Just a corner of my mixed media image.... what do you think?
This is partially a check in for Art Every Day Month, 2014. I hope you'll take the time to "hang out" here with me as I tell a brief tale of my creative week.
Today has been a remarkable day.
I haven't done a single thing I didn't want to do.
I've had a great attitude all day long. I basically decided nothing could possibly upset me so therefore it didn't.
I need to remember this day.
What happened as a result of staying rooted in what I wanted to do rather than reacting or responding like the perpetually angry people I sometimes meet was I created a lot.
I built layer upon layer with several different mixed media projects. The one above is a snippet from a larger piece and I'm completely unsure what my point is with the piece, but for now I am just being random and haphazard and would probably drive my more professional artsy friends crazy.
Tomorrow the kids don't have school which means I don't have to do any Momschlep. I do have to go to work for a couple hours (a rarity, since I usually completely create my own schedule!) I'm praying this week is different from last week in that I want to spend a lot of time creating and a lot less time worrying.
Happy Valentine's Week, creative lovelies!
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
What adventures have you taken with your daughter lately? In the left hand corner photo, my youngest daughter and I visit Hollywood with several of her friends, for example.
It was a rite of passage which never happened for me.
I waited to have an awful relationship with one of my daughters. I thought it was inevitable as transitioning from diapers to big girl panties, but to this day it is still a personal unknown for me.
My youngest daughter is going on seventeen and so far, all is well. My daughters' friends even like me.
There are three things I attribute this to:
1. Very open lines of communication. This leads to trust which takes away fear of speaking up, a challenge many adults I know possess.
2. Willingness to host and entertain teens, even when they are much louder than I would like.
3. Regular "Mother-Daughter Days."
Yesterday my twenty-two year old daughter and I took a "chore" of going to Los Angeles Airport into a Mommy-Daughter adventure. We visited some architectural salvage sights, at one point stepped into a laundromat-subway-starbucks-moneygram very loud place that made us feel like we had stepped into the third world.
We bought old keys to nothing we own and doorknobs from the early 20th century that no longer have doors - or homes - attached to them.
We werein our car, heading to lunch when everything felt very familiar.
It isn't that things looked familiar or there were landmarks I recognized, it was simply something that changed in me, like the way hunger or thirst feels.
I decided to look up the address to my father's childhood home on my GPS. Sure enough, we had passed my father's old neighborhood in Pasadena. There was no doubt about it: we had to visit the home where my Dad and Katherine's Grandpa grew up. First we ventured to lunch at another familiar place - a restaurant I used to nosh in when I was a young married professional. We laughed that it had been twenty-five years between visits.
We eventually made it to the airport and before long I was texting her from one of my favorite thrift shops, Out of the Closet, to see if she wanted a particular Banana Republic cardigan.
She did.
She flew off to Seattle and I continued my zany day which included sunset on the Santa Monica Pier, an opening of an art show in the Culver City Arts District and an open mic event in Encino. By the time I got on the road back to Bakersfield I was thoroughly exhausted and satisfied.
This morning my youngest daughter lamented she didn't get to participate.
My daughters actually want to do things with me.
Isn't that what all mothers hope for with their daughters?
Go back to the very simple steps:
1. Create open lines of communication
2. Be willing to host (even when it gets loud.)
3. Schedule REGULAR Mother-Daughter days.
My daughters and I have disagreements. My daughters and I regularly annoy each other. AND these three simple actions have taken our relationships deeper, wider and just a lot more fun.
What adventures have you had with your daughter lately?
=====
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
I didn’t go anywhere beyond a small patch of Bakersfield. I
didn’t have an enormous a-ha that will make me a multi-millionaire. I did,
however create nearly every waking hour and when I wasn’t actively in
creativity mode, I was spending time with my children.
Samuel went thrifting with me yesterday. He actually walked
around the store and even – unbelievably – chose something to buy. Very
specifically, mind you, he wanted something Christmas-y and because he is who
he is, he wanted something very practical: coffee (or for him water or
chocolate milk) mugs.
He carried things when my hands were full and when we
discovered one of the few shopping carts, he pushed it.
I worked on creating more ladder shelves and destroyed and
recreated an old, warped dresser which will now become several different works
though I am not sure exactly what they will be. I painted a stool, I painted a
goose box thing my friend bought me two summers ago at a thrift store because
it was half price. I painted a piece I think was part of a Sunday School –
because I can’t quite place where I have seen one like it and it has birds cut
out of the wood on the sides. It is a sort of shelf thing. I could also see it
as a “point of entry/exit” for young children. Like a small version of
yesterday’s mudroom where shoes and jackets and backpacks may be stored.
We had disappointments. Emma and I had hoped to see a play
but it was sold out.
Our friend Jennie joined us for our weekend jaunt to the
mall not to shop but for Samuel to collect street pass tags. If you have a
child with a handheld Nintendo device, you may know what that is. Maybe.
I even painted in my outdoor studio when it was dark. I was
a woman possessed. When the frenzy ended, Emma and I sat and watched Project
Runway while poking around facebook. Well, I poked around facebook, before the
three “girls” of the house fell asleep on Emma’s bed. Alice the cat had to be a
part of the party, naturally.
This morning, though, I didn’t want to begin because in the
middle of my day I have a commitment that will cost me a chunk of four hours
which after yesterday feels like an enormous vacuum.
I sat at my kitchen table with one of the old pieces of
dresser and sketched out a plan for it. I felt listless. I probably felt a
little bit sorry for myself. I walked into my living room and through the lace
curtains I saw it.
Sunrise. She was a round, glowing circle of fire framed by
my neighbor’s trees.
As I write this, the church bells a couple blocks away sound.
I grabbed my phone and ran outside, unbrushed hair and
pajamas on, and took a few photos.
When I came back in, the curtains called me back to take
more.
It felt like both a gift and a promise.
Perfect days show up in different ways. Today’s perfection
looks different than yesterdays. That’s how it works. That’s how it is supposed
to work.
>> = = = = = = <<
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her
word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown
Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different
social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus
particularly enticing.
This is me, writing at Dagny’s last Friday morning. I was
rewarding myself for a productive time at the keyboard by the time 8:30 am
rolled around I had published two blog posts, done research and got the kids
successfully off to school. Kimberly and I had discussed meeting at this, my
favorite spot, as a reward.
She was thinking just a time of friendly conversation. I was
thinking of it as a reward.
You can see what I do there: I pile up books and notebooks
and read snatches of essays and poems. I sketch, I practice writing, I sip tea or
coffee and on this occasion, I used the lure of that slab of cinnamon coffee
cake to insure my focus stayed in place for a respectable amount of time.
I was deep in creative mode when Kimberly appeared in front
of me, bearing a teapot filled with roses from her garden. I think I said,
“You’re here!” and I know my face did that wide eyed, lit up face when I saw
her happily approach with her nature goodies. “I’m so glad you made it!”
She could only stay briefly, which I knew, but it is like
those snippets of time with friends are worth huge swaths of time with
acquaintences or people who just don’t live on the same wavelength as you do.
I was back in deep contemplative mode when I heard someone tapping on the
window. The girls eating at the tables on the sidewalk were pointing to
Kimberly, who had her camera focused on me. She was pantomiming “write!” and
when I finally got what she wanted, I started to write.
I dipped my toe back into the language stream and joy came
out the other side.
It has lasted almost forty-eight hours now.
Alice Walker was with me as was Virginia Woolf and Natalie
Goldberg popped into my sanctuary as well. I listened to a doula talking to a
not-showing-yet pregnant couple. I watched the usual eclectic gang gather
outside so they could smoke and socialize as well as drink coffee or tea or as
the day marches forward, beer or wine.
I waved goodbye to Kimberly and smiled back into my words.
This is me, writing. And now that is YOU, creating. Take a deep breath and create for five minutes. Paint, sketch, write, meditate, call a beloved on the telephone, collage, sing, clap your hands, drum, gaze into the eyes of your cat.
Almond Blossoms Look Like Snow but They Feel More Like Heaven.
Their faces started popping up on facebook sometime last
week.
I began to see photos of my friends in the orchards
surrounding Bakersfield. These trees are in a lovely place in the bloom process
which comes every Spring. It happens quickly. If you are a day late, the
blossoms are all on the ground and then they very quickly return to the earth:
fragrant dust whose appearance lives in the memory of those who take the time
to notice.
This blossoming season makes me happy to live in Kern
County.
I wanted to take new photos of flowering trees but more importantly, I
wanted a new experience of sitting with solely and soulfully with myself among
the almond trees.
It was just before sunset last Monday when the wind
whispered in my ear, “Hey, Julie, everything is under control at home. Steal
away, drive west….so I did. I left my home in Upper La Cresta in Bakersfield
seeking what I heard were some incredible blossoms in orchards along Snow Road.
I forget sometimes how far out that road goes but when I got to a place that slightly resembled a dead
end I knew I was onto something sacred.
It was a less smooth, almost dirt road I drove onto when I noticed
a few other cars parked alongside the
trees.
