piece i dreamed up years ago (2001 to be exact) but never brought it to completion until i joined facebook, found an old friend who makes similar pieces, and sells them...DUH!!!

for those among us trying to figure out what we should be doing at this point in our lives...i offer this:

"If you're waiting to have a good idea before you have any ideas, you won't have many ideas." - David Allen, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.


my school teachers were right...i do have an over active imagination...i have thousands of ideas...i am a great brain stormer, problem solver, idea woman...


i am a master of idea generation...but i suck at implementation...


i dug out my old journal/sketchbooks last week and began flipping through the pages...there, among the decades of sketches and musings was the idea for this piece...




i even wrote "i can't wait to create one of my own."


but wait i did...almost 8 years...as with this piece...

i find it is not so much procrastination and laziness (although those can be mitigating factors in my nonperformance)...it seems to be that little voice in my head that says:


do you have self-sabotaging voices? do you let ideas flounder in procrastination? are you doing what you were born to do?

if NO is the answer to any of these...i will share a secret that has made me a success in my business life...

DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT

and

MARKETING TRUMPS MASTERY

don't wait for it to be a perfect idea before you implement...don't wait for the perfect beginning before you start...don't wait to draw the perfect sketch before you paint..

DON'T WAIT FOR PERFECT

perfection is an illusion...conditions are rarely aligned perfectly...you may never have ALL the money, ALL the time, or ALL the knowledge you desire to begin...the naysayers and critics will always be around...become a recovering perfectionist...

JUST START SOMEWHERE AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW

BIG NEWS COMING SOON...

i will begin selling a lifetime of art supplies for mixed media in the next few days...i am simplifying my life...please check back for more details...

an artistic journey with kindred spirits...

student work from class at John C Campbell Folk School in January

What is Creativity?

an Ability...the ability to imagine or invent something new.

an Attitude...accept change and newness, be willing to play with ideas and possibilities, develop an outlook of flexibility and the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it.

a Process...continually strive to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to your works.

students during drumming part of class

Creativity is not the ability to create something out of nothing (only God can do that), but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.

Everyone has substantial creative ability. Remember how you were as a child! If someone gave you paint and a brush, you painted. If they asked you to sing, you sang out loud. If they asked you to dance, you danced with joy. 

I recently read that if you walk into a first grade class and ask how many are artists, almost all children hold up their hands. If you walk into the same group of children in fifth grade and ask them how many are artists, only one or two will raise their hands. So somewhere between the first and fifth grade, creativity is suppressed or removed by the educational system. And it often takes decades to reconnect with your creativity, if at all.

So this is what I attempt to do in my "Artistic Journeys for Kindred Spirits" workshop. 

students at work

Workshop Mission and Goals

The mission of the workshop is to experience the communion with your higher self or your soul in a way that allows you to excel at your artform. We will play or relearn to play. We will write, draw, paint, tell stories, dance and drum. We will work with the reckless abandon of a child. We hope to set your creative soul free.

When students leave I hope that they know that their art is more about what happens as they work than the actual work of art itself. Robert Henri author of “The Art Spirit” says, “What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of the business of making a picture.”

I want them to know that you have something valuable to say with their art. I lead them through journeys that stretch them from their comfort zone. Some resist vocally, some quietly. I facilitate, they teach themselves so that the projects become internalized with the hope that they can and will continue to grow creatively when they are home.

We explore ways to expand our creativity through a series of exercises including a guided visualization technique, automatic drawing and writing, map making, memoir, and storytelling. Throughout the workshop, the exercises will focus on ways to:

1. Become overly curious
2. Be childish
   
3. Find inspiration in the world around you
   
4. Discover and use images from the unconscious
   
5. Seek out problems
   
6. Stimulate your perceptive abilities
   
7. Suspend judgment
   
8. Get over the fear of failure
   
9. Celebrate failures
   
10. Give yourself permission to fail
    
11. Give yourself the time to create
    
12. Engage your imagination with life journey memories
    
13. Work collaboratively
    
14. and much more...

There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative. Don't cave to this pressure. 

class collaborative nature collage

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats....

One of my most useful discovery tools is a SWOT Analysis. I use it often and almost always use it with the artisans I coach. The process always gets me to focus in on my next big idea (and I have a million ideas). It helps me:

1. Determine what personal attributes are helpful to achieving the objective;
   
2. Determine what personal attributes are harmful to achieving the objective;
   
3. Determine what external conditions are helpful to achieving the objective; and 
   
4. Determine what external conditions could do damage to the performance.

 my visual SWOT analysis

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A discovery of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats  for a specific goal. A personal SWOT Analysis is a powerful technique to identify your Strengths and Weaknesses and to examine the Opportunities and Threats you face. A business/career SWOT can help you discover and develop your unique niche which utilizes your specific talents, abilities, and opportunities to the fullest.

Download your SWOT Analysis Worksheet PDF file . This is with my compliments to do your own analysis.

As an artist it is helpful for me to create a visual SWOT Analysis as shown above. I illustrate my strengths after I do the above form. During this illustration process I work through many ideas and usually have an answer when I am finished with the artwork. It is a type of visual journaling also that I allow to flow intuitively.

Identification of your SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for the success of the selected objective may be derived from your SWOTs.

