Art Journal Page, "I Want To"

What happens when I play

As promised, I got out my art journal just to play. I ended up working--I mean, playing on a page I really couldn't stand. I like it better with the circles. I like circles just about anywhere.

Living the Handmade Life

There's two ways to live the handmade life.

You can spend your days making things by hand. This is a pretty awesome way to live a handmade life, especially if your greatest source of pleasure and inspiration is making stuff.

The other way to live handmade is to actually create your life itself--day by day, choice by deliberate choice. This is my favorite way to live. Since I quit my Serious Job almost two years ago, living a handmade life has been my modus operandi--and I have never been happier.


Today it was a gorgeous Saturday morning. Eighty degrees, light blue-sky breeze, smell of cut grass. The kids and I took a walk down to the library but the hours had changed and it was closed. Instead we went to the Farmer's Market, where Maya got her face painted, Jordan got a balloon animal shaped like a dog on a leash, and I got two pounds of local asparagus. As we wandered back home, ducking under the low-hanging leaves hanging over the sidewalks, it occurred to me that when I was still living the Serious Life--a well-paid, well-insured life with funded retirement plans--then Saturdays like this were pressured and intense. Back then, I had better by-God enjoy this sliver of life, because who knew when I'd get another chance?

But in my handmade life, a life that is supported with a cleaning business and energetic healing and artwork--a life that strikes an easy balance between parenting and self-care, between earning money and serving the world, between growing and playing--I don't have to panic about a Saturday morning. I can just wander in it. And I've found it's the very freedom to stop and smell the roses that allows them to bloom.

Artwork Vs ArtPLAY

I am a very lucky person. Not only does my life usually kick some serious ass in the fun department, but I am surrounded by great people. Evidence: the new Artist's Way group I'm glad to be part of. For the next 12 weeks, we're going to go through the chapters of Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way. And we're going to do it together.

Tonight we ended up talking about the idea of play. Now, I just told you my life is seriously fun (and it is), yet I discovered in the course of conversation that I'm not always much for playing. Even when I mess around in my art journals, I call it working. I work in the garden. I work on my writing projects. I work at my sewing machine, trying to finish an art quilt before a submission deadline.

Where's the play, here? Is it just my Puritan roots? Must I kid myself that everything I'm doing is industrious? No wonder I get stressed out over things like ATC swaps.

I think I will give play just a little tiny try. Maybe for an hour or so. I think I'll get out my art journals and just goof off with some paint. See what happens. If I don't upload a picture, it's cause it was particularly serious crap. Is that okay? I hope so.

My best zine review ever

What's this? You haven't picked up your copy of A Handmade Life Issue 4 yet? Well, just ask Pattie why you'll love it!

Read Pattie's review here. Need I say she made my day?

To take a look-see at HL Ish 4, please click on my Etsy shop window in the sidebar. You would extra super duper make my day if you did.