Word was spreading. Other photographers were here. Some had
special reflecting and light equipment. One was doing a shoot with a mother,
father and toddler. I didn’t get too close to them, but how I wished I had done
that with my children when they were little.
I thought of bringing my daughter out there, but here it is
Friday and we haven’t had time. I know the magical moment has passed right as
the wildflowers start covering our grassy hills for a different sort of
enchantment.
The bloom and fall of almond blossoms has a short window of time to enter into its
secret safe haven. The scent coming to me from my sun open roof was compelling
me to stop driving and and just be.
“Stop and step inside!” The blossoms whispered.
My purple ballet flat wearing feet stepped onto a carpet of
softness, a sea of almond flower blossom petals lining the muddy ground with
what looked, at first glance, like snow.
It was better than snow. It was warm and smells of rebirth and new
beginnings.
It smells like waking up and being well after a long time
not being well.
It smells like the wedding bouquet before it is taken on its
journey down the aisle.
It smells like the first day of kindergarten, the last day
of high school and the first day you moved into your dorm room freshman year.
I looked down the rows and rows of white and saw a tree,
resting on her side.
This was a sight I had never seen: one fallen tree among
many trees still standing.
I walked toward her soundlessly in the sacred hush of this
sanctuary. I put my books and my portable lap desk at her feet and
kneeled. Her branches reached to me, defiantly
blooming like all the other trees.
“See my beauty,” she said, her voice soft.
I breathed her floral scent deep into my belly. “I see your
beauty, I smell your beauty. Your beauty is reaching into me.”
It felt like she, the tree, was asking me to carry her
beauty with me.
I have to tell you, I love nature and I love experiences
like this, but I normally do not feel as if I am having a conversation with a
dying tree.
This is a moment that will live on in me and in my words.
I rested myself underneath her, scooting as much of me as
possible underneath her tilted branches.
The ground was wet and muddy underneath the blossom blanket, but I
didn’t care about getting slightly cold and damp, this tree was allowing me to
be her witness.
Nothing would stop me from living such a privilege she
offered me.
I closed my eyes and prayed.
I felt the sun dappling my face in different areas as it
moved toward the horizon. I waited and prayed wordlessly. It was at a point
beyond language, beyond translation, beyond understanding.
As darkness began to fall I sat up and wrote what I could.
Only a few sentences could speak through my pencil. I prayer-wrote thanksgiving
to the absent orchard owner. I
prayer-wrote profound gratitude for the tree herself for inviting me into such
an intimate time in her life.
I stepped out of the orchard a different woman than the one
who stepped into the orchard less than
an hour earlier.
Transformation doesn’t have to be a lengthy process, it only
has to be one met willingly with an open heart and a listening ear.
My final gratitude is for myself, for offering myself to
both the will and the listening.
What calls to you today? How will you respond?
= = =
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
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Go up the hill: you will find friends in the meadow, waiting for you.
Sunday: Today I have a date to go hiking with a group of
friends as well as a few friends-to-be invited by the other hikers.
I first did this as an adult only a few years ago. A mixed,
eclectic group of people with children and without stretching from our twenties
to our fifties for the adults and from eight years old through teen –spread out
across the Mill Creek Trail in the Kern Canyon. Michelle and I decided to
recreate this trip but with more people this time around.
We want to celebrate our time together with VDAY
Bakersfield, 2013. This is an annual
event where women gather to raise awareness and money to end violence against
women and girls. Naturally it creates a unique and if it is done right,
unforgettable and lasting bond. Michelle and I became friends several years ago
because of VDay and we both know we will continue to be close friends only if
we connect in between runs of the annual show/awareness/fundraiser.
Hiking is a great way to connect and reconnect. No matter
your age, you may participate. Your fitness level doesn’t entirely matter
because there will be others similarly matched.
I am actually not completely afraid I will bring up the rear
unless I do it by choice.
I am taking my son, Samuel, who has autism again, even though he
melted down last time, pretty severely.
Samuel Revisits a Triumph from Earlier Years: Rockcliming for an Audience of Appreciative Onlookers
This year I have taken several measures to prevent a
recurrence and I feel confident all the memories we make will be positive.
After all, he remembers the fun from last time at this point, not the melt
down. This is a mark of good friends and lots of optimism in the air.
Samuel asks me questions from the bedroom. “What friends are
you taking?” he asks, preparing himself for who he will meet on the trail and
on the drive into the canyon. He acts as if I am the center of this expedition.
In a way I am.
The time to worry about the hike is over. The time to put
sunscreen on my face and my stuff in the car is here.
