Warning: Brakes for Inspiration & Revises at Will

I wrote this post two years ago a month before my husband and I moved into our home and two months before we married. It still applies directly to the issues of inspiration. Particularly the inspiration to revise your life at will. I continue to surf the wave of change that is sweeping through my life. Status Report: My daughter and I (and the goldfish and the guinea pig) have moved into our temporary home with my fiancé, my mother has moved into her new apartment (and is STILL waiting for her cable hook-up – AAAARGH!), my dog has moved into her temporary home with a friend of mine, we had the house inspection last Thursday and we are waiting for the seller’s response to our requests, my belongings are stored away in a truck that is parked in a secured area in some unknown location, my fiancé and I are learning how to co-habitate (practice makes perfect) and all of us are negotiating these new territories on a moment by moment basis

Stretching Creative Muscles with iPhone Photography

Do you engage in a creative practice outside your main art form? If so, how does that practice inform your work? Or does it? Is there something else you’ve longed to try? What do you do to stretch your creative muscles? What can you do that will keep your vision fresh? For me it’s iPhone photography. These are pics shot and edited with my iPhone 3G for the iPhone photography class I’m taking. I’m having a blast with the class and learning tons. It’s very technical and my mind doesn’t grok technical easily. I’m a complete newbie to using any kind of camera. But I’ve always been fascinated with photos that aren’t your typical family vacation/reunion photos

A Brainstorm on The Empty Chair Project

My latest project is in the brainstorming phase so I thought I would toss it out here for your reaction. I would love to hear from you. I’ve decided I don’t want to do another traditional play for awhile. It’s time to explore something new. Enter – The Empty Chair Project. My hope is that this project will include many different kinds of performing and visual artists and give them the chance to explore working with a theme and making it their own

Lifestreaming #1: My life design “About” Post

I’ve added a new category to the blog. It’s called “Lifestreaming”. Lifestraming is a methodology for Life Design as developed, inspired and created by Jessica Mullen. I was introduced to Jessica yesterday in that inter-web-you-don’t-know-me-but-I-am-following-you-online kind of way when I was surfing around looking for artsy-fartsy printable planner pages. (I was suddenly struck by the urgent need to re-invent my life management system. And I promise to post about all the amazing things I found in the very near future because I think you will absolutely eat it up.) The thing that turns me on about day planners and life management systems is that they are representations of our thoughts about who we are and who we want to be and the systems and philosophies (spiritual and/or secular) that we develop in order to realize our dreams. It’s about producitivity in the sense that we are producing ourselves. Which is vital to the macro: creating your life piece of why The Performance Lab exists

The Mission

If you have ever made anything you care about (and I’m 100% sure that you have), then you know all of these contradictions are true: Beginning is everything. Finishing is everything. Beginning is difficult. Half-way to done can be impossible. Beginning again is essential. You will never finish. You must finish. Okay, just stop, then. And, once you’ve finished, letting go can be more difficult than beginning. All of this has a lot to do with why The Performance Lab exists

A Kindly Q & A for Creative Ambition

Best of the Web (Creatively Speaking)

Since I spend a large portion of my week hunting and gathering and reading, I’ve decided to roll out The Friday Post. Each Friday I’ll share my favorite sites, articles, books and other resources found during my weekly web and bookstore prowls. I went to Hugh MacLeod’s gapingvoid.com and I got stuck. (See the sidebar for a fun glance at the gapingvoid widget.) At one point – reading, reading, reading – my brain clicked and I “got it”, “grocked” it – then it went away. The ideas here are new to me and thinking in a new way is harder than giving up cigarettes or losing a pound. It’s this kind of creativity – the kind that changes our lives by the doing and the sharing of it – that I am inspired to find within myself and share with you here

TED Talks: Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity