deep rooted healing podcast with emma freeman

In today's episode of Deep Rooted Healing, I share some reflections on the transition I'm in the middle of at the moment from identifying as a visual artist and moving into identifying as a healing artist and all of the stickiness that is coming up for me. I also share a new poem I wrote called, "Standing in a New Doorway" which I wrote to help me process and express what I feel at the moment.

I’m Emma Freeman, a healing artist, poet, massage therapist and Reiki practitioner in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I’m a spiritual seeker, highly sensitive person, Buddhist and sober. 

In this episode, I talk about why I bury some of my fabric meditation books in the earth for 30 days and then dig them back up. I share how my intuition has guided me in different moments with this process, the serendipity of learning about the Tibetan Buddhist practice of earth terma, or "hidden treasures" that are buried in the earth for others to discover and learn spiritual wisdom from and how that connects to the burying book process. I also share what the books have been teaching me and how this 2.5 year ongoing creative practice has fundamentally shifted my approach to art making.

In this episode of the Creative Unearthing Podcast, I share some insights and thoughts I'm having about artists being mediums who channel subtle energies, similar to intuitive or psychic mediums. 

In this episode of The Creative Unearthing Podcast, I talk with the amazing Chantal Wolf, a Canadian poet, painter and author of the new book called "Painted Words: Poetry, Art & Parkinson's. We talk about her creative journey and her healing journey, being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and how that shifted her art journey, how poetry arrived in her life and how it has been healing for her and she reads some of her beautiful poems. 

Alana Garrigues is an artist, poet and community leader and space holder. She runs within, a beautiful, deep online community for artists and makers that Daphne Cohn began. In this conversation, we explore what holding space means to each of us, what goes into it, and the magic that can emerge from being held by our art and by being held in spaces with other creatives. 

In this episode, I talk with the amazing artist, Zak Foster who is an improv quilter, textile artist, community builder and deep, wonderfully insightful and wise human. We go on a journey together to explore what holding space means to each of us in this moment as artists and creative community leaders. 

I share a poem I wrote called, "The Light Keeper" in the hope that it will be healing or inspiring to someone out there. 

Poetry has become medicine to me, both writing it and reading it. I hope to share some of that medicine with more people. 

In this episode, I share my love of the Japanese wabi sabi aesthetic philosophy, what it is, the history of it within Japanese Zen Buddhism, what some of the beautiful aspects or qualities of it are and how I explore them within my art making. I hope it inspires you to invite more simplicity, spaciousness, silence, stillness, spontaneity, presence, wonder and beauty into your creativity and art making. 

This is about creating art as a meditation practice and as a spiritual practice, which to me just means turning inward, getting quiet and going deep to find a soul connection within the natural world that we can collaborate with to create art that is personal, healing, interconnecting and beautiful. 

I renamed my podcast, "Creative Unearthing" from "Reflections from my Art Table" and in this episode I share why I made the change and what I'm dreaming up for the podcast right now.

Emma Freeman is an intuitive artist, poet and teacher who makes art as healing practice to process emotions and thoughts and connect to her soul and the amazing natural world that we are all rooted in. She is a Wisconsin-based artist who is Buddhist, sober, queer and a highly sensitive person. She makes fabric meditation books, contemplation cloths she stitches by hand over many months, buried earth books, fiber sculptures, weavings with nature, poetry and more.

In this episode, I read a few poems I have gathered about darkness and light, offer prompts and reflect on what the solstice has meant to me this year. I started a new collaborative art project called The Buried Earth Book Project that is free for anyone in the world to join, which you can learn more about on my website: www.emmafreemanart.com. 

Happy Solstice to you!

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Emma Freeman is an intuitive artist, poet and teacher who makes art as healing practice to process emotions and thoughts and connect to her soul and the amazing natural world that we are all rooted in. She is a Wisconsin-based artist who is Buddhist, sober, queer and a highly sensitive person. She makes fabric meditation books, contemplation cloths she stitches by hand over many months, buried earth books, fiber sculptures, weavings with nature, poetry and more.

