my dear Embergirl came by today with her mom, visiting at my request because i’d been home sick for the last 2 days. I was showing off the re-organizing i’d been able to do in the few weeks, including a complete overhaul of my “creative desk”: Ember, who is quite a talented artist already at 9 1/2yrs, promptly moved over to the desk, pulled up the chair, and began exploring / playing with my collection of stamps, paints & assorted collage emphemera…

What is so wonderful about watching her work is there’s no hesitation, no censuring herself while creating…just free expression, playing with colours and tools, and creating 2 assemblage pieces for me in about 20-30mins....

I was so tempted to take her picture while her created her art,,,,,but i didnt want to interupt – distract or disturb such freedom of process.

After they’d left, and i was straightening up a few things on the desk, i found myself drawn into creating some of things of my own, tho i hadnt sat down at my own “Wonderfully Organized Creative Desk” in months. And i thoroughly enjoyed myself, experimenting with a few new techniques with gesso and embossing powders.

It’s again one of those things of “Control” vs “Flow”. We always think we have to some huge scheduled time set aside to be create, e.g. ‘I’m Going Be Creative Now’. Or think we have produce some perfected piece of art. I’ve broken thru that kind of walled thinking in my writing; my poetry has strengthened because i am no longer so “careful” about the process before i ever get a word on the page. And i scrawl lines on notepads and in my journals whenever they occur to me…i dont limit myself to set times of “creative writing”. Yes, i go back and polish or develop the ideas / images / structure of those seeds of poetry,,,but i dont shut out those spurts of creatiness with my writing…

I’m still learning how to do this with my collage / altered art pursuits, as i’ve only been actively working with this for the past 3 yrs (as opposed to some 30+ years of writing). And in the Collage / ATC /Assemblage Art group that i organize, it’s been difficult to find those techniques to help others break out of their own “frozen perfectionism”, and just get into some sloppy, free-style Creating—and relish the process, not obsess about results.

How to break thru to that sense of freedom, and how to stay in touch with it? Its both going beyond one’s self-imposed limitations, and returning to Child-Like exploration and freshness…

I may ask Ember to be the Co-Organizer of my collage group. I’m sure she could teach my members a few things about creativity…