Recycling Art and Living in Love with Creative Every Day

Phew! It has been a week of woooshing! Creativity. Sort of a downhill slope – a steep one, mind you, on the wildest most bad-ass Creativity Roller Coaster you could ever imagine.

 

The whole experience sort of followed the RECYCLE theme found on Creative Every Day because it was like so much of me – past, present and future – was stacked into this sort of precarious roller coaster and I was in a rickety car which the universe was nudging forward and at the top… whispered a final breath of “go!” and away I went…

 

It was such a blur I need to take a moment to review what I wrote and my photos to see….” What was up?” Let's start with the calmer parts of the roller coaster:

 

Well – I recycled a Poem – the first thing I did was to work on a poetry prompt about taking an old poem and revising it from my friends at ReadWritePoem. I liked both versions though for me, the second, more spare version had more oomph, possibly because it allowed the reader to put herself more into it rather than me telling everything, she gets to put more of herself into the words.

 

Second, I recycled an experience which became a poem… and possibly more. Again, thanks to a post at ReadWritePoem, I was told to write of a pomegranate. So I did my usual thing, inspected the life of a pomegranate from up close and personal, dug around my memory for images and emotion and then – out popped a recycled poem. It felt great to write, though I am still curious if there will be any ramifications for me.

 

Most of the roller-coaster ride, though, came from my life in the theater world – and all that happens with Tech Week and bringing a production to life.

 

This week was decidedly different, though, because we lost our lead actor and the Director replaced him leaving this enormous vacuum in the position of Director so guess who got to step in and offer some assistance as a Director? Yes. Oh my goodness, once again, I recycled my experience as a Director and grabbed the show by its heels and spun it around.

 

Oh, yes, and acting in a show and helping to Direct a show isn’t bad enough, so I said I could do the barest minimums of Stage Management, too.

 

Can you hear the roller coaster clickety clack? It is roaring in my ears, even in the reliving.

 

I realize now attempting to relive it in words, here, will be too much.

 

I will summarize it in the comment my friend and castmate and fellow rider on this particular roller coaster ride left on my facebook page:

 

It was a tough week..but as usual 'theater magic" happened...and we shall call her..."Julie".

 

  
 
 
  

I started this week worried about the production and more than a bit of a mess and I kept saying YES to all sorts of crazy things. “Hey I can do that, hey I can do that!” and it must have been Tuesday I was beside myself because cast members were late and we had work to do and I didn’t see them as committed to this very important project as I thought they should be.

 

So, I did as I thought the show called for me to do, I lectured and cajoled and after the ringing in everyone’s ears stopped, I helped them discover they have abilities they didn’t know they had through the simplest of theater exercises. Our community was born and by the time we opened on Friday night, we were all living in a place of love for each other and for our production.

 

 

When all was said and done, it felt like the last time I road Space Mountain at Disneyland and they were doing some sort of laser show experience inside and it was the most phenomenal ride I have ever been on – EVER.

 

This was followed almost immediately by “First Kisses” read through at the home of Andy and Dawn Tyack, which was sort of like gathering with eighteen other people on a nice, soft quilt and sharing our love stories over a bowl of popcorn.

 

We’ll save that blog for next time….

 

 

Comments

[Sherrie Phillips]

Man, I am tired to reading your post and you are still standing! Congrats!

[jeanne]

as an actor, writer, and managing director of a theatre, i know that raised-my-hand-one-too-many-times feeling - and i sure wish i didn't. would say i hope your roller coaster pulls into the station soon, but i think i know better;)

[Sharon]

Great post, Julie! What a week you had! :)

Thanks for visiting my blog. You asked what EDM means. It's a drawing group that I belong to called Every Day Matters. We're free to draw/sketch whatever we want, but every Sunday they post a suggestion of something to draw just in case you're stuck. It's a great group. Sorry, I should have linked it. :)

Take care of you! You seem to be going at warped speed these days! :)

[leah]

Phew! I could feel the wind in my hair just reading about your week!! Hold on, Julie dear, you're doing great! xox

[Maron Craig Bielovitz]

Hey Julie,
Hope you are doing well. Just went to see my grandaughter in The Nutcracker. It was awesome and she was precious as a soldier and a little angel. We're all exhauseted just taking her to practice so I can't imagine what your shedule is like all the time...yipes!