The gate
Creativity is a place one travels to. A world where words come together to tell stories, to become jewels of poetry. It is also a place that guides your hands to shape wood, clay, paint and pencil on paper, yarn and fabric into something special and beautiful. I can't claim to have been a writer all my life, but what I have been is a lover of the creative process, in whatever medium I was passionate about at the time.
As a child, I always wanted to do whatever it was my mother was doing. I used to watch her crochet and embroider and I wanted her to teach me. I think I was about eight or nine at the time when I learned how to do the chain stitch in both techniques. Of course, as it is true of any child, I soon dropped my needle and thread for bike riding and roller skating.
Later the gate to creativity would open again, beckoning me inside using watercolor, brushes and paper. From my preteen to early adulthood, I fancied myself as a painter. I did reasonably well if I copied things like botanical prints and Japanese greeting cards using gouche watercolor techniques. My skill at "copying" actually improved after I bought and read, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. But that wasn't the only improvement. You can say that I felt something "quicken" within me. It was as if the gate opened a bit wider, giving me a clearer view of the landscape of possiblilities. This book helped me look at things differently. One of the first things it instructs you to do is to take a picture and turn it upside down. Then you had to draw it. It was an exercise in looking at things like lines, shapes, shade and color without getting caught up is what you were trying to draw. One can almost apply this exercise to writing a story. You don't think about the story as a whole but as it's many different parts. You think about the character, his or her dreams, heartaches and what he or she does about it.
My next creative passion was for the needle arts. For many years I was immersed in all kinds of needlework. It started with cross stitching then I went on to learn crewel, hardanger, blackwork and many embroidery techniques. I learned how to quilt and how to smock baby dresses. I crocheted and then knitted. I was a needle maniac! I loved making things. I would make gifts for family and friends. I was constantly designing something. I haven't done much in this arena lately but I still have a couple of knitting and crochet projects I keep by my side for those times when I need to relax and let my mind unwind as my fingers work.
Then I decided I wanted to write. I had always been a reader and loved to tell others about what I'm reading. This was how I discovered my story telling ability. I would tell a friend about a book I was reading and they would actually prompt me with bated breath (quite literally) as to what happened next. But the moment I tried to put a story of my own creation down on paper, I found myself struggling to find the words and the gate into my creative mind closing in my face. After a few years, and many white knuckled attempts to keep that gate open and the words flowing, I have gained a more than healthy respect for this, the method, the means by which we enter the realm of the known and unknown landscapes of imagination.
For me, to make something, to write something and to share it with others is what makes life worth living.
**Writing prompt "Write about a gate" from A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves.
***Word of the Day is myrmidon - an unquestioning follower.
ttfn
As a child, I always wanted to do whatever it was my mother was doing. I used to watch her crochet and embroider and I wanted her to teach me. I think I was about eight or nine at the time when I learned how to do the chain stitch in both techniques. Of course, as it is true of any child, I soon dropped my needle and thread for bike riding and roller skating.
Later the gate to creativity would open again, beckoning me inside using watercolor, brushes and paper. From my preteen to early adulthood, I fancied myself as a painter. I did reasonably well if I copied things like botanical prints and Japanese greeting cards using gouche watercolor techniques. My skill at "copying" actually improved after I bought and read, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. But that wasn't the only improvement. You can say that I felt something "quicken" within me. It was as if the gate opened a bit wider, giving me a clearer view of the landscape of possiblilities. This book helped me look at things differently. One of the first things it instructs you to do is to take a picture and turn it upside down. Then you had to draw it. It was an exercise in looking at things like lines, shapes, shade and color without getting caught up is what you were trying to draw. One can almost apply this exercise to writing a story. You don't think about the story as a whole but as it's many different parts. You think about the character, his or her dreams, heartaches and what he or she does about it.
My next creative passion was for the needle arts. For many years I was immersed in all kinds of needlework. It started with cross stitching then I went on to learn crewel, hardanger, blackwork and many embroidery techniques. I learned how to quilt and how to smock baby dresses. I crocheted and then knitted. I was a needle maniac! I loved making things. I would make gifts for family and friends. I was constantly designing something. I haven't done much in this arena lately but I still have a couple of knitting and crochet projects I keep by my side for those times when I need to relax and let my mind unwind as my fingers work.
Then I decided I wanted to write. I had always been a reader and loved to tell others about what I'm reading. This was how I discovered my story telling ability. I would tell a friend about a book I was reading and they would actually prompt me with bated breath (quite literally) as to what happened next. But the moment I tried to put a story of my own creation down on paper, I found myself struggling to find the words and the gate into my creative mind closing in my face. After a few years, and many white knuckled attempts to keep that gate open and the words flowing, I have gained a more than healthy respect for this, the method, the means by which we enter the realm of the known and unknown landscapes of imagination.
For me, to make something, to write something and to share it with others is what makes life worth living.
**Writing prompt "Write about a gate" from A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves.
***Word of the Day is myrmidon - an unquestioning follower.
ttfn