“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
– Alan Watts
Creativity and wellness message for today: Harmonize with the beauty around you.
How Much Light Gets In
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Tag Archives: artist
Reflections, Light, and Shadow
Happy New Year to everyone. I’m working on a series of fine art photographs called, “Reflections, Light, and Shadow.” I only use available light, crop the image using the camera on my mobile phone, and shoot. Capturing natural glimpses, fleeting moments in time, brings out the poet in me, distilling things down to their essence.
Then finding this Rumi quote is the icing on the cake:
“Both light and shadow are the dance of love.”
– Rumi
Creativity and wellness message for today: Be delighted by nature’s design.
Community of Storytellers
I’m sharing a moment of gratitude for my storytelling community near and far. Storytellers have this way of getting to the heart of the matter and for being an inclusive band of renegades and angels. I am fortunate to have stumbled upon the art and act of visual storytelling — writing, creating