Finding what you need . . .

In one color circle what you have already have and in another color circle what you need in your life right now . . .

balance self-esteem tenderness composure love recognition
generosity centering activity confidence caring awareness
health motivation sharing solitude strength knowledge
skill music devotion energy laughter opportunities
laughter fitness challenges support serenity contemplation
relaxation variety trust comfort insight self-expression
structure joy harmony nutrition control companionship
romance touching sex intimacy sleep accomplishments
money patience integration beauty surrender commitment
flexibility education training sensitivity communion coordination
exercise experience receptivity faith forgiveness responsibility
freedom purpose self-control compassion acceptance self-awareness
peace love passion hope creativity contribution
play respect loyalty trust belonging validation
guidance fun safety security progress being listened to
connection touch attention calmness warmth non-judgment

Keeping a Studio Journal

Keeping a Studio Journal

Keeping a studio journal is a process of catching ideas, and developing those ideas into designs and finally realizing those designs in art pieces.

A studio journal is a valuable tool that can help you in your creative journey. Learning to create is an exploratory journey and a journal helps you:
• Be focused.
• Get distance from and process with the internal critic.
• Learn your own expression and style.
• Share creative ideas with others.
• Express ideas visually. It enriches the texture of your visual life.
• Establish a pattern of observing, notating and using your studio journal.
• The journal catches and stores what you find visually stimulating and keeps it together in one place so those images do not get lost or forgotten.
• It is a place to do visual research. It is a memory aid.
• It is a toolbox. It is a good thing to return to when you feel uninspired.
• It is a place for all parts of you to express and have space to communicate.
• It is a place for sampling and planning.
• It is a place to try new art materials, supplies and styles.
• It is a place to collect, edit, organize, translate and finally make art.

The journal can have drawings, photos, collages, writing, paintings, etc. You work at your own pace and remember to have the journal handy for when you feel inspired by certain images and want to record them. Some people like to have a set time to use their journals and others like to use it whenever they feel drawn to do so. A studio journal is a place to process rather than decorate, although that may happen. In the journal do not try to cultivate a style or look unless it is a part of your visual research. Personal creativity needs to be developed and worked on and this tool helps with that process. Doing this work also means that you will be doing personal work. Your emotional, physical, intellectual and intuitive self will all have views, opinions, emotions and likes and dislikes to express.
Working in a studio journal helps makes an idea real and tangible. The moment you note the idea down in a studio journal a whole series of questions arise in your mind, and as you answer these questions often more questions and reflections arise. This is stepping into your own development as a creator and taking responsibility for what could unfold. The more you journal about your creative understanding and reflective process the more you develop your psychological strength that you are doing the work of educating yourself on the how and what of your creative process. Studio journals are a way of giving you permission to spend time in a creative pursuit. It is an active claim of who you are and how you want to spend your time. They contain potential projects. You note things that you may want to work on right away and other things that you may come back to years later.
Some people may want to record everything to do with their creative life into the journal; to do lists, material receipts, shows attended, etc. Other people may want to use it to support their habit of looking at the world in a creative way. Others may want to use it to develop the skill of creativity in whatever form that takes.
When we create we start repeating patterns. This will show up in the journal. As you collect, sort, and add visual materials to your journal you will note the themes and patterns in life that interest you. If you haven’t developed your style, this will happen while working in the journal.
The journal is a good place to work with your internal critic. It is a place to dialogue about fears, and thoughts that sometimes get in the way of your creativity. It is a place to honor and listen to what your critical side is saying and understand from its point of view how it is trying to protect and guide you. Often what you call your inner critic is really a part of you that remembers how disappointed or hurt you were when you tried something before and failed and it is trying to prevent you from making the same mistake. When you listen to and work with all parts of you, you move into new ways of understanding yourself. Your creative process is enhanced and you to take risks.
The journal can also be a place to keep personal goals and record your process with those goals. It is also a good place to record ideas after workshops before you forget the inspiring things that happened. It can be private or public. It may be something that you enjoy sharing with other artists or very personal.
If you are using blank pages, you may want to print out a template of lined paper or a grid to slip under a page that you want to write on. You may also want some plastic sheets to slip in if you are using wet materials in the journal. You may want to glue a envelope on the front and on the back page for collecting images that you are not ready to glue in. You may want to keep the journal out in a place where you see it all the time so you do not forget to use it.

How to setup the journal:

• You may want it to be random.
• You may want to start with inspirational quotes on the pages.
• You may want to start each entry with an image then write.
• You may want to start each entry with a color.
• You may want to start with process writing.
If you want to develop the habit of using the journal, usually if you practice for 28 days the habit is set. Then it becomes part of your life.

Journaling with Images
A way of processing with an image:
1. Where do you feel this in your body?
What are the body sensations?
2.What emotions are evoked?
What are you feeling?
3. What are your thoughts?
What ideas, reflections are emerging?
4. How are you inspired by this image?
Where would you take it? How would you make it yours?
5. Why is it relevant it your creative process?
Looking at the image:
• Divergent thinking: Free associate to the image
• Subjectively: How does it relate to me?
• Naivete: What is new, fresh here?
• Taking a risk: What can I do new here with this?
• Distinct Style: How does this relate to my own unique voice and or style?


The creative person is one who can look at the same thing as everybody else but see something different. A creative act takes unremarkable parts to create an unforgettable whole.
- Denise Shekerjian

Reflecting on self-acceptance

Before we can move to healthier ways, we must be where we actually are. Radical self-acceptance is a connecting, soft, slow, and compassionate way of being. We can help each other. When you see your “sister” beating up on herself, take her weapons away and just hold her.
-Sark in Succulent Wild Woman

Reflecting on Wholeness . . .

