Art Saves!

Hi there readers. I was recently invited by the talented and inexhaustible Jenny Doh to be guest curator at Crescendoh this week. Please visit. Her site is filled with artistic inspiration and each day I've selected some of my favorite online links for you to explore.

I am off to Martha's Vineyard for a very special family vacation, and I hope to have some photos and stories (as well as time to post them) when I return!!

Hope you are enjoying the second stretch of summer!!!

The voices in my head...

Those who know me well know that I can talk alot. A LOT. A really, really lot. But if you could hear the inner dialogue, the one in my head that virtually never shuts up, you'd wonder how I could ever have a coherent thought or idea. And you'd no doubt be grateful that for all that I talk about, there is so much that I don't share. Because, in fact, a lot of it is imaginary.

Imaginary conversations, imaginary arguments, little scenarios that I run through my mind when things are bothering me but I have yet to act on them. Sometimes I am trying certain ideas on for size, and seeing what might or might not work. And sometimes this is good, but often, I think it's just a very big waste of mental energy on what-ifs. On problems that don't even really exist, but that I make up in my overactive imagination. I don't think I am alone in this. Or maybe I am. I am told that meditation helps, but it may come as no surprise that I am not very good at meditation BECAUSE I CAN'T SHUT MY MIND UP!!

For me, art is my best form of meditation. It anchors me in the here and now. It quiets my overactive mind. Instead of mulling over the I should haves and the I wish I hadn'ts and the what ifs, I engage my eyes and hands and mind in a form of creation. Art is real. It is now.

Art therapy?

As some of you know, my sister Jes and I visited my niece (and sister, and brother in law) in Children's Hospital last weekend. As always, it is soooo good to see Avery when she is awake and alert and on the road to receiving the ultimate gift. Not to mention how good it is to be able to take my sister out for just a little while to give her some much-needed respite from the daily stress of caring for (and worrying about) Cutes.

During the visit, we spent a good deal of time in Avery's room, and I had time to take in all of the wonderful cards, letters and works of art created by her classmates and friends. Her walls and windows are a celebration of hope and color and creativity, and well, in the middle of it all... one big, black sorta scary painting of a shark.

During this visit, I also happened to be reading this book, which is a fictional novel based on the very real shootings by two students at Columbine High School in the 90s. So I look at the shark painting, for probably the fifth time that day, and I say to my sister Jesse, (somewhat jokingly), "they'd better keep an eye on this kid when they get older," and my sister responds, with a smirk "um, that would be YOUR NIECE!"

So, as you can see from this painting, which I was allowed to take with me, and which I now have hanging in my office to intimidate my colleagues, Cutes is definitely expressing her frustrations about having spent the better part of 2009 in a hospital bed.