In this episode, I talk about my the spiritual and deeply healing process of writing poetry over the last year, what I am learning from it, and share some of my deeply personal poems with prompts so you can write with them if you want to. 

Writing poetry has become a deep listening practice in silence and slowness and not knowing. It is mysterious and fascinating to me, how the words collect and assemble themselves into something that speaks so profoundly to what I have experienced in a way that I cannot touch in normal conversation. It is truly a magical and mystical process. 

I mention an amazing book by Kim Rosen called, "Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words." 

I love this quote by Pablo Neruda from his poem, "Poetry" that reads, “Poetry arrived in search of me."

You can learn more about my upcoming art and writing workshops on my website: www.emmafreemanart.com. 

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Emma Freeman is an intuitive mixed media artist, poet and teacher who makes art as healing practice to process emotions and thoughts and connect to her soul and the amazing natural world that we are all rooted in. She is a Wisconsin-based artist who is Buddhist, sober, queer and a highly sensitive person. She makes fabric meditation books, contemplation cloths she stitches by hand over many months, buried earth books, fiber sculptures, weavings with nature, poetry and more.

Ep. 27: Writing Prompts Are Doorways into Our Imaginations

In this episode I talk about my new writing practice that has become a writing as meditation practice and is incredible healing and powerful for me. I share some reflections on my relationship to writing throughout my life and how it has been opening and expanding lately. 

I also talk about the gift of prompts to open the doorway to our imaginations and how I have been living that through different workshops I have been part of and that I have lead. 

Then, I read a poem by Mary Oliver called, "It Was Early" from her book called, Devotions, then offer prompts for you to write with if you want to. I share what emerged for me when I wrote with one of the prompts. 

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Emma Freeman is an intuitive mixed media artist, poet and teacher who makes art as healing practice to process emotions and thoughts and connect to her soul and the amazing natural world that we are all rooted in. She is a Wisconsin-based artist who is Buddhist, sober, queer and a highly sensitive person. She makes fabric meditation books, contemplation cloths she stitches by hand over many months, buried earth books, fiber sculptures, weavings with nature, poetry and more.

In this episode, I open up about my relationship to contemplation within my art practice and my life and how it has helped me and continues to help me heal deeply and find a rich, more meaningful relationship to myself, to my art making, to other humans and creatures and to nature. 

I read a poem by Mary Oliver called, "Today" and a poem by John O'Donohue called "For the Unknown Self." 

I share how through contemplation I created a self-guided visual meditation to help heal a childhood experience when I thought I wasn't an artist because I thought I couldn't draw. 

Contemplation has become an essential part of my art practice and my life. It has helped and continues to help me heal my deepest wounds, travel back in time throughout my life and find younger versions of me that were/are still hurting that were asking for my help and attention. It was through the practice of contemplation that I was able to change my relationship to alcohol, to being defensive and guarded, to people pleasing, to anger and other difficult emotions, to my role and choices in various relationships and the list goes on.

I learned to take a long loving look at myself and all of the parts of me, parts that I used to label as bad or good, right or wrong. That practice has been transformative and has rippled out into all aspects of my life.

I share poet, Naomi Shehah Nye's interview on On Being when she mentions a definition of contemplation that spoke to her which is, "a long, loving look." 

I’ve also read that it means to look at something with continued attention, to observe thoughtfully, to consider something thoroughly-to think fully and deeply about something. All of those resonate with me. 

While I am creating something-whether that is a fabric meditation book, a small weaving, a poem or a piece with nature, I move slowly-very slowly and along the way as the piece emerges, I stop and look at it and allow my wonder to unfold within it, softly.

I ask quiet questions but not in the hyper critical/polarized way of is this right or wrong but rather, what are these materials saying? What has emerged after my initial idea that got me started with this particular dance within the creative process? Do the materials want me to take a different step than my mind wants me to? How might I respond to that new information?

