At the End

Day's End, Watercolor on paper, 11x14"

(c)2008 Dora Sislian Themelis

Here I am at the last week in The Artist's Way 12 week course.  And I'm not happy about it.  I enjoyed reading each chapter and trying to do all the tasks.  I looked forward to writing the three Morning Pages of long-hand, stream of consciousness thoughts.  I had started a journal anyway, but this gave my writing a purpose and a direction.  Never mind that I called myself stupid, you idiot, and jerk most days in those pages.  The writing habit emptied my brain of nonsense and helped keep a tidy space all up in there! 

The weekly tasks were difficult for me to keep up with though.  I plan go back to various weeks and complete them.  I know they were there to help, but somehow I managed to avoid many tasks.  I don't know why.  Did I resist doing them?  It seems it's normal for creative people to throw obstacles in our own path because doing the task is scary.  Moving ahead puts us off sometimes, so we resist.

 Anyway, I'm thinking I won't really be done with the course just yet.  And the Artist's Date.  Time to play all by myself!  That was an absolute pleasure when I pinned myself self down to indulge in it.  At each week's end was a check-in that asked if we did the Morning Pages every day, did we do the self-pampering Artist's Date, if so, what?  These two things will have to become a "must do". 

At a gathering this weekend someone asked me what I did.  I said I was an artist and talked about my paintings and handmade items.  The woman I was speaking to was awestruck and began planning for me to show at some venue.  I found myself saying Yes!  I gave out my handy business card.  I was so ready!  The Artist's Way talks about synchronicity and there it was.  Things were just falling into place as if it were meant to be.  Before reading this book I may not have been so bold or so ready.

If I stick with it, art will easily become a larger part of my day, every day.  Art as process, art as play.  The course says creativity requires faith, which means we give up control.  But giving up control is scary and we resist.  The resistance is the block on the path to creativity.  That quiet internal Yes! is what leads us on the right path.  So I'm sticking with the Artist's Way plan and I'm just going to keep on saying Yes!