===
This is the hiking group that assembled: 18 humans + two dogs (My left arm is covering the "Most Difficult" warning! Photo by Tish Gamez
Thursday: I found this beginning of a blog post from last Sunday and I
wanted to add a post script: we had a great time Sunday. Eighteen people
gathered and hiked the trail which we thought was fairly easy before we started
but we discovered upon returning to our cars it was graded as “Most Difficult”.
I lagged behind to take photos and to experience the trail
alone with the others and Samuel was the trailblazer, leading us all. He gained
confidence, I gained freedom as I trusted the other hikers to be substitute
caretakers. He felt loved as did I. I made new friends and as we sat eating
lunch on an enormous boulder, I noticed this wasn’t just a random boulder, it
was also a grinding rock from the Yokutz people who lived here years ago.
Lunch atop a Yokutz Grinding Stone, Deep in the Kern Canyon
Mike, one of our most able and enthusiastic hikers added, after I exclaimed my noticing, “And
look, they must have sat in a circle as they worked.”
The photos of the day show me with a smile on my face, over
and over again. Big, goofy, satisfied smiles lit up my face as I strode along
the path, happy as a slow-flying lark, to borrow a term from my Mother.
My friends and I have decided we will take monthly hikes
from now on and maybe, possibly, do a couple camping weekends. We are building
a loving community as we walk and discover new places. We are blessed.
I couldn't stop smiling. Hiking + My son + My friends + My spontaneous walking stick = Heaven on Earth
"Why Write?" a question many bloggers grapple with daily.
I have written to the writing
prompt, “Why write?” quite a few times. My answers usually hum a similar tune.
Today, though, I am thinking a bit more strategically. Here’s what I mean: the
prompt I was given from my blogging mini-challenge from Kathryn C. Lang gives me a
completely different spin on my usual “why write”….
What
do you want from your writing?
I want self
acceptance from my writing.
Believe it or not, that was the
first response to bubble up from my gut.
I want my writing to offer me relentless self-acceptance.
Whoa.
What on earth does
that mean?
A-ha moment response to the question, "What do you want from your writing?" mini -challenge
For decades I have been told I am a gifted writer.
I have been asked, “Where can I buy your books?” Well, I am in anthologies, I
do have poems on greeting cards, I am in poetry anthologies but as for just me?
I have a couple dusty ebooks before the days of Kindle and Nook….
I need to stop giving my power both as a writer and
as a human being over to people who I have the inaccurate and paranoid fear
might want to target me if I “let my success get out of hand.” I am writing
this with some sense of stream of consciousness, so I am not putting much a
veil between what I am typing and my inner critic.
What you read is what I wrote, in the moment. See?
I am apologizing because I have yet to offer myself
relentless and radical self acceptance.
Before I call this the magic key and come up with
some terrific blog headlines such as “The Seven Jealously Guarded Secrets to
Finally Following Your Dreams of Becoming a Best Selling Author” I need to
percolate on this for a bit. My “percolating” usually mean, well, always means…
writing a bit more. It means walking, thinking, perhaps painting and perhaps
even having sex to get the physical self acceptance going, so I may not be able
to go further in this one posting.
In fact I am going to practice radical and
relentless self acceptance by saying YES to my process and asking you to please
return for part two.
In the meantime, care to join me in writing along
this mini-challenge theme?
What
do you want from your writing?
= = =
Do You Know What Famous Hollywood Bar I amm Writing In?
This is my thirty first post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
Mixed Media: Emily Dickinson portrait with book page and leaf - 2012, Julie Jordan Scott
The more I
get to know Emily Dickinson, the more I love her. I have been an admirer for
quite a few years now, but my word-love has flourished since I visited her home
in Amherst Massachusetts. Not once, not twice, but three times so far and I
think another trip there is long overdue. It isn’t as if travel to Western
Massachusetts is convenient: I live in Bakersfield, California, its more that
visiting her home is like visiting Mecca.
Not only do
I visit her home, I take in the stomping grounds of other literary figures.
My visit,
though, does not begin until I have paid due homage to Emily.
So many
people think of her as an odd recluse who had agoraphobia among other mental
illnesses. Perhaps she did fight some disease but we don’t know for certain.
There are so many books of research about her poems, I am sure we could find a
researcher or several right now who would argue for all sorts of illnesses and
quirks.
What I feel
most strongly about is this: Emily Dickinson was a one of a kind. She lived
with great passion, continually learning via the news of the day from both her
family and newspapers and magazines. She enjoyed baking for the neighborhood
children – she would lower Ginger cookies in a basket to them as they waited
below her bedroom window. She was a botanist – spending hours in
"The Thing with Feathers" inspired by Emily Dickinson's poetry. Mixed Media, Julie Jordan Scott, 2013
the garden
drawing flora and communing with the trees.