Egocentricity trying to understand whole mind (true nature, inherent adequacy, wholeness, etc.) is like your toaster trying to understand electricity.
- Cheri Huber

Reflecting on optimism . . .

THE OUTLAW CATALOG OF CAGEY OPTIMISM By: Rob Brezsny


The manual called the DSM-IV. identifies scores of pathological states but no healthy ones.
In 2002, I began to complain about this fact, and asked readers to help me compile material for a proposed antidote, the Anti-DSM--a compendium of healthy, exalted, positive states of being. As their entries came in, we at the Beauty and Truth Laboratory were inspired to dream up some of our own. Below is part one of our initial attempt at creating an Anti-DSM-IV, or as we also like to call it, The Outlaw Catalog of Cagey Optimism.

* MODULATED RAPTURISM. Welcoming miracles and peak experiences in full awareness that the growth they initiate will require sober commitment and disciplined work to complete.
* NONRESENTMENT SYNDROME. Having an ability to be friendly, open, and helpful to people with whom you disagree.
* NOT HAVING TO BE RIGHT. Fostering an ability, even a willingness, to be proven wrong about one of your initial perceptions or pet theories; having an eagerness to gather information that may change your mind about something you have fervently believed; cultivating a tendency to enjoy being corrected, especially about ideas that are negative or hostile.
* ORGIASTIC LUCIDITY. Experiencing an expansive and intricate state of clarity while in the midst of extreme sensual pleasure.
* PERMANENT DIVINE INFATUATION. Having not the abstract understanding but rather a direction perception that the Divine Intelligence, who recreates the universe fresh every moment, is deeply in love with you, even as you are in love with the Divine Intelligence.
* RADICAL CURIOSITY. Characterized by the following traits: an enthusiasm for the mystery embedded in the mundane; a preference for questions over answers; an aversion to stereotyping, generalizations, and jumping to conclusions; a belief that people are unsolvable puzzles; an inclination to be unafraid of both change and absence of change; a strong drive to avoid boredom; a lack of interest in possessing or dominating what you are curious about.
* RELENTLESS UNPRETENTIOUSNESS. Possessing a strong determination to not take yourself too seriously, not take your cherished beliefs too literally, and not take other people's ideas about you too personally.
* ROOTED IN ETERNITY. The state of knowing that your true identity is deeper than the constant chatter of thoughts, images, and feelings that swirls through your mind.
* SACRED PERCEPTIVENESS. Seeing others for who they really are, in both their immaturity and genius, and articulating your insights to them with care.
* SCARY-THUNDER-IN-THE-DARK HAPPINESS. Feeling deliciously safe in a well-protected sanctuary during a severe storm.
* SCHIZOFRIENDIA. Hearing voices in your head that are constantly supportive, encouraging, and keen to offer advice that helps you make the most of every experience.
* SELF-ACCEPTANCE UNDER PRESSURE. The state achieved upon leaving a room filled with people who know you, and not worrying about what anyone will say about you.
* SLY TRUST. Having a discerning faith that the integrity of your efforts will inevitably lead to a result that's exactly what you need; being skillful in the art of never trying too hard.
* SONGBIRD-IN-A-TREE. The cultivated awareness that daily life presents countless opportunities to be buoyed by moments of ordinary extraordinary beauty, and that these moments are most available if you perceive with your senses and not with your internal turmoil.
* TENDER RAGE. Maintaining a strong sense of love and protectiveness towards a person or creature or institution you're angry at.
* TRANSCONSUMERISM. An absence of tendencies to predicate happiness on acquiring material possessions.
* UNSELFCONSCIOUSNESS. Doing what you're doing and being who you're being without thinking about it at all. Being happy by virtue of not worrying about whether or not you're happy; enjoying a unified state in which you are not split between the you who acts and the you who observes.
* UNTWEAKABILITY. Having a composed, blame-free readiness to correct false impressions when your actions have been misunderstood and have led to awkward consequences.
* VIRTUOSO INTEGRATION. Consistently walking your talk; effectively translating your ideals into the specific actions; creating results that are congruous with your intentions; being free of hypocrisy.
* VISIONS OF THRILLING EXPLOITS. Experiencing an eruption of intuition that clearly reveals you will attempt a certain adventure in the future, as when you spy a particular mountain for the first time and know you'll climb it one day.
* WEATHER SENSITIVITY. Having a high degree of awareness about your sensitivity to changes in the weather, and having a skill for managing your responses to those shifts so as to consistently bring out the best in yourself.
* WHOLEHEARTEDNESS. Having the capacity to give, on a moment's notice, your complete attention, empathy, and playful intelligence to any person or circumstance you choose.
* WILD DISCIPLINE. Possessing a talent for creating a kind of organization that's liberating; knowing how to introduce limitations into a situation in such a way that everyone involved is empowered to express his or her unique genius; having an ability to discern hidden order within a seemingly chaotic mess.
* WHEEEE. A serenely boisterous intensely focused chaos of communion with streaming fountains of liquid light hurtling softly through the giggly upbeat tender assurance that all is well and a mysterious unimaginable intelligence is magnetizing us forward into ever-more wonderful throbs of naked truth that bestow the humble happy sight of life as a river of fantastically lucky artful change flowing through us forever.