Second week of Advent: Love for all peoples

11
Dec

Love is the theme of the second week of Advent and Advent seems a good time to deal with some theological concepts that have troubled me. (That might not be your first inclination when you think about love but stick with me here.) I’m interested to hear your perspective on this, so consider this an invitation to a conversation over the next couple weeks.

An original peekaboo page about love.

Here’s what’s peeking through the top layer.

The concept of Christmas is that we celebrate the coming to earth and infant birth of Jesus ( we can get into the immaculate conception another time). Good stuff right? I mean, a baby is a snuggly addition and the Bible was certainly due for a redemption story after the way many babies were treated in its pages, including Herod killing all the infant boys in an attempt to protect his throne from the one who’d been prophesied to overthrow it.

That little fleecy diapered baby didn’t happen in a vacuum; he was born into a Jewish family in the Middle East.

Read that again more slowly: a Jewish family in a country in the Middle East.

We might try to acknowledge this, but we only really think about it at Christmas time, and after that, in just about every single church I’ve ever been to, Jesus grows up into a hockey playing, lutefisk eating descendent of Vikings.

Foreigners, immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers, peoples who were in North America before western explorers “discovered” it, people of different faith traditions — all those people are somehow different, in many people’s view, than a teenage middle eastern couple looking for a place where they can find shelter and deliver a baby. We’re so quick to cast people as “other” and so quick to develop convenient amnesia about the roots of Christian faith. We shouldn’t forget the lessons of love for all peoples that we learn at Christmas time just because a couple months have passed and the remnants of pine needles have finally been picked out of the carpet.

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When we talk about love, or the idea of Jesus being “love come down” it’s way too easy to whitewash Jesus’s heritage and background. He could have been put into any family in the entire world. But he was placed into a middle eastern family that had no trouble blending into African surroundings when they were on the run. White/Caucasian churches tend to overlook that information, if not deliberately then passively, and then discover it strikes them as surprising (or even offensive) when anyone suggests Jesus could be anything other than Caucasian. Even though much Western art has portrayed Jesus as a white man with blue eyes above his flowing beard, the Bible is quite specific about the lineage of Jesus. This Jewish/MiddleEastern/African Jesus should not come as a shock for people who spend so much time insisting on a literal reading of the Bible.

If it ruffles our feathers to think about God choosing to send Jesus in the form of a person with a brown body, people who are caucasian (like me — specifically Scandinavian and European descent) need to take a look at our own biases. One of the best checks of my own implicit bias is a little self reflection when I see imagery that agitates me or seems quite different than what I’ve always seen. Why does it strike me as unusual? Is the usual way I see it an accurate portrayal? What do I think is the “right” way for something to be portrayed?

The counter argument to acknowledging Jesus’ lineage is usually something along the lines of saying, “Well, I don’t see color,” or “Why does it matter where he was born since he’s God and is now all spirit and doesn’t have a body anyway,” or to lean heavily on the Middle Eastern but definitely not African delineation. If it’s so unimportant, then why get discombobulated by the idea that he wasn’t a fair skinned person? If it’s so unimportant, why make sure to point out he wasn’t from Africa? Might I take the liberty of pointing out that Egypt is in Africa and when they were on the run Jesus’ family took off to Egypt?

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If love has come in the person of a non-white person, what does that say about my position as a white female or my action and advocacy regarding the treatment of our brothers and sisters of color? If love has come in the person of a Jewish man, what does it say about people’s tolerance of anti-semitic rhetoric, even in the form of old jokes, or hate-filled actions?

What does it say about us white folks if we can only follow someone with the same skin color as us?

It’s something we should stop and consider, and Advent is an appropriate time for such reflection.

Are you used to the idea of God as a white dude with a long flowing beard? Or Jesus as a blond-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian?

Want to read Advent posts from previous years? Here’s my post on Love from last year and then here’s one from two years ago. And if you missed last week’s post on Hope, you can read it here.

Advent and the first week: Hope

8
Dec

Advent is the anticipation of Christmas, a time of preparation. Different traditions have slightly different liturgical themes for each week, but it has deep historical roots which you can read about here

Wreaths and colored candles

The Advent wreath is a circle (are there wreaths that are NOT circles, and wouldn’t a straight wreath count as a swag?) and has five candles. Each of these candles is symbolic and each week, one more candle is lit.

But did you know circular Advent wreaths date back to the time of Luther, and they represent God’s endlessness and eternity? Well there ya go. Although I must say it feels ironic to use something like pine boughs to represent something without end, since when we’ve taken down our live trees they’ve left at least half their needles on the floor where even after I’ve swept multiple times they lurk like little booby traps until spring.

