I know, long time no blog.  Guess I thought I would be sharing more of the Artist’s Way journey here with you, but have to say it was a busy 12-week process and I didn’t manage to make time for blogging.  Really enjoyed Julia Cameron’s guide for growth last fall along with six other women who stuck it out for the whole 12 weeks.  It was quite remarkable how much my life seemed to track what was in the book or vice versa–something of a chicken and egg issue, not really sure which was the cause and which the effect.

Learned quite a bit about myself and highly recommend the process to other artists.  It was a good look at what causes me to create and not create, and many of the underlying issues of life that seem to affect my work.  Some of them I was familiar with and some of the revelations were quite helpful, enabling me to better deal with things so that I can move forward more easily and freely.  As a group, we have decided to move forward with another of Julia Cameron’s books, Finding Water, and are currently in our second week.

Lots of morning pages…  for the first 12-weeks, assuming I did them all (which was usually the case), that adds up to 252 pages in the 12-week series, not counting other journaling exercises, of which there were many.  Still haven’t re-read them all though an assignment asked us to do so.  Yet from what I did read, I realized there was an undue focus on my schedule day-to-day, signaling that I very much need to simplify my life in order to achieve more of the things I’m looking to achieve, along with just learning to have more of a balanced life.  Going too many directions all at once is certainly not the best tactic for getting there, yet figuring out where to let go, and what activities to drop, is always the big challenge.

By this second book, I’m finding that the weekly “Artist Dates” prescribed by Julia Cameron are quite enjoyable and do tend to inspire creativity.  I realize too that I’ve gotten involved again in some creative things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. These include 1) playing the piano again as I finally got it tuned for the first time in 18 years or so! and 2) designing theater sets.  Designed my first set for a play (in more than 20 years that is!) still showing this month at the Auxilliary Dog Theatre in Nob Hill called A Shot Away, and now working on the next one for The Price which will open in early February.  Have to say that the books by Julia Cameron really do have a lot of great ideas and are very inspirational, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed broadening and deepening the friendships I’ve made with other artistic women there in the process.