Yes, she
sought refuge in solitude.
She spoke
to people behind a curtain.
She also
corresponded with many and grew friendships via her entertaining letters.
What
impresses me most about her is how the mystery surrounding her continues to
invite inquiry AND the more I know of her the more I want to know. The more I
know of her the more I want to create in her honor. The more I know the more I
want to share with others.
I have just
finished a piece called “The Thing with Feathers” based on this stanza of hers,
one of her famous oft quoted ones:
"Hope" is
the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
= = =
This is me, Julie Jordan Scott, writing in my notebook on the lawn of the house where Emily lived in Amherst, Massachusetts
I have two open spots in my creative life coaching practice. If you
are interested in discovering how creative life coaching might help you
in stepping into your direction and staying the course, send me an email
to : [email protected] or give me a call or text at
661.444.2735
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
My daughter Emma took this when illustrating her perfect day to her friends.
I am being wooed by the smell of pinon wood, giving me
warmth and sensual pleasure from my fireplace. This morning after I delivered
my children to their respective schools I thought, “It is rainy. It is cold, I
want to feel nurtured as I sit down to write,” so I stopped at my local
hardware store and bought firewood.
It always feels slightly decadent to have a fire in the
daytime, especially when I am the only one here to enjoy it, but ever since
Emma had her choir Christmas party at our house, I realize I am very lucky to
have this fireplace, this room I am sitting in, this home.
Sometimes amidst all my inner ramblings and rushing I forget
that: how lucky I am to have this exact home in this precise moment.
My fire is telling me to ask you to slow down, as you are
reading.
In a simple inhale and exhale, think, “I am so blessed….” Or
if you prefer, use lucky or grateful or privileged… and just stay with that
thought for another few inhales and exhales, repeating your thought again.
“I am so grateful….”
As you return to the rest of your life, remember this,
especially when you hear your thoughts move to “I am so behind!” or “I have so
much to get done!” or “I’ll never get this done, be who I want to do, reach my
goals…” absolutely anything, take a breath: a simple inhale and exhale.
Breathe through five or more rounds of “I am so privileged….
I am so blessed… I am so grateful….” Don’t
even think of it as another “fix-it tool”, just allow it to be what it is for
you.
“I am so privileged…. I am so blessed… I am so lucky….I am so grateful….”
I would be especially blessed if you play with this and let
me know what happens.
This is my twenty-fourth post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
My choice may appear countercultural or perhaps I should
just say “my choice would
be odd for most people.” I was buzzing along, making
great progress on my project “BridgeAbove2012” when I decided to shift gears.
I decided to stop working on that project and spend an hour “language
free” visiting a park a few blocks from my home, in quiet.
I had felt myself riding the crest of the frenetic high zone
and while it felt good in one respect, I also knew it has a tendency to burn me
out. Changing gears was necessary for my creative process and continued
progress as well as for my emotional and mental peace.
The hour of silence started with rain, of all things.
Bakersfield gets a whopping (feel my tongue in cheek) six
inches of rain a year. Why the sky elected to rain exactly when I wanted some
outdoor contemplative time, I am not sure. I decided to lean back in the front
seat of my car and look up at the rain falling on the moonroof.
I decided to enjoy these moments from a sensual, sensory
immersion and not have any concern about the shape or context of my quiet time.
This choice may also be seen by some as countercultural.
Clickety clack smattering smack of rain on the rooftop was,
if it is possible, a waking lullaby. My breath slowed. I felt the cars go by,
larger cars actually made my car rock a bit as they zoomed by, completely
unaware of the magical silence very close by their minds thinking and plotting
their next destination.
I smelled the invitation of the outdoors. Slightly wet, an
autumn smell of returning to the Earth managed to make its way to my “inside
the car” contemplation. It was after I basked in those scents that I realized
the scents were like a curling finger with come hither eyes attached.
The rain had stopped.
Stepping into the soft soil might as well have been stepping
into a spa or stepping into a chapel with sunlight streaming through stained
glass windows.
The next twenty minutes were both expansive and intimate.
My friend Sheila would be delighted to know mixed into those
experiences were taking
a photo that included the scat of an unknown animal and
the web of a caterpillar.
I returned to my home office with a completely different
vibe emanating from my core: I felt full, I felt grounded, I felt a whole new
feeling of accomplishment.
I felt ready to take on the rest of my project from a wiser,
more rested perspective rather than that frenetic pace that was brewing before
I went out. I
don’t need to create momentum and the rumbling rattling of taking
off like an airplane, I can switch it up.
It is when I take the time to be quiet my highest quality
work is born.
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