The candles of an Advent wreath are usually purple or royal blue, with one being pink or rose (we’ll talk about that in a future post) and the final one being white to symbolize the purity of Jesus.

Reality

While I like the idea of Advent, (and appreciated being pregnant with all three of my children during Advent — it was an especially poignant time) many times it feels like another commitment within an already busy time. And as much as I want to focus in the whole reason why we’re celebrating in the first place…sometimes it just doesn’t come together.

So here my tree sits, cut at the tree farm and decorated with white lights… and nothing more.

That’s just the reality of it.

[Note: the tree just got fully decorated last night but there are still not many other decorations up yet.]

Hope

This first week of Advent is Hope, and I hoped to get this post up earlier this week but it’s taken me this long! That’s again where the idealized (fantastical) reality and the actual reality meet.

This is a slippery topic because I’m an optimist. There’s almost always a bright side, a silver lining to find. And I’ve found that tendency can venture dangerously close to delusion. But here’s a small reflection on Hope.

Hope

It’s a hearty, determined tree, that’s lived through many storms, the kind that seems ready to topple but each spring it leafs out, its branches lusty for the sun and warm breeze.

It’s a fragile, resilient fiddle head fern pushing up through the brown leaf clutter, sure there’s something brighter on the other side.

It’s power creates a well-meaning denial, a befuddlement in the face of facts,

a moving violation – hit broadside from blind alley, totaling the car and leaving you with a limp.

It’s one more try, one more tactic, one more appointment, one more meeting, one more new year’s resolution, once more into the breech because

This time

This time might be the one,

And we just need one.

We’d take more, but we just need one.

Do you take much time for Advent? How do you set the tone for your holiday season? I’d love to hear about your traditions!

Essential wholehearted Humanness

14
Nov

It can be instinctive to try and make sense of situations, to look for connections between things so we can identify with what’s happening around us.

However, for some people that comes with more difficulty when faced with unfamiliar situations or world views. They might shut out people rather than looking for that point of connection.

It’s important to remember that while there are vast differences in backgrounds and beliefs, there are some characteristics which are universal.

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I have a tutorial up on the Get Messy Art Journal website today, and it’s all focused on living wholeheartedly. Human development theories tell us some of the things which are desired at the core of all people, such as connection, to be known, and to be loved. More recently, Brene Brown has studied what it looks like to live wholeheartedly, and in my mind her work goes hand in hand with the season of ubuntu.

Here are a couple pics from my tutorial on wholeheartedness (and from the past couple weeks)…

Another couple pics not related to the tutorial but circling the idea of ubuntu and our connected humanness.

Seriously, have you been watching the midterm elections here in the US? What’s up with that , meaning with the barriers to people having their registrations purged, with closing polling stations, and with trouble counting the votes?

Bringing it in closer to home, a friend of a friend had an almost unthinkable tragedy happen recently and I just can’t wrap my head around what things must be like for her right now. Working it out in my art journal gives me a good place to focus my thoughts.

The words on the left side say “you are not alone” which I feel is so important when walking through a very dark time. This is a difficult month for our family, with difficult anniversaries and birthdays and mile-markers of those who are no longer with us, and we grieve them deeply. Knowing we are not alone in that grief makes it a fraction easier to bear, and as you know if you’ve ever been there, a fraction is still significant.

Then finally, just a parting thought of love to you. Maybe you need to hear it today, so just know that your presence in the world matters. We should all keep chugging along, doing the next right thing, sharing love with those we come in contact with, and slowly things will change for the better, if only because we have become more wholehearted in how we approach the world.

If you want to see the whole tutorial for the wholehearted page, it’s on the Get Messy site. To see it you need to be a member, which is just fantastic fun. Click here to get started. And as always, thanks for visiting!

Interconnectedness

25
Oct

Right now it’s very easy to feel disconnected. Disconnection happens in subtle ways, whether that’s doing our own thing without checking in with our partner, letting too long go between phone calls back home.

It also happens in purposeful ways and can be positive, like when we no longer wish to be associated with a certain philosophy or worldview. It can happen when we leave a dysfunctional or toxic relationship. That’s healthy growth.

And disconnectedness is most definitely happening all over politics in the United States, where holding a different position becomes a moral judgment of your character. On both sides.

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We are in the season of ubuntu for Get Messy and it’s been a trick to wrap my brain around the word. It’s the concept of our deep humanity, the qualities of compassion and interconnectedness.

We are as a society in a period where loud voices are promoting fear and scarcity, which make our brains close down and send us towards tribalism and mistrust.

So this season comes at a perfect time, a chance to recalibrate and make deliberate observations about our connectedness and shared h umanity .

In the spirit of ubuntu I’d like to share some of my pages so far…

And a little video of flipping the page…

https://tclarson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/img_2215.mov

The leaves have been so beautiful, they made a perfect backdrop.

Then we moved to a different color palette.

This spread is also a multi-page set up so I’d have room for some journaling.

I still want to go back in and add a paper doll figure to the purple page, but we’ll see if I make time to do that before I forget.

One last spread, done with an image transfer and some vinegar in my attitude.

As always, thanks for reading. If there’s something that resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Have a fabulous week!

A little journal for a new season

4
Oct

The challenge is to work small, work in a journal that’s much smaller than what you might usually use.

I chose to make my own.

Initially I thought I’d use a store bought cover and just add the signatures. But when I looked carefully at that cover, I realized it was really just a piece of cardboard. Duh. So I dug around a bit and ended up using the cardboard back from a pad of mixed media paper as the cover of my journal.

All I used for supplies on this part of the project were a craft knife, and this ridiculously tiny cutting mat.

I scored the outside portion of the cardboard and then once I had the lines scored, I just worked my way through the layers, carefully slicing until I cut all the way through.

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For the next portion of the project, I created signatures from papers I already had. I didn’t document that but once you’ve done it a couple times it’s not hard to whip one together pretty quickly.

Then I got ready to assemble my journal.

First I had to make holes in the cardboard cover. I measured where I wanted the holes and then used an awl to create the holes.

Then it was time to put it all together.

I used a Coptic stitch for this. I watched this really helpful tutorial step by step tutorial and even though it was my first attempt, I’m pretty happy with it.

[Note: one handed filming is not my forte, so everybody, take your motion sickness meds and buckle up.]

https://tclarson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/img_1976.mov

The stitching looks like this:

I’ll be sure to share more photos of the spreads I make as I fill up the journal with this season’s theme, which is focused around the theme of “Ubuntu”…but more on that later. For now, thanks for letting me share my little journal with you, and thanks for taking the time to visit, even if I did make you a bit seasick.

Seasons, jobs, and adulting

17
Sep

Are we settled into the school year yet?

Umm, only partially, right? Because just as we start to think FALL, the weather decides it was only joking and it wants another round of August. Good one, Fall. You’re a laugh a minute.

There’s a different feeling in fall though, isn’t there? Maybe it’s because my calendar still revolves around the school year. But I gotta believe those cooler evenings and drier air would indicate a change even before the tops of the trees started to look like sunsets.

This season at Get Messy we are focusing on seasons which is just perfect for so many reasons. One is because our family now has a high schooler, and that’s definitely a new season for us.

Another reason is that I took a job with our local school district. After staying home, working part time, or working from home, I now have a job as a Media Assistant, and they want me there EVERYDAY. I cannot do this from home, people. I cannot do this from a coffee shop. I have to be physically present from morning to afternoon EVERYDAY of the week.

(Keeping it respectable but not too serious.)

I know this is normal for the majority of adults, but this is an adjustment for me. It’s a good thing and I really enjoy the job, so it’s a good decision, but still — adjustment, which means there are some habits to reevaluate and some patterns to tweak. But the trade off of a job where my schedule mirrors the kids’ schedule and I don’t work in the summer? Yup, I can happily make those adjustments.

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For the past month or so I’ve been playing with some different approaches to my pages, using some different materials and letting gravity and evaporation do the work.

In addition I’ve joined with some art journaling friends to incorporate blackout poetry in my pages. Some of those pages incorporate use less paint and more discovery. I’ve really enjoyed it so I thought I’d share some of those with you .

So that’s what’s been going on around here.

How’s your September been?

End of summer and changing seasons

25
Aug

We’re in the last weeks of summer, trying to ignore the drumbeat of fall and school starting up again.

We can only ignore it for so long, and this coming week is a major reality check for us, with three different school orientations (one of them being for our very first HIGH SCHOOL student. Hold me.).

We’ve been trying to squeeze out every last drop of summer so of course we had to incorporate a couple excursions.

One was a trip to the zoo, where they had a big art installment of sculptures, all made from materials that had washed up on the Pacific Ocean shore. It might have been depressing, except that the sculptures were so playful. Here’s just one to give you an idea…

I mean, come on! How great is that??

We took one other excursion recently…

The State Fair. (View from the Skyride.) We HAD to do the State Fair.