This all happens internally, intuitively, gently. I have discovered this way of being in my art practice through just that-practice. Practice and stillness, stillness and solitude, solitude and spaciousness.

I am in awe of the experiences I have at my art table and the new realms that invite me into them to explore and wander around inside of each piece, inside of materials, inside of my own body as I just sit and listen. 

Contemplation can be such a beautiful gift and as I have settled into a contemplative art and spiritual practice, I have felt deeply fulfilled and nourished by it.  It allows me to have a deeper relationship with myself, with art that I create, with other humans and creatures, and with this planet. It invites me to look more closely at my life in so many different ways and continues to help me find my way forward in a way that feels deeper, more true, more aligned rather than moving quickly and doing a lot of different things at once without that depth which is how I lived for a long time.

This week I open up about my decision to become sober after 20 years of drinking alcohol. I share my vulnerable story about it, how it impacted me over those many years, why I would use it, why I decided to stop, all of the intense inner resistance I met when I started to look at my relationship to it and what gifts have been coming through the clarity within my art practice and my life.  Recovery Dharma is a sobriety group that focuses on Buddhist teachings. https://recoverydharma.org/. They offer virtual and in-person meeting all around the United States.  The Creative Sober podcast is a great resource to listen to artists stories with sobriety.  

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Emma Freeman is an intuitive mixed media artist, poet and teacher who makes art as healing practice to process emotions and thoughts and connect to her soul and the amazing natural world that we are all rooted in. She is a Wisconsin-based artist who is Buddhist, sober, queer and a highly sensitive person. She makes fabric meditation books, contemplation cloths she stitches by hand over many months, buried earth books, fiber sculptures, weavings with nature, poetry and more.

In this episode, I talk with the incredible fiber artist, Cheryl Janis based in Taos, New Mexico. Cheryl is a deep spiritual being and an empath and she shares her experience going through a dark night of the soul period, how her spirituality connects to her fiber practice, her love for animals and how she makes conscious choices in her art practice to support companies that create ethical fibers like Love Fest Fibers and Yarn Yarn, we talk about the energy around money as an artist and doing energy work to heal subconscious patterns to transform those limiting beliefs and more.

We had this conversation back in February when Cheryl was on the cusp of transitioning from creating weavings to felting. It was wonderful to talk about that new creative work emerging and to see now a few months later, how that felting work is evolving. You can follow her on Instagram or go to her website to see her amazing fiber art and support her. 

In this episode, I share how I discovered I am a highly sensitive person, what that means, how it has shown up in my life and my art practice. 

In this episode, I open up about my spiritual awakening, healing journey, dark night of the soul experiences that happened over 5 years. I share how those deep experiences shifted my art practice in profound ways. I talk about discovering all kinds of uncomfortable things during this process including attachment styles (I was avoidant to a T), emotional regulation, distress tolerance, highly sensitive people, anger and different emotions and my relationship to them, codependency, conditioning from family structures, society, culture, and media and the impact that conditioning has on our entire being, coping mechanisms, limiting beliefs, nervous system activation, inner child, reparenting, self-soothing, alcohol as a coping mechanism, the unconscious mind, shadow work, abstract and concrete thinking, childhood emotional neglect, enmeshment, emotional addiction, physic realms/abilities, empathy, past lives/akashic records reading, spirit guides, states of change, the ego, disassociation, OCD, fear, trauma, people pleasing, social anxiety, epigenetics, mysticism, spirituality vs. religion, visual guided meditation...so many things!

I discovered intimately how art can be a deep healing tool and healing experience. 

Resources:

In this episode of Reflections from my Art Table, I talk about my love of textiles and fibers and all of the different ways I have explored them within my life and my art practice. I share my favorite materials and books on textiles and fibers that I love. 

Lauren Oland of Mezame Designs is a sustainable textile artist and zero waste weaver based in Austin, Texas. 

Lauren is passionate about sustainability and runs a zero waste studio where she uses only remnant fibers and fibers made or grown by small farms and artists. She creates wearable, functional weavings including bandana cowls, jean jackets with her weaving put into the back, shawls, tops, coasters, patches and mending kits. 

