film club: Hearts of Darkness - The Making of Apocalypse Now

Wow. What an amazing documentary.  Nuff said.  Inspired us to choose a right proper ART film for the next film club film.  We are going hard core.  The Seventh Seal.

musings

Been lying in bed for the last hour thinking about whys and whats and values.  I love the Eleanor Roosevelt "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are".  I love that quote from that Mamet film; 'You gotta make your own fun, other wise its just entertainment".  I love the idea that magic happens when you follow your dreams.  I love quests and adventures and seek means and ways to feel truly alive.  I need to create to feel happy.  I need company and community to be happy.  I love good food.  I love the idea of SOUL FOOD being whatever it takes to make your heart sing.  And that without it our spirits starve and waste away.  And here I am half way through the HSHB course and I can't put my finger on a WHY.  I can do the WHO.  more soon I have a small boy for company here right now....

aww, he has snuggled in beside me and fallen asleep.

So.  Do what You can, with what you have where you are....

I was just thinking of freedoms.  Like financial freedom (yes please)  Creative freedom.... (actually....) And I found myself thinking that some boundaries, some rules perhaps, can create imaginative responses.  Or can provoke great art.  So having some structure or limitations can actually be a good thing.  I still want financial freedom, yes thank you very much.  Creatively, I want challenges and edges to find my way around.

So it got me thinking about doing what I can with what I have and where I am.

Here I am.  In Brighton, with a child and a husband and a mortgage.  We are running slightly on empty financially at the moment which I have to admit stresses me out a lot.  I can live creatively and frugally, but I cannot make my Husband do so.  And if he is not doing so, I feel very reluctant to sacrifice. So to keep sane, we are carrying on relatively as normal.  And counting on things getting better work wise.

So what can I do? Well crucially at this point in time I need to finesse my presentation of the Accelerated Productivity workshop.  I spent 2 hours this morning introducing it and doing the outline of the day, out loud, to the wall / an imaginary crowd.  I am definately getting better and I think that when I nail this I am going to be shit hot at it.  It is good to feel a growing confidence in myself in this respect.  I have a coupl of enquires from friends of friends who are keen to do the process with me.  But I am going to charge friends of friends.  I can't go on doing it for free.  I need to charge to make it more stressful for me. Hmm, that sounds weird.  I mean, it needs to start being professional.  And I need to feel that I am starting to be worth something other than a good friend for doing it.  So  Doing what I can towards financial freedom.

Immediately nailing this workshop and getting out there and being paid for it at £500+ per person. 

Artistically - I have a small studio.  I have paints and I have a canvas.  I can paint. 

My portrait business.  Ah, there it is.  bless it.  I want to breathe life into it.  I loved it a while and it still has legs, its just lying sleeping.  It needs some ooomph.  Some activity around it.  To frame it, package it up.  Make it a beautiful experience. 

So thinking thinking.  I do value thinking.  I mean, some folk don't bother. And I value independent thinking.  Thinking for oneself.  Starting from here, from where we are and imagining what we could and can do.  Creating a life worth living....

more art please

I have been perusing my wishlists and so on and one thing i realise is that I need to make art more of a priority.  Its just not happening at the moment.  I know I have a lot of commitments.  But I need to create.

the big WHY? question. And some CHILL time.

Why why why why why.  The question, beyond which i am having difficulty going.  Why do I do what I do?  What is the reason I get out of bed every morning?  To carve a life for myself?  To create my future? To find some time to paint furiously and freely?  To put one foot in front of the other and live fully in each moment?  TO get by? And what about, With regard to my working life?  Oh sure, it's to put food on the table and keep the roof over my head.  But all sorts of questions into - What is it about creating that I am pursuing?

WHY? What is MY WHY????

I keep coming back to the ideas of 'being free' and this is kind of right.  But in some respects perhaps its about breaking free.  Escaping the shackles of, say, a job in data entry on an industrial estate in Lancing.  Keeping free of a deathly boring stifled life that I feel would surely kill me, or at least my spirit.  Its keeping the doors open for some sort of wild escape.

I have been trying to think of 'why' for my portrait business.  Which has been somewhat languishing.  Maybe due to my other work, and my yoga teacher training, but maybe because it has lost its way. And I wonder if it can be revived, or if it is languishing because my heart is no longer in it. My very honest answer to WHY I got into it, is that it seemed to be art that people were prepared to pay for and therefore and opportunity for me to make some money from being creative.  Which is not at all inspiring, and could easily be the reason it languishes, still there, but no longer active.  So am in the process of appling the WHY of my  life to it.   Maybe I can  transform it.  Give it life.  Momentum.  Movement.

Say, and am thinking on my feet here... If my portrait business were about keeping free from the strangulation hold of conformity, it were about staking a claim on individuality.  If it were about breaking free and keeping  creative heart and soul alive?  What would it be then?

The same but different?  And how would I put that across?

If I applied the same principle to the work I do with People Who Do.  How could helping folk be more organised give them the keys to escape? 

Is it all about keeping on the outside.  Being free of the rules that people confine themselves with?

I have, this morning, oh and last night too, run out of energy completely.  I went to bed at 8.30 and this morning, I have slept some more.   I got up at 11am to go take my son to see the Fire Engine that visited his preschool this morning.    But am back in bed now.  Til 1pm when I go fetch him and bring him home. I have been running to keep up with myself.  At our last People Who Do meeting we talked about recovery time.  And I realised that I have been going full tilt in so many ways for a  long time.  I have work, and training, and doing a course, and looking after  the house.  And I haven't had any time to do nothing.  Its good for all of us in many ways.  So I am taking this morning to do bugger all.  To lounge and wallow and eat honey on toast.  This afternoon is not going to much different.  Bub and I may watch a film together.  We will hunker down and chill.  The larder is full.  There is nothing to do.  It  is COLD outside.  a home day.  to dream. to relax.

Report on yesterday

First lesson. A group of 4 women who mostly know each other = a lot more chatting. I need to learn how to reign folk in a bit as I didn't quite finish it all in time. Also technical difficulties prevented us all getting online to art the email. Never the less the feedback was good and they all enjoyed themselves. There is a lot to get through and it's not good starting the practical stuff at 2pm. I am glad I did it though. It was my first run through with a group. Also the other thing was yet another variation on th e nature of interruptions and what holds us back for doing good work. Tips time it seemed to be the difficulty in getting decisions made, especially when they involved other people. I wonder if this is particularly a female problem? And more specifically, what the solution is. What do you do, if you can t get on with something because you need. or feel you need. Agreement from someone else.

So all ok re my performance apart from timing.

wish me luck!

So today, in a few minutes I am off to deliver my first group session of Accelerated Productivity.  OK it is to a bunch of friends.... who will  -  I hope be kindly.  But its part of my mission to get over myself with regard to presenting.  I have done 121 work before, and I love it.  Groups - well, I just need practise.  I need to do it over and over so that I KNOW what I am doing. 

I am actually looking forward to it.  With a little butterfly in the tummy stuff going on at the same time. But that is good.  We need a little adrenaline sometimes. 

OK.  Off to do hair, brush teeth and get my act together.  Will let you know how it goes!!

x

friday!

This week has been a wash out  as far as early mornings has been concerned.  don't know what happened but all the juice went out of my will power.  feeling a bit ill mainly, with throat and ears and head all giving me gyp.  Good stuff has been the delving into storytelling and working on my presentation.  I also had a very cool meet up with an old friend who is working on a most very exciting project.  I will expand on this I promise!! Its quite huge!

In the evenings Hub and I have been indulging in Borgen.  And now I can't wait now for the finale  on Saturday night. 

xx