We’ll head to the cabin again and also probably do some more swimming since the children don’t even care if it’s hot enough to swim. They’re die-hards. They also don’t care if there’s a breeze to break up the humidity that makes their mother’s skin prickle and hair poof. It’s good that we’re coming to the end of summer because I’m running low on sunscreen and the kids’ swimsuits are starting to lose their elasticity.

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With Get Messy, my very favorite art journaling community, the last three weeks have been kicking off the Season of Seasons. The challenge is to use a found journal, which is what you call it when you use for a journal something which is not a journal. Here’s what I came up with:

(I couldn’t resist working on that front one before I thought to take this pic.)

I’ve had these appliance manuals sitting in a drawer in the laundry room. They’ve moved with us from other houses, some going back almost 20 years, and never once have I referenced any of them. Why the heck do I still have them in the first place??? Apparently it’s so I can use them as found journals this season.

Recently I got a pad of this crazy material called Duralar. It’s similar to a plastic transparency from back in the day when teachers used overhead projectors rather than smart boards. Each sheet is really thin and apparently they can accept wet media? What is this magic?? It’s especially good for alcohol inks and markers, or so they say. I’m still figuring it out, but in the meantime I’m having so much fun allowing water and watercolors or inks to play and interact.

See what I mean?!

So besides ignoring the start of school, that’s what’s been going on here. As always, a big thanks for letting me share with you.

Fill me in on YOUR end-of-summer; how’s it feel to shift into fall?

More of the purple kitty story on Instagram

10
Jul

You all were so supportive of the purple kitty and trying to name her…him…it. You can read more about the naming process here. I wanted to just pop in briefly and let you know I’m sharing more of the story this week on Instagram. I’m taking over the Get Messy Art Journal account for the week, and each day I plan to have story time. Come follow along over on Instagram so you get to hear it too!

I won’t be able to tell all the details of the full story, but along with the shortened story, I’m putting up pics of the drawings I’ve created. Here’s one example, just to wet your whistle.

Be sure to join me on Instagram both this week at Get Messy Art Journal or all the time — my handle is @tclmn . Hope to see you there!

Rollerskating, risks, and the season of Story

31
May

Once upon a time…

Did I tell you bout the time when…

You won’t believe what happened to me today…

These are all invitations into story.

Whether formal or conversational, they all extend a moment of connection — to us, to our experience, potentially to something on an even bigger scale. Even if someone relays a story written by someone else, it’s something that registered, landed, something they retained as significant, if only for it’s humor but possibly for the meaning behind it. When they share it, it’s an opportunity to learn more about someone, to know some of their history and their life.

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When my kids were little rascals (as opposed to the bigger rascals they are now) I started writing my first novel. It began as a story about rollerskating.

Yup. Rollerskating.

See, when I was in college the school organized rollerskating nights at the local rink. They were fantastic. There was pageantry as we donned out best Ragstock 1970’s rainbow suspenders and tube socks. There was romance — you felt like a junior higher again as the DJ announced it was time for the Snowball and you dreaded the wrong person might ask you to skate and were mortified if the right person did. There was drama under the disco ball lights…and in the snack line and in the bathroom.

My story morphed into a chapter, which morphed into a section, which morphed into a novel.

And all of it happened while my husband and I were teaching one child to stay in their crib, potty training another, and trying to make sure the third could identify the color green.

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Once I wrote the rollerskating novel, I realized there were more novels in me. I’ve written another, more than half of a third and have the beginning of a fourth (which I am not allowing myself to work on until the third is complete). Throughout the process of writing I have tried to learn about the business of publishing and what people do to pursue traditional publishing.

All that learning, all that writing, but very little risk-taking.

I’ve taken very few steps to pursue getting my novels out into the world. I’ve done a couple things, but was more like a turtle peeking its head out and then immediately pulling it back inside its shell.

I need to take more risks. I need to collect more rejections. I’ve registered for a writing conference and at that conference I’ve made an appointment with an agent. TERRIFYING but true. Nothing might come of it. But something might. Without taking that risk I will never know, so I’ll do it even if my hands shake and my heart races.

Did I mention that the next season of Get Messy Art Journal is the Season of Story?

The Season of Story — can you stand it??

It’s just perfect. And it comes at a perfect time in my own writing life.

I’ve felt like I need to exhaust more options before I can let go of this publishing dream. (You can read more about this revelation here.) I want to knock on more doors, make a few spreadsheets to keep track of where I’ve sent letters of inquiry (or query letters if you want to get all formal), basically really go for it.

This sounds crazy. I realize that.

But I want to know I did everything in my power to go after getting my writing published before I look at more “indie” options. Those are totally valid and pursuable options; I just want to cross off more traditional options first. So, I’m going to start doing that. Now.