In this interview, we talk about:

-Her background studying apparel design and being a freelance teaching artist

-How she discovered weaving and developed her style that was influenced by learning the Japanese style of free form weaving called Saori

-How she approaches color in her work

-How her weaving connects to her deep musical background that runs in her family. She played piano for 12 years and find that weaving is like playing the piano. 

-The ways weaving and creating help her heal and process emotions and connect to a deeper place within herself and to the world

-How the pandemic and a move from the Twin Cities of Minnesota to Austin, Texas have impacted her art practice and business. 

-She shares that she is part of the LGBTQ community and how being raised in a strict religious home and not being fully accepted for who she was within the religion made her seek out more open spiritual expressions in her life and her art. 

Lauren is passionate about sustainability and runs a zero waste studio where she uses only remnant fibers and fibers made or grown by small farms and artists. She creates wearable, functional weavings including bandana cowls, jean jackets with her weaving put into the back, shawls, tops, coasters, patches and mending kits. 

In this week's episode, I talk about my obsession with color and how I love to tell color stories in my art. I share my strong feelings and opinions about colors that goes back to my childhood as a sassy little kid. I share the techniques I use currently in my art practice, how I play with colors across different mediums and what I do to continue to expand my color horizons. I love to tell color stories in my art and thinking about them as stories makes it really playful and fun. I don't like using color theory or color wheels because they feel too intellectual and not intuitive enough for me, however I understand why they can be helpful as doorways into exploring color. 

I share how I use color in my mixed media collages, fabric meditation books and drawings and how play and experimentation are essential for me to move forward with my work in general and with my color language. 

In this episode, I share how I discovered slow stitching, how I create my fabric meditation books full of stitches out of repurposed fabrics and textiles including dish towels, sweaters, shirts, shower curtains, napkins and curtains. In addition to stitching, I add textile and fiber collage to the book pages. I find inspiration in Japanese Boro textiles and Indian Kantha blankets, the hidden layers within stitches and textiles that I wonder about and how healing and meditative stitching is for me.  I hand stitch with cotton sewing threads, Japanese sashiko threads, and Japanese Kogin embroidery threads. 

Today I share reflections on all of the ways that my art practice and I shifted throughout 2020 and how I am thinking about this year, what I am carrying forward with me and what I am leaving behind. 

Today I am sharing a beautiful poem I read this morning at my art table after a night of dreams full of worry and anxiety. When I read it to myself, I cried and something released. I thought I would read it to you and see if it releases something within you too. 

I am finding so much solace in poetry during this pandemic and find myself seeking it out to be a light and give me some guidance and hope in different moments. 

"A Morning Offering" by John O'Donohue from his wonderful book, To Bless the Space Between Us. 

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

In this interview, I talk with the amazing human and environmental artist, Natalie Koffman.  Natalie Koffman is a wise, deep, contemplative dreamer. In this conversation, we talk about Natalie’s incredible project, 1 Seed 1,000 Dreams: The Artist Woods, a dream to buy land in the UK where she lives and plant trees to create a woodland that would be protected forever. She imagines having artists of all kinds participating in this project and dreams of creating artist residency opportunities on the land and inviting many kinds of creative collaborations with nature there. We also talk about her storytelling project called, “Inverted Ark” which had me completely captivated. I felt like I was listening to a magical children’s story that has a powerful call to action for the environment. Natalie talks about her artistic and creative path through exploring photography, a Masters degree in Social Sculpture, working in mental health and some of the challenges she has found along the way. Natalie lives and works in London. I really hope you enjoy this conversation. 

This was my first interview with another artist and I was nervous and met an edge within myself by doing it but I am glad I did. 

In this episode, I share how circles have been showing up in my art practice, on my body as a tattoo and in my spiritual practice. I talk about enso practices in Zen Buddhism and Zen Philosophy, some of the many meanings of circles, how I have been exploring them spiritually and reflections I am having on them lately. 

