This one just kept talking to me.
The Freedom to Be
It pulled me from a hole I keep falling into.
Read about moss, very interesting. I loved this... "Mosses are highly resilient, utilizing a natural "antifreeze" to survive, and can continue to photosynthesize in the filtered light beneath a blanket of snow".
I am caught in a kind of looking inward that has had me frozen in time. Trapped in the past without newness.
This became a Secret Garden Cabin. Cobbled around love. The seed.
Winter is back... of course, it's March. After a warm week, the snow seems new. Fresh.
There will be a little shop update tomorrow late in the day, probably around 6PM EST, just to clear some space for newness and because the new moon date is not working for me this month. And I need some time to plant some new seeds.
this is such a good good conversation. Thank you, Jude. Thank you everyone. I will continue to think about it all…..
Hi Jude. Such great questions you pose. I appreciate some of the more raw revelations you make about it all. People’s comments here are just wonderful and a real indication of the value you offer this community (regardless of what others are doing).
Having said that, I can relate to the discomfort you express about the online world, how overrun it’s become, how systematically toxic, how vulnerable to AI incursions and U-turns. It’s discomforting too that to avail ourselves of places like Instagram, we have to support the billionaires who are at least partially responsible for the “enshitification” of the internet.
I often wonder what it would feel like to just — walk away. I hear that in your words today too.
As far as you making more personal revelations or admissions and observations, I’m here for it. I’ve always admired how much emotion and process you’ve managed to share WITHOUT making more personal admissions, but even so, I love the vulnerable Jude. Because I’m vulnerable. We’re all vulnerable.
Yes, Dee, Enshitification might have been the title of my next post. Was just talking to my son about that. The strategy of creating useful tools that make us all complicit in this awful get rich-er scheme for those in control. We all talk about it but few of us walk away. It’s hard to look at it that way.
I plan to expose the more vulnerable me I think, there is newness in that if it’s real. I’ll need a password on this site I think. Who knows who is reading anymore. Can we escape?
It is really snowing right now. the newness has expired. 😂
Hi Jude,
I’m 76 and noticed about a year ago that I was getting bored with my art practice. I’ve also played the piano since childhood and was feeling bored with that, and that my best days as a pianist were behind. I was beginning to accept that this just how we feel at our age. Quite by accident I came across an orchestral harp about 6 months ago and loved the sound. So now I’m studying the harp as a beginner. Frustrating, but also delightful to be trying something new and getting better at it. Sometimes starting a new pursuit can be stimulating and exciting, even when we’re too old to start something new. I’m still doing the old things, but the call of the harp is what excites me each day.
Yes, the challenge is invigorating…looking for that again, to be in learning mode.
Jude ., keep looking a new path will reveal itself . That being said ,it is a great personal joy to me to have you here ! I love that you are so great as a teacher but also great as a human and sharing the ups and downs makes us all closer and keeps us all connected . Lord knows the world could certainly use more human connection !!
No kidding, everything seems so engineered toward “success”, let’s keep it real.
Interesting to hear your thoughts around newness. I think what separates what you share online from others doing similar things is your deep thought process and your lexicon of symbols, and, that you share those. To me, this makes your work far more interesting than much of what saturates the web. I often think about this a bit myself as there sure are a ton of artists working in watercolor, but I recognize that I have a private mythology that informs my work, and I hope that infuses the paintings somehow, and makes it a bit different from traditional watercolors. Well, I know that I don’t work in the same way as traditional watercolorists, so that is clearly different. Years ago, I reached a point where I became really bored with my work, and started playing, experimenting, and exploring different watercolor processes for an extended period of time. Suddenly, I felt inspired again, because the process of making the work challenged me and it seemed like there was a lot more possibility and surprise. I also changed my subject a bit from high ridge tops with distant trees, to being in the deep forest. That was crucial as there was literally much more detail to work with. So I wonder if it’s less about what you’re offering online and more about what you need from the process of making? Like, YOU need newness, and something in how you make your work needs to shift? I mean, do you still enjoy the process or are you finding yourself bored? In my experience, these moments of boredom, where I’m dissatisfied and wondering what the hell I’m doing, often end up being a threshold to a whole, new vision opening up, and I’m hooked and inspired again. When I made the big shift from ridge tops to deep forest, two things happened that were important in the process. The first was that my mother died, and the almost color-field paintings I was doing, with abstracted indications of distant trees weren’t emotional enough for me, and I felt I needed deep, dark, and mysterious. Secondly, I was struck by the work of an artist I came upon whose work played a lot with extreme bleeding and experimentation just in the way I was playing with, and his work gave me a vision of where I wanted to go in my work. Anyway, some thoughts… now, off to bring in wood and chop kindling as we’re back to winter.
Love this response!
Well said !!!!
Yes, exactly. Sometime we forget that we do this for ourselves first, and I do need newness. And sometimes it is hard to get out of oldness. Not the age kind but that is there too. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I did a big kindling thing yesterday.
I’ve alot of ideas running around my head right now after listening to your audio clip. The most top of mind is that you’re you. No one else talks like you, you have a unique aesthetic, no one else creates posts like this, obvious but I had to say it. Another thing I was thinking is that you have a wider audience, so anything you have said before probably is worth repeating, I know as a newer follower I’ve learned so much from you. But I think what really resonates with me is the need for excitement in work and reinventing and wondering what I am doing (almost every day) is really difficult to deal with, and just hearing you articulate that feeling is valuable to me. I think you are a great teacher and I hope you continue to share what you know because it has definitely changed my life for the better and I wish I had only started doing my work sooner. I know your purpose or what excites you will eventually reveal itself to you, at least that is what I’m hoping for myself. Keep us in the loop with this dialog, its very important.
It’s become more important for me to express some of the downsides of how it’s going because, as we all know, it’s not all rosy, right? The holes we fall in are places to consider.
Perfect !! lots of love……
❤️
You have to do what brings you joy! I love what you have done and it gives me ideas and takes me on adventures. Please make yourself happy and excited to be doing again. 💕
That is the key. The joy.
i think those greenishnesses are grand. you’ve done relaly good work here, you know. new and more than relevant, thought provoking, barrier smashing even. i lkie that.
Hey you…
You feel how you feel, and I feel very differently about you and your role in this community. You are still roots, branches, and fruit to me. I am always grateful to you for the spirit of going, whatever shape that takes.. Love to you.
It’s snowing here in Seattle today.
I am not a confident person, although most folks might not know that, why not share those moments I said to myself. Cracks in self image have come along with new wrinkles…
I totally get it and appreciate you sharing it.♥️
Me too!❤️
Yes, winter has returned here in Michigan too, I t does bring a feeling of looking inward to me too, at the same time, worrying for the future. It makes me sad to read your feelings about your work seeming so much like the others who have jumped on the bandwagon, calling their work “slow-stitch”. You should know that the ones I have seen are not a bit like yours, which I always find exciting, and what you share about your new life in your round house in the woods. You are the original, and your work always brings new ways of doing. Your older work is always interesting to see and study, but your new is always original. You have so much yet to share, and I’m here to see where it leads……(Hugs) Anita.
Thanks for such reassuring words. The path will open up I am sure, a passage to a more comfortable zone.
Jude~ The greens of the Secret Garden are so soothing. Funny how I look for and appreciate soothing more and more.
If your online life-work stays…yes that will be great for there will always be newcomers who “just discover” you along the way.
Reviewing and reworking and trapped in the past, I can understand how this is not that helpful. I’ve been letting go of the last bits of my teaching self. Not sure who I am now, but I am not that ECE professional at the moment.
I think a lot of us feel not relevant these days. haha
May you move forward with ease. xo
There is a seriously negative environment isn’t there? I’m usually good at getting through it. This little greening piece has me reconsidering a secret garden approach to the grow quilt.
PS Or their will always be “old-comers” who are spiraling around and seeing things with new eyes.
ha, old-comers… love that.
She’s lovely … a “woman of substance,”
I like the greening 🌱
Maybe she’s blooming?
Your Secret Garden Cabin draws me in, much like a sun-dappled shade Garden does. Beautiful, peaceful, full of promises…
I’m resting there.