Stained Glass A-2-Z and why creativity heals

I found this article recently that resonates my feelings about stained glass and creativity.

Connecting with your Creative Soul
by Ami McKay


Many of us have lives filled with deadlines and daily routines. Tapping into our creative energies is often the last thing on our minds. Perhaps you think that you don’t have a creative side, perhaps your wild sense of imagination left with your childhood, perhaps you don’t even realize what’s truly within you just waiting to be set free.

Why choose a creative path?

Fostering your sense of creativity can give you feelings of freedom, delight and passion. It can help you see your life in a new light and help you to tackle situations that you thought were hopeless. When you express yourself through creative action you find gifts such as: happiness, self worth, healing, and inner joy. Don’t let society’s picture of the ‘artist as virtuoso’ scare you into not trying. Self-expression comes in many forms and in varying degrees of ability. We all have a creative artist within. Whether or not you choose to call on these amazing gifts is up to you!

Some examples of Creative Endeavors

1. Music hath charms… (Reminds me of my sweet Spanish Guitar)

How many of us like to sing in the shower or in the car during rush hour traffic? You can take this idea a step further and use music as a way to find creativity. In this age of CD’s, we have access to any type of music we desire. Try experimenting by listening to various types of music. Find out what soothes your soul, what gives you energy, which music sets your thoughts free. Keep pen and paper nearby and write down any thoughts that come from this experience. Before long, you may find yourself writing an essay of inspiration or simply dancing around your living room with abandon.

When my son was four, I started hearing music from his bedroom after I had tucked him in. I was curious as to where this sweet music was coming from and peeked in to see what was going on. I discovered that he had started his own evening ritual. He was singing the events of his day to himself. With great passion he would sing of his disappointments, accomplishments and joys. I’ll admit that I have since tried this myself and found it to be one of the most freeing experiences I have ever had.

2. Art of Expression

You don’t have to have a professional set of oil paints or be schooled at the finest art institute to express your artistic soul. I’m talking about art that comes from the very depths of your being and isn’t meant to be pleasing to anyone else but you. ‘Dharma Art’ is a kind of artistic practice where you begin to gather things from your surrounding environment and rearrange them in a creative and artistic way. There are no rules, just simply collect what you find interesting and then create something new. An easy way to experiment with this idea is to make a collage from magazine clippings. Take an hour and create a collage that truly reflects your passions in life. Incorporate favorite quotes and sayings that inspire you. Who knows, one day you may be gluing old clock parts to a worn out straw hat as a personal commentary on time.

An old college roommate of mine recently sent me a small mixed media painting as a token of friendship and thanks. Here is what the enclosed note said: "this is what I did the night I talked with you on the phone. You were inspiring. To me, it looks like something a teenager would do but it reflects how I feel these days…whatever that means." It meant the world to me!

Creativity helps us unlock our inner selves, but it also needs to be shared.

Imagination – without it, life would be unimaginable

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination. – Cynthia Ozick

We all have it, it’s just that we seldom use it.
We go about our day following the usual routine and rarely fire-up our imaginations to plan or develop something well out of our usual schedule.

Steve Joordens, a cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, puts it this way - “It’s only a small percentage of our lives that we spend consciously considering things. We may go through 80 percent of our life without much conscious thought of what we are thinking and doing.”

Professor Joordens, points out that when you’re involved with your usual daily tasks, any effort to awaken your imagination for some creative purpose is “effortful and easily disruptable. In order to get to the creative thing you have to expend an effort. A lot of people don’t tend to make those efforts.”

For those however, who find the time and make the effort to ignite the power of imagination find the experience can be energizing and often leads to a successful conclusion of an creative idea.
In an article on the power of imagination, Andrew Chung writes – “Many of the greatest advances, like the theory of relativity were the product of an abundance of imagination....”

Another powerful creative tool is to combine imagination with visualization – this is the combo used successful by athletes such as Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus – they take the time and make the effort to imagine various shot possibilities, then after calculating the best opportunity, they picture making that shot in their minds – imagination plus visualization a powerful tool in developing a more creative, and happier you.

Imagination is something we all have but use sparingly, and when we imagine something, it habitually deals with the usual mundane concerns of our lives – it’s worth the time and effort to use your imagination to think outside the box – innovative ideas and creative challenges that will bring about a new lease on life.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Freshness In A Basket

Remember how glad you were when you were given fruit baskets as complementary gifts hotels? I'm sure you almost didn't want to touch it, or even eat its contents. "It's just too beautiful to be eaten" is your excuse why you don't want to eat it. Don't be so awestruck. Fruit baskets are easily styled with the right attitude and a healthy dose of creativity. Why not impress everyone and give them fruit baskets as gifts at the next gift-giving season?