There’s also been a story growing in me that’s quite different than the novels I’ve worked on. It’s a book intended for folks who have a child receive a diagnoses of Type 1 Diabetes. The story involves a purple stuffed animal kitty and a little girl who both love the Fair. Any resemblance to actual living people is not at all coincidental. I’ve got the characters down but I need to write the rest of the story. That will happen. Now.

During the next eight weeks, the Season of Story, I will share bits of the purple kitty story here on the blog. I hope to have illustrations to go along with it. Problem is, my cat drawing skills are less cat skills and more squirrel/spikeball/giraffe drawing skills. That’s okay though. You’ll know what I’m trying to do, right?

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I know you’ve heard me talk about Get Messy Art Journaling before, because it’s been such a fantastic place for me to connect and grow. This year I have the tremendous privilege of being on the Creative Team. Yahoo! Well, besides all that, I think I’ve forgotten to share an important piece of information, in case you wanted to know more about Get Messy Art Journaling. Here’s a quick summary:

They have tons of content, some of it for free, some of it for members only.
People can buy a membership for a whole year, for a month, or for a specific season. The Season of Story memberships are only available from June 1-7 so if you’re thinking about it, now’s the time to make your move. (Details here.) **
When you have a membership, you’ll be in for a mind-boggling amount of arty goodness (meaning tutorials, webinars, classes, forums, prompts and general inspiration).

It makes sense to share more details about Get Messy now because of the Season of Story (which launches tomorrow, by the way). I’m so super excited about the Season of Story because I feel like it dovetails so well with the world we’ve already created on this tclarson website. Of course there is absolutely zero pressure on you; I just know it’s been transformational for me, which is why I want to share it with you.

I hope to pop in more often, if only to hear you make fun of my attempt at drawing cats, but I have to admit Instagram is my favorite spot so let’s follow each other if we’re not already. Thanks for coming along on this creative journey.

**If you sign up using this link, I receive a small commission. YOU ARE NOT CHARGED EXTRA and it totally does not affect your purchase.

Recap of the Season of Play

29
May

It’s now the end of the sincerely rejuvenating season of Play. I’ve found so much freedom in releasing my expectations and allowing my curiosity to lead me. I didn’t want to worry about how something turned out or if it would be pretty. For this season I wanted to listen to my intuition and allow my curiosity to guide me.

See, when you play, you’re not concerned about something looking right. You’re just in the activity you’re doing. You’re fully present, caught up in the world you’ve created, whether that’s badmitten or baseball, Monopoly or being an imaginary character in a game of pretend. That doesn’t mean you’re relaxed about the activity — some times playing is super intense! — but you’re relaxed about self-evaluating on a micro level.

Adults need play just as much as children do. We connect in totally different ways when we’re playing. There’s something that allow us to see one another differently in play than in other circumstances. We get to know a whole different side of people, we find out the mild-mannered person from the cubicle around the corner is a baller (or the tall guy from marketing is NOT) or someone has a wildly competitive side we never would’ve predicted.

I’ve worked at a place that tried to encourage non-work interaction within the staff. As a part timer, this was difficult because I was already trying to cram a lot of work into a shortened work week. But in hindsight I can understand why these non-work activities were important. They allowed us to know each other better, connect different parts of our personalities in new ways, and form memories together even if it was because we could all look back on the time Bob from shipping and receiving got hit in the face with a bean bag whipped by the killer arm of Glenda from the mail room.

Glenda aside, playing is good for everyone for lots of reasons! It’s definitely been good for me. Here are a few more pics from this season:

Finally we’ll do a quick flip-thru of the two altered books I used this season.

I started with one, which I knew wouldn’t have enough pages, and then added a second book which size I liked quite a bit. I’d try to find one that size again.

In the video below you’ll see that some pages I’ve included in this post and previous ones aren’t in the video. I try to work in the same journals during a season but sometimes I just go bananas and bust out into a different journal without trying to. It can’t be stopped.

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The next season, which starts June 1, is the Season of Story. Of course I’m thrilled and totally tickled with this and the prospect of merging paint and writing. I’ll have more details for you tomorrow or Thursday, but start thinking now about whether you might want to join Get Messy for the season of Story. Even if you don’t mess around with paint much, trying a new creative angle can be really freeing. Painting/art journaling can clear a path for your words to ruminate and have more traction when you return to your keyboard. You can only sign up for a Season of Story pass for about a week (June 1-7), then the window closes. If you know you want to try it out, here’s where you can learn more.

As always, thanks for allowing me to share my journey and my pages with you. I hope there’s something here that inspires you to try something new or take a brave step into the unknown today.