Tag Archives: creativity

Make Art To Survive

25 Jan

I have always been a creative of one sort or another. I’ve crocheted hats, knitted socks, doodled, quilted, painted, gardened, baked, sewn clothes, danced, kept a diary and written this blog.

Baby socks I made for no particular reason.

And still I tend to think of my art as secondary, inconsequential, and not terribly important. When in fact it is who I am.

Texas Star, A gift for my mother-in-law that was returned to me when she died.

While recently in Austin I got to see lithographs by Salvador Dali priced at six figures. Some of his drawings don’t look that much different from mine. Maybe you have to be dead to have your art appreciated.

Visiting the Salvador Dali exhibit with my niece.

And then this TED Talk by Amie McNee came across my screen. The Case For Making Art When The World Is On Fire. None of us would argue against the world being on fire, but make art? That seems like fiddling on the Titanic.

One of my wilder creations.

My suggestion is to take the time to listen to her passionate message. It has made me committed to putting down the phone and iPad. This week I dusted off and tuned the ukulele I HAD to have and has sat in a corner for too many years. Perhaps struggling to play it is just what this old brain needs.

Dusted and tuned.

Next week I will be in Merida, Yucatan, for five days, watercolor painting on site around the city with a group of fellow artists. I remember how scared I was the first time I joined this group. There was a wide range of talent, including one woman who had never picked up a paint brush in her life. Her fearlessness inspired me.

Rendezvous 2018

Whatever your interest or skill or lack thereof, just do it. We need your creativity. The world needs it.

DOS TORTAS

Creative Practice to Get Us Through

9 Aug

This week I shared my most recent painting with my art coach Connie Solera.

Goddess Mother Crone

Her response to me was, “I love what you got going on here too.  I’m so curious to who those figures are. What they mean to you. What story they press on your heart.”

Our Lady is pissed too!

Sometimes the women that show up in my paintings feel as if they are calling to me to bring them out of the ethers.

No idea about these two.

I can smear paint around and see them, hear them, sharing their pain, joy, and confusion, or is it mine? Such times we live in.

One of those paint smearing days.

I started out journaling my quarantine experience in a beautiful handmade journal that I bought on my most recent trip to Oaxaca. It called for paint more than words. Color and line seems to better express emotion than dialogue these days. There just are no words.

Sadness overwhelms.

I have filled the entire journal which makes me long to return to Oaxaca. Using up what we have is a wonderful lesson from staying home. I have dragged out my watercolor pencils, pastels, markers, oil crayons, acrylics, lord I have a lot of art supplies.

Makes me want to dye my hair lol.

I share most of my art on Instagram at dos_tortas if you want to take a look. Also photography is a new creative pursuit that I enjoy. There’s no telling how long before we can safely travel again. For now I will continue to smear paint and see who or what shows up. What is your creative activity? It’s what will get us through.

DOS TORTAS

Emilie Vardaman

travel and random thoughts

A Dead Kennedy

: A journal of a very slooow marathon swimmer

View From Casita Colibrí

gringa musings from a rooftop terrace in Oaxaca

Your Hand in Mind

Musings of a human factors engineer after her brain was released...

Surviving Yucatan

Smoothing out Mexico's rough spots.

Surviving Mexico

Adventures and Disasters

Perking the Pansies

Jack Scott's random ramblings

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