Creatively Thinking

Featured image: Sunrise in the Morning at the Lake For some reason, I woke up earlier than usual this morning and looked across the lake and saw the lovely, wonderful orange, pink, and yellow sunrise glowing just everywhere. I mean everywhere, just everywhere. I couldn’t stand it. I just had to get up, make coffee, and go to the other side of the house and watch the sun rise through the trees in the woods. What is it about starting the day with a cup of coffee and watching the sun rise? It just fills your heart and soul until it is about to burst. And you try to put some of these wonderful sensations in your treasure box to save them for a rainy day, and there just isn’t enough room. Gosh. Memories. Happy memories. Written down, I rarely get beyond them—little fragments from here and there. One that always comes to mind is the last day of a canoeing trip. We got up quickly and cleaned up the tent, rolled up our sleeping bags, made coffee, and, with mugs in hand, walked up the hill. We ...

  Featured image:  Daffodils In A Vase with Yellow Stripes I cut some daffodils from my garden yesterday and put them in a vase. This really is one of the first years I have been able to do that. Usually, the deer get them first. They look so cute on my kitchen windowsill in a tall vase with yellow stripes. It brings a smile to my face just writing about them. I think daffodils are supposed to do that, aren’t they? “She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: ‘Winter is dead.’” — A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young If one pleasure is worth a thousand daffodils, then one is too few. — Wordsworth

  Featured image: Straight from the Heart “I cannot expect even my own art to provide all the answers—only to hope it keeps asking the right questions.” — Wassily Kandinsky

Featured image: Intersections II We seem to be slowly moving into summer. This year I would describe summer's arrival as a slow, quiet slide. Even the blackbirds are quiet. And I am gently moving back into mark-making. I have a new way of creating, and it is triggering new thinking, which is always wonderful. It’s the weaving in my work that seems to be triggering ideas. Even though my weaving isn’t the kind of weaving that all blends, one color into another, as though each thread has a place, rather each thread clings to its neighbor and finds comfort, even though they are not the same. The weaving may appear chaotic and abstract, but it is not, for each thread has a purpose and a connection to whatever is next to it. The connection is the glue that holds the weaving together. For me, it is the invisible divine that connects. I have given up trying to see the divine and trying to describe what I cannot see. But I can feel it. Most of us can feel it and, like myself, can’t put the ...

  Featured image: Nature's Truth “…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” — Vincent van Gogh

  Featured image: Study of Rose Breasted Woodpecker The woodpecker keeps tap tap tapping. Listening to the rat-a-tat-tat in the distance and the gentle chirp close by, it’s nice to have my coffee outside once again and listen to the woods waking up in the morning. Green stubbles are sprouting in the gardens, bringing such joy. The deer didn’t get my daffodils this year, and specks of yellow are sprinkled about the garden borders. Everything will sprout up quickly, and soon those swelling buds will shed their soft shells, and the woods will be filled with luscious spring greens and their transparent colors will be everywhere. Every critter seems to be pairing up. The woodpecker keeps tap tap tapping.

  Featured image: Imagination “In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Featured image: It's A Beautiful Morning Isn’t it glorious watching and listening to spring arrive, not only in our hearts but also in actually watching Mother Earth come alive. Wonderful, wonderful Mother Earth. Red buds, like the flowers that come first before the leaves on the oak trees. Spring green ferns uncurling, stretching like a small baby waking from a nap. Birch trees adding that lime green that can’t be called anything but lime green, so translucent with zigzag edges. All things in the woods are dancing with the gentle breeze and basking in the warmth of the spring sun and blue, blue sky. Isn’t it glorious watching and listening to spring arrive.

  Featured image: Spot of Red Freedom comes when you adapt to change. It begins by getting used to the very idea of change. Change is discovery. Change is growth. Change is exciting when you release the past and embrace whatever comes your way.” — Peggy Magovern

  Featured image: Celebrate Innovation "Art is never finished, only abandoned" - Leonardo da Vinci

  Featured image: Your Inner Compass How do we measure our soul? Is it with a tape measure, a scale, weights? How do we measure our soul? The Bible, the Koran, other holy books? How do we measure right from wrong—good and bad? How do we measure our soul? We can’t see our soul to measure it. And we really don’t know what our soul is—or what it looks like—do we? Just what is a soul? For me… my soul is the glue that holds me together… it is my spirit. “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Those were the words from the first prayer I ever learned to pray to God when my mom and dad tucked me in at night. I learned the word soul even before I understood what it meant. What is my soul? It is the glue that holds me together. It is the precious thing that is just mine. Can it be measured? Mine can’t. AI’s overview states: “The soul is generally defined as the immaterial essence, consciousness, or an...

  Featured image: At Peace “A work of art is a declaration of freedom.” — Oskar Schlemmer

  Featured image: Trusing Her “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

  Featured image: Wings To Be Yourself Who I wish to be: An artist. I work hard. I read. I listen. I think. I observe. I trust myself. But does that make me who I wish to be? An artist. I imagine. An artist, for me, sees the invisible, feels the intangible, achieves the impossible, and most importantly, creates originals. But again, I ask myself: Am I that? That which I imagine?

  Featured image: Intersections II “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton

  Happy Mother’s Day 💛 Nature has always reminded me of the quiet strength found in motherhood — nurturing, resilient, patient, and endlessly giving. Like the returning seasons or the steady wings of birds in flight, mothers shape the world in ways both gentle and profound. Today I’m thinking with gratitude of all the mothers, grandmothers, artists, caretakers, and women whose love leaves lasting traces in our lives. Wishing you a day filled with beauty, reflection, and love.

Featured image: The Little Green Bird “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” — Henry Van Dyke

    Featured image:   Purple Iris purple flower – this talisman holds it all a moment a glance this amulet  of passion  and mystery

Featured image: Hummer V  “I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.” — Charles Lindbergh

  Featured image: Sweet Blooms “The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson