sadness.... and inner critic...and sea gulls

Today I felt plain old sad... a bunch of things happened in the morning to throw my time into a bit of chaos... so after I had done the things I needed to do for others, I took myself off to sit by the seashore to write my 'later in the morning' pages.


I felt agitated and knew that if I didn't stop and write it out first I would just continue to bring my agitation throughout the day and into my painting... which I really didn't want to do.  So while having a deep chat with myself, and hearing the sound of the crashing waves and the fresh salt air.. i had a bit of a funny thought... 

"Darling Denise... how about you take those awful inner critic comments, the ones that beat you up and make you feel like a hopeless artist and write them all down.. and put them on a little raft or boat of their own and send them out to sea where the sea gulls can shit on them!"


the visual idea of this gave me a smile on my face as I thought about what that would look like, having bird sh*t all over my pieces of paper with negative self talk on them... if that's not creative then what is I thought!! 

The day actually turned out much better than how it started... I have made progress on a painting, a friend called and I met her for a chai and one of my dear daugters is cooking dinner for us tonight.

Life is good really.

love,

Denise xo

Woodford Folk Festival street friends, Dec 2010

Recovering a Sense of Power

I'm up to week 3 of The Artists Way. . .  "Recovering a Sense of Power"


 So far I'm doing morning pages most days... sometimes at all different times of the day if I didn't quite make it for the 'morning'.  I listened to the tail end of a podcast Cheryl Richardson interviewing Julia Cameron and she really does strongly encourage first thing, stream of consciousness writing in the morning before doing anything else... well... I like to go for a beach walk first thing.. so aside from getting up at 5am... I can't quite see my way around this one.  


last week I painted a lot more than I have been able to for ages, so that's a bit of a shift.  


If you'd like to hear that interview, go to "Change Your Life with Cheryl Richardson".. in itunes.  When I've got time I'll find the link... 


I love what Julia says about anger : "Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. But a very, very loyal friend. It will alwyas tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests.
Anger is not the action itself. It is action's invitation." p. 62


A significant part of me has been dancing with the enemy for a bit too long (sloth, apathy and despair) it's time to harness that anger and get the hell on with it!


I'm off to see "Hereafter" , the movie with Matt Damon as a psychic, I laughed when I heard him interviewed recently and he said there are more psychics per capita in LA than anywhere else in the world, .... probably joking, but yeah. 
..... I thought the movie was 'ok' nothing, nothing like I'd expected, a bit slow in parts and quite sad.  Would totally be ok to wait for dvd in my opinion. 


bye for now,


love Denise x