The first objective is to determine whether the goal is attainable, given my SWOTs. If the objective is NOT attainable, I must choose a different objective and repeat the process.

If, on the other hand, the objective seems attainable, my SWOTs are used as source information to the creative generation of possible strategies, by asking and answering each of the following four questions, several times:

• How can I Use each Strength?
  
• How can I Improve each Weakness?
  
• How can I Exploit each Opportunity?
  
• How can I Mitigate each Threat?

When used in a personal context, it helps you develop your career path in a way that takes best advantage of your talents, abilities and opportunities.

What makes a SWOT analysis particularly powerful is that with a little thought, it can help you uncover opportunities that you are best suited to do. By gaining a clear understanding your weaknesses, you can manage and eliminate threats before they possibly cause you problems.

Possibly the best outcome of a SWOT analysis is the ability to craft a strategy that allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors, capture your fair market share, and compete successfully.

How to use the tool:

To carry out a SWOT Analysis, print out our free worksheet, and answers to the following questions:

Strengths:

1. What advantages (for example, skills, education or connections) do I have that others don't have?
   
2. What do I do better than anyone else?
   
3. What personal resources do I have access to?
   
4. What do other people see as my strengths?
   

Consider this from your own perspective and from the point of view of the people around you. And don't be modest, be as objective as you can. If you are having any difficulty with this, try making a list of your characteristics. Some of these will be strengths!

Click for a great checklist of strengths.

Weaknesses:

1. What could you improve?
   
2. What should you avoid?
   
3. What things are the people around you likely to see as weaknesses?
   

Again, consider this from a personal and external basis: Do other people perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Do co-workers consistently out-perform you in key areas? It is best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

Opportunities:

1. Where are the good opportunities facing you?
   
2. What are the interesting trends you are aware of?
   
3. Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

A useful approach to looking at opportunities is also to look at your strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Alternatively, look at your weaknesses and ask yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating them.

Threats:

1. What obstacles do you face?
   
2. What are the people around you doing?
   
3. Is your job (or the demand for the things you do) changing?
   
4. Is changing technology threatening your position?
   
5. Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten you?
   

Carrying out this analysis will often be illuminating - both in terms of pointing out what needs to be done, and in putting problems into perspective.

Mindtools says: A SWOT matrix is a framework for analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats you face. This helps you to focus on your strengths, minimize weaknesses, and take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available.

I encourage you to use this for decision making, especially business decisions. Let me know how you like it and if it helps you.

Information for this article was taken from:
Mindtools

why do i journal...

jane of random notes blog is having a contest about journaling...please visit and share...

recent journal page

i have journaled for many years...it is the place i work out new ideas, design and dream, and record moments of my life...my favorite journal has divided pages - the top half blank for art, drawing, attaching things and the bottom half lined for writing...the pages are very thick, textured paper that will not wrinkle or bleed...the pages are ivory...

i keep a prayer journal and a life/art journal...i also have blogs that are my electronic journals...journaling is a purely selfish endeavor...time just for me to be alone with my thoughts and my creativity...i do it for me, not to share or display, as rarely do i share them with others...

last year (2007) i drew a face each day in my journal to help me with my drawing skills...it worked, 365 days of drawing improves your eye and your hand...the drawing improved dramatically over the course of the year...

thank you jane for asking this...please leave a comment about why you do or do not journal...

The Journey Begins

I am Cre8Tiva - Muse extraordinaire of Rebecca Elizabeth Parsons. I am a creative spirit beginning this creative journey into creative blogging. Although I have been blogging since 1999 with Live Journal, I am experiencing a renaissance, a rebirth of creativity in my life's journey, so I am starting anew today. I invite you to tag along and see what adventures happen  in my own little Cre8Topia.


Rebecca's Introduction:






Matthew, Casey & Chris, Me, Mike & Meghan, Chip & Susie

I am simply a child of God who is blessed to do what I love every day. I am the mother of four grown children who are creative, productive citizens of the earth. Chip of Murrieta, California, is my oldest creative spiritling who heads the motion capture scanning department for sports games for PlayStation. My twin spiritlings Matthew,of Fernandina Beach, FL an aspiring musician and Michael, of Charlottsville, Virginia, is a high school teacher and coach. My spiritling daughter Casey, of Atlanta, Georgia, is the Arts Education Director of Callanwolde Fine Arts Center and sings with the Atlanta Sacred Choral.


My children have brought more beautiful souls into my life. Chip gave me Susie, my sister and artistic friend whom I hope to have as a business partner someday. Michael gave me Meghan, my beautiful daughter-in-law who is also a twin. Casey gave me Chris, my witty devil's advocate and Wii sparing partner. Although I have no grandchildren (3 grandcats and a granddog),Cre8Tiva has an imaginary grandchild, Anna.


As I said, I am blessed to be able to create art every day. My studio is about 10 steps from my bed, so I can linger there and often have many projects going at once. My one unbreakable rule: Draw and journal every day.


I am a writer, muralist, decorative painter and graphic designer who is at a point in my life where I can make art for myself. My newest venture is The Lost and Found artwork which combines found objects, my artwork, mosaics, polymer clay, etc. into assemblage and collages. We will be showing some soon!!!

Please come along with me on this new path as Rebecca and I discover new directions and create new artwork. We hope to make many new friends along the way.



Blessings,
Cre8Tiva