I share two wonderful books, Enso: Zen Cirlces of Enlightment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo and Zen and the Art of Photography: A Guide to Mindfulness in Creativity by Douglas Beasley. 

In this episode, I read two poems by John O'Donohue called "For the Time of Necessary Decision" and "For Courage" from his amazing book, To Bless the Space Between Us.  I also share some reflections on some difficult things that have happened to me during the pandemic and what shifts and openings have emerged in my life and art practice.  

In this episode, I open up and share my experiences with having an obsessive compulsive mind throughout my life, the damage it has done in different parts of my life and the gifts it has given me within my art making and teaching practice. I talk about struggling through an eating disorder, my relationship with alcohol, how this obsessive compulsive energy has shown up in relationships and how it has helped me to delve deeply into so many different artistic mediums and creative realms throughout my life. 

Today, I am reading one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver called, "Sleeping in the Forest" and sharing some reflections on my connection to poetry during the pandemic and how nature is grounding me in my art practice. 

Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver, written in 1978

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

In this episode, I read John O'Donohue's beautiful poem called, "For Light" from his book, To Bless the Space Between Us. on the eve of the presidential election in the United States, which has the air feeling so tense, anxious, full of fear and worry about what will happen. This poem is some medicine for me tonight so I wanted to share it with you. I read it by candlelight while sitting at my little art table.  John O'Dononue was an Irish poet, philosopher and spiritual leader. 

"For Light" by John O'Donohue 

Light cannot see inside things. 

That is what the dark is for: Minding the interior, 

Nurturing the draw of growth 

Through places where death In its own way turns into life. 

In the glare of neon times, 

Let our eyes not be worn By surfaces that shine 

With hunger made attractive. 

That our thoughts may be true light, 

Finding their way into words 

Which have the weight of shadow 

To hold the layers of truth. 

That we never place our trust In minds claimed by empty light, 

Where one-sided certainties 

Are driven by false desire. 

When we look into the heart, 

May our eyes have the kindness 

And reverence of candlelight. 

That the searching of our minds 

Be equal to the oblique 

Crevices and corners where 

The mystery continues to dwell, 

Glimmering in fugitive light. 

When we are confined inside 

The dark house of suffering 

That moonlight might find a window. 

When we become false and lost 

That the severe noon-light 

Would cast our shadow clear. 

When we love, that dawn-light 

Would lighten our feet 

Upon the waters. 

As we grow old, that twilight 

Would illuminate treasure 

In the fields of memory. 

And when we come to search for God, 

Let us first be robed in night, 

Put on the mind of morning 

To feel the rush of light 

Spread slowly inside 

The color and stillness 

Of a found world. 

In this episode I share how I developed my sketchbook practices and how they help me develop my drawing, collage and mixed media skills and style within each of those mediums. 

In this episode, I talk about the power of encouragement in my art practice and how it opens up new possibilities and deeper creative energy within me.  

Encouragement is such a powerful force that can energize and motivate us to keep exploring and discovering new creative ways of expressing ourselves. So many of us have had painful experiences of being criticized for what we create or we just feel unsure about our creative abilities and those tender places within us can be soothed and healed through encouraging words, through encouraging creative opportunities and spaces to be in. The encouragement can completely shift things inside, I have discovered, it can soften those hardened places where we have convinced ourselves that we can’t do something or are bad at something and suddenly new energy can flow there, like when a knot in a muscle gets massaged out. The creative energy that naturally wants to flow can move and inspire us and can feel incredibly powerful. We are all so much more powerful than we realize. 

Creating art, attempting new mediums and materials that intimidate us but feel exciting too, is so good for the soul. And I find that the smallest amount of encouragement can have a huge impact-if someone says that they love what I created or that is beautiful, or wow, that is amazing! Even if I start to say, “well…I don’t know…” or doubt it, the magic is already happening inside of me, that energy of encouragement is working it’s way through my body and finding those stuck and hardened places of creative fear and doubt and is starting to massage them to get them unstuck. 

