My He(ART)-Full Life



Thursday, March 28, 2013

inspiration + more great stuff!!

Is it Thursday already?? It's Spring break over here (but no sign of Spring!!)...and Tara is home from "school" = busy busy busy!!!  We've been doing tons of art projects, Easter crafts and visiting the library (one of our all time fave. places to hang out). 
This week I have come across a few things I think are super fantabulously awesome that I want to share with you. Tell me what you think!
* I came across this TED talk and was blown away by his insights into how our school systems worldwide are "educating" our children out of their creativity. Super intelligent observations. 
* My friend Patty wrote about her visit to this amazing place and I just loved seeing the boundless creative genius at work here. Tara and I are constantly saving found objects (that would usually end up in the garbage) for our crafts but this gave me even more ideas!! I want Tara to experience the possibility of turning a tin can into a fabulous doll or an old thread spool into a cat or...The whole idea is for her to be comfortable imagining and then, pulling from her mind her thoughts, and turning them into....whatever she wants. Being creative. A creator. To know that anything is possible.And also...to be comfortable with failure...oh! this won't work + that's okay...we'll try this way and see if it works.
* This book. we signed it out from the library and Tara is in love with it. It's super huge + colorful and inspired by Paul Klee. What's not to love???

(Free to be Me)
* still listening to the Mother Night series when I paint. LOVE. One of the things Dr. Estes speaks of is how perfectionism is the enemy of creating. She goes into detail about how we can procrastinate for years all because we are afraid to put our work out there, fear of not being enough etc.
* am reading this book and am halfway through. It's about a girl thrown into the foster care system as a young child. Very realistically written...beautiful, poignant, poetic...and sometimes frustrating and heartbreaking. What great fiction is...transports you to another world and...you are changed. P.S. at the start of the year I made a promise to myself to make an effort to read more. I am an absolute bookworm but now that I am mom...it's difficult to find huge chunks of quiet time. So I slip a book into my purse and whenever I have some free time (picking Tara up from school, waiting in line at the post office etc)...I pull it out.
*just recently discovered this beautiful soul and I loved reading his articles on Omega. Why have I not heard of him before?? Hmmmm.everything in it's time, I guess:)

*our library system has a program where children can read to a dog. It's brilliant!! We tried it out this week and Tara was beside herself. She got to read to an adorable lab named Molly. It's win/win. And, of course, in between licks and hugs and doting...Tara wants a puppy:)
*dreaming of Spring + flowers + trees + green + birds chirping. Until then...
Happy Easter everyone!!!

2 comments:

ArtPropelled said...

Reading to a dog.... now why didn't I think of that? I'll let you know how that pans out :-)(I have an image in my mind of self on floor with Digby on my head)
Happy Easter to the three of you ... and Happy Spring Dreaming.

patty said...

So Tara is reading??? (wouldn't surprise me!) And a puppy?? (of course you know that a full-grown dog of a year or more is soooo much easier...)
Anyway, glad you liked my post on the East Jesus sculpture garden. I had never heard of it until we went to Slab City. All those years we went out there and never found it! Never too late... some day you will see it!
Glad you have so many good things to occupy you while you are waiting for spring!! (very soon...)