A large factor in designing your own fruit basket is organization. Prepare all materials prior to decorating such as baskets, ribbons, craft materials, and of course, your fruits. In creating your own fruit baskets, remember to choose a basket with a relatively wide brim, sturdy structure and without handles. Nice weave patterns won't hurt. It must be sturdy because fruits aren't lightweight. Wide brim will allow your fruits breathing space. It will also make arranging them easier. Baskets should have no handles because you will need to stretch and taper plastic wrap around your fruits to prevent them from disassembling and moving. Use fruits that aren't mushy or fleshy like apples, pears pineapples, kiwis, grapefruits, melons, and oranges. Keep in mind to avoid using fruits that ripen quickly like bananas if the basket needs to be shipped; otherwise, they are okay. Stickers from the fruits must be removed, it is common sense not to show the recipient where you bought your gift right? Wipe the fruits with a clean cloth because washing them might draw out unwanted juices. Be careful when polishing fruits, you don't want to bruise them.

In decorating fruit baskets, position taller fruits like pineapples or watermelons at the back. This will give the other fruits the support to lean on to. Medium size fruits goes in the middle while the smaller ones will look pretty piled at the front. Contrasting colors is key to an attractive and catchy basket. Stack reds, oranges, yellow fruits alternately with the green, purple, and other dark color fruits. Clumps of berries are good for accents. Fill the gaps with blooms and leaves. Adding wedges of cheese is also an option. Don't make your fruity tower too high because you might have trouble wrapping it.

Shrink wrap your fruits baskets and seal at the bottom. Poke tiny holes with a needle around the baskets to let air in. in doing this avoid damaging the fruits. A poked fruit can release enough juice to ruin your work. Finish off your basket with a bow at the top and a note card. Remind recipients that the fruits are perishable and must be consumed, not looked at. Signing your name is not a bad idea, after all with baskets like these, you'll want to help your recipients direct the compliments to you.

You Must Be An Artist

“...Meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must,’ then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.” - Rilke

We are, all of us, meant to create. We are creat-ures, thus it is evident in the world around us that as a spider spins a web, a bird builds a nest, humans are possessed of a spiritual and biological mandate to spin and build a world of beauty and function. The human distinction is the ability to make symbols. Symbolism is the art of investing the world around us with meaning by expressing the invisible or intangible through visible or sensuous representation. This is the simplest, the least unsettling definition of art and creativity. From this definition, we have come to believe and to thoroughly accept without question that art belongs to those who paint the paintings, write the words, and mold the clay, into those representations of the intangible and the invisible. Art has therefore been divided into those who do and those who don’t.

The reinstatement of art into every one of our lives, both in our ability to receive and to recreate it, is to return to living with meaning. Creativity is, like evolution, like all growth and change, an irrepressible force in nature. Thus far, only humans have attempted to turn away from this call, and a case can be made that it is this turning away that is the cause of so much of our pain, suffering, and longing. This suffering, however, is the result of confusion and misdirection, not hapless circumstance.

Art, like science, philosophy, and civility, is our best defense against the insupportable weight of all that we don’t know. If we could disperse the weight among us citizen artists, come up with a more inclusive outlook, we could lighten the formidable load of ignorance. In the broadest sense, art is a response in whatever form it takes--an expression of the love and beauty and terror as it is given to us through the visible bounty of Nature—that pulls us further out of the mire. Creativity is anything that fosters that indwelling spirit, any creation or activity that advances the progression of the unimpedable energy of growth that is life. The replication of that love and beauty, the balm that soothes the terror, or the release provided by the recognition of that terror, is our task, is the way of art and creativity, a whole-some response to existence.

Whether you are a fireman, a pathologist, a babysitter, or a banker, you must be an artist. Must be means, first of all, the recognition of this as your identity, as in, “Oh, you must be an artist...” Secondly, must be makes it imperative. You must respond to the dignity evolving out of creaturehood toward a greater man, toward God, and remain fearless as well as awe-struck by the vast implications. In the meeting of this challenge, you will be recognized by a light in the eye of those you encounter, as extraordinary.

The commitment to creativity, like any other commitment, will become an integral, necessary, part of our life once we realize that not only does our art spring from and define the core of, yes, our own identities, but more importantly, that it is an expression of that which is greater than ourselves. Thus who we are becomes linked with the world, and it is given meaning and purpose by what we do with this link. Creativity is the purveyor of meaning.

We begin with a sense that there is something within us that must act and express. We begin by going beyond the sadness we have experienced at having this something repressed, discouraged, buried. We begin with the thin person with the fat body, the sober, healthy being underneath the addict’s skin, the lover inside our neglected hearts. We begin with the hope and the longing of the creative force within ourselves.