A collection of random thoughts!

Every once in a while, the muse needs to step back, reflect, and then deal with all of the random thoughts bombarding her during the day! As the rest of you deal with this as well, perhaps we should discuss some coping mechanisms. Who am I kidding? I have no idea how others cope with life, and I’m certainly not an expert, so I just plan to ramble on until I run out of words!! But isn’t the photo pretty (it's one I took on my river walk)?

Speaking only for myself, I seem to be all over the place with my art lately! Am I a bead, fibre, or mixed media artist? Why should I categorize myself, if I enjoy what I’m doing? I guess the term “mixed media” probably fits the best, because then I can do basically, anything that I want to do. Is that a fair statement? Perhaps the problem isn’t the terminology, but rather the lack of focus on any one thing. Should that be my focus? Should I focus more on focusing? Should I start to make lists? Would that make me more productive? Who knows??

One thing I do know, is that lifelong learning is a very important part of my life. My intent is to continue exploring and expanding my art! I get easily bored, and once I master (to the best of my ability) a technique, my muse tells me that it’s time to learn something new. Granted, not always entirely new, but instead, a marriage of both old and new techniques. Take this week, for example! I’ve started working on a new bead embroidery (future class alert!), but my plan is to adapt and execute it, with some ideas I learned in my fibre life. I’m even considering incorporating hand embroidery into the piece, although it is quite small, and I don’t want to “busy up” my palette! I’d love to show it to you, but it’s an ugly stage, so instead I’ll just say that it involves flowers, land and sky. The colours are red, black, and I’m not quite sure about the sky yet!! As always, more to come later! The colours are correct, but the photo has absolutely nothing to do with my embroidery! It's just one I grabbed off Google Images.

Onwards and upwards to more randomness (and a couple more Google images)! Did you know that right brained people are clutter-holics? Not all of the quotes are clutter related, but here are some of my favourite art and creativity quotes:

“Creative mess equals creative thought” – Timothy Atwood.......... "To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk” – Thomas Edison.......... “Perfectly ordered disorder designed with a helter skelter magnificence” – Emily Carr.......... “Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint you can at it” – Danny Kaye.......... “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home” – Twyla Tharp.......... “One of the advantages of being untidy is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries” – A.A. Milne.......... “Imagination is the air of the mind” – Philip James Bradley.......... “Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light” – Unknown.......... “Play is the essential feature in productive thought” – Albert Einstein.......... “He who works with his hands is a labourer. He who works with his hands and his head is a crafter. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist” – St. Francis of Assisi

Are you ready to reflect, focus and make some small changes in your life? Review your knowledge base of techniques, and then try combining them into something new and exciting. Change is one of the constants in life, and isn’t it time you embraced it?