New Year Manifesto: Vision.

Happy New Year to everyone. I wish you all blessings and opportunities. I am spending my New Year chilling with my family and creating. I will be making Happy 2012 TerrorChic Cards for friends and family. I never got around to Christmas cards and feel way more inspired about cards to welcome in the beautiful new year. 2011 was full of many ups and downs but through it all I learned a lot about growth and creativity. I pushed myself creatively in so many ways:

-Filmed an empowerment poetry video and stunt.
-Performed as a puppeteer in the XPT Festival at the Center for Puppetry Arts
-Started crafting and created TerrorChic Designs - sold two pieces from it too!
-Lost a job and learned how to creatively survive on less income
-Gained a new creative part time job as a teaching artist at the Center for Puppetry Arts
-Re-imagned ny career goals with renewed focus on being self employed
-Got a new tattoo that represents creative freedom

I ended 2011 on a high with my Paper Arts. I am filled daily with ideas for decoupage and collage. Its amazing how once you start creating you get so much inspiration for more. I did digital vision board last year and never once looked at it. I just found it online and it was a nice to see that I had actually did many of the items (One of my favorite concepts of Law of Attraction is the belief that you don't have to stare at your vision board daily for it to manifest. Once its created it becomes a part of your unconscious intentions. The Universe doesn't need a visual aid made on paper or digitally to work for you.) I decided  to do another one this year. Check it out:

Highlights from 2012 Vision board are:
1. Travel More. Family trip to resort in Jamaica is top priority.
2. Self employed with multiple streams of income
3. Get fit by walking and running
4. Brand and push TerrorChic Designs
5. Eat healthy
6. Perform original work with Lady Terror Productions

I also discovered another cool way to display goals for the year. It is a New Years Manifesto. I found it on a cool creative and craft blog that I am now a fan of called creating clever I decided to try one and liked the results. I am jazzed about finding a printing biz to get it digitally printed on larger paper so I can hang in my bedroom.

What is your vision for 2012? 

Wander and discover.

“I have been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then, I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.” -Zora Neale Hurston

I adore Zora Neale Hurston. She is loved and very well known for her classic book "Their Eyes Were Watching God," a magical love story about a women's freedom. My first introduction to her was through this book in college. I fell head first into that book and also taught it in book groups for years to young women in Chicago. While her writing is close to my heart I actually also truly admire Hurston for her work as an anthropologist.

Hurston recognized the significance of the folklore of the Southern United States and the Caribbean countries. Her care and research for documenting and perserving black culture is so inspiring. She was born in 1891 in Eatonville, Florida and traveled extensively all over the south, Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras and Belize. A theme of her writing is freedom and independence. She inspires me to continue on my path to discovery. I have always been a wanderer and love the the quote by J.R.R. Tolkien : "Not all those who wander are lost." As I continue to embark on a career in the field of Creative Empowerment and the Arts I am reminded that part of finding your way is to get lost, to take risk and to shake things up on your own path. Sometimes life hands us a curve like, a parent dying, losing a job, moving to a new state or country, changing careers or financial woes and through these challenges we grow, we create art, we become self employed out of necessity, we build and expand.

The hards times can really be amazing opportunities to blow up the path that you thought you would walk down. As I continue to tranistion on my new migration experience in Atlanta, I am reminded of the advice I have been told by many people when sharing how lost I have gotten while driving around my new city, "Well, the best way to learn and discover a city is to get lost and have to ditch all map directions. Just flow."

I believe this advice is also relevant for our transitions in life. What have you learned while lost?

The Creative Process

i have been thinking lately about what drives my creative process. a short list of what has been driving me lately:

transition: i recently moved to Atlanta, GA from Chicago, IL. the move has really pushed and tested me in so many ways.

coffee: aside from its magically yumminess, i have finally realized another reason for my love of coffee. i think its the hand made art of brewing that also adds to my love. its like a handwritten note in our cyber world. no matter how advanced we get to get to get coffee you still have to grind the beans, add water, brew and wait. waiting is inspiring sometimes.

thrift stores: i can roam and buy all day. i enjoy the art of recycling.

libraries: no matter where i live i always live near a library. my childhood home was a block from library and in every place i have lived an amazing library has been there. i never pick a place to live based on the library location. like magic, i move to a new place and a week later i find out that the library is around the corner.

cubicle nation: i have been spinning in a restricting cubicle gig for the last 8 months. while it has been very challenging and irritating it has also served as artistic inspiration. it has fueled me in my short time there. i have had my solo one woman show premeire at a solo works
festival witn serenbe playhouse in palmetto, ga and currently rehearsing for an experimental
puppetry show that will run at three venues next month. here is info for the center for puppetry arts. if you are in atlanta area you should come out. here is link to the site:
http://www.puppet.org/perform/xpt11.shtml

what drives your creative process? what fuels you to create?