I love encouraging people in my life to do the creative things they want to do.  I take time to say kind things about what they are creating or encourage them to do something they mentioned wanting to explore. I seek out spaces where I can receive some encouragement - in art classes, by sharing what I am creating with friends and online. It isn’t about focusing on getting constant validation-that is different. That is a compulsive need to be held up by others because we haven’t discovered our own powerful foundation to stand on yet. Encouragement is more expansive than validation. Validation feels to me like the insecure version and encouragement is the secure version. Encourage yourself. Start to talk to yourself in encouraging ways. 

I use quotes around me in my art space to encourage me all of the time, to give me that boost of encouraging energy to keep me going when I get stuck. A few of my favorites are: “Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” -Carl Jung “I simply do not distinguish between work and play.” -Mary Oliver “So you see, imagination needs moodling-long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” -Brenda Ueland “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” -Pablo Picasso “I shut my eyes in order to see.” -Paul Gauguin 

In this episode, I share my reflections on my own discovery of art being a meditation practice, what shifts happened in my life to kick off that new practice, and what I have noticed that I need to enter that state of being at my art table. I make connections to Zen philosophy, spirituality and art making and share some of my favorite quotes about meditation that connect to art making and creativity including an excerpt from the book by John Daido Loori called, The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life and this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that I love, “Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration."

In this episode, I talk about how I explore texture in my mixed media art work, being a very tactile human, suggestions and ideas for expanding your experiences with texture and ways I gather texture inspiration and surround myself with those objects and images to nourish me creatively. 

In this episode, I read a beautiful poem by John O'Donohue called, "For a New Beginning" from his book, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. I also share why this poem is meaningful and healing for me in my art practice and my life. John O'Donohue was an Irish poet, philosopher and spiritual teacher. 

For a New Beginning

By John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

In this episode of "Reflections from My Art Table," I share how I discovered the world of mixed media art making, what materials and tools I love using now in my mixed media work, and the incredible freedom I am discovering within the world of mixed media art making.  I share books, classes and artists who have helped me learn mixed media techniques. 

In this episode of "Reflections from My Art Table," I share a beautiful poem by the poet and writer, John O'Donohue. It is called, "For the Artist at the Start of Day" from his book, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. I discovered this poem recently and absolutely love it. It gives me encouragement and connection while I sit at my art table and reminds me that artists have a calling and deeper need to create. John O'Dononue was an Irish poet, writer, philosopher and spiritual teacher. 

"For the Artist at the Start of Day"

by John O'Donohue

May morning be astir with
the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the
eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some
unintended glimpse
That cut right through the
surface to a source.

May this be a morning of
innocent beginning,
When the gift within you
slips clear
Of the sticky web of the
personal
With its hurt and its
hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,

A morning when you become
a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend
from silence,

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved.

Until the veil of the unknown
yields
And something original
begins

To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your
heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the
light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

I also talk about self-doubt as an artist and our need for connection and community to keep us going. 

In this episode, I talk about the artistic languages I communicate in, how I built and continue to build my creative toolbox through art classes, online art tutorials, and art and craft books.

“The more colors you have on your palette, the more you can work with, and the more you can aspire to.” Donald McKayle, dancer and choreographer, first black man to direct and choreograph a Broadway musical.

I think of each artistic medium as a different creative language. The way I communicate and express myself in one is different than another. Collage, drawing, inks, watercolor, acrylics, textiles, stitching, mixed media, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, dance, cooking, writing...these are all creative languages. Expanding and deepening our creative language abilities can offer us more resources to draw upon to express ourselves. I think of it as building my creative toolbox.

In this episode, I talk about wonderful online classes I have taken including:

Welcome to the Reflections from My Art Table podcast. This is a podcast about art making, the creative process, sharing the gifts of creativity and art through teaching and more.

In this episode, I share how I became a mixed media artist and a teaching artist. 

I share one of my favorite quotes by John Updike, "What are offers is space, a certain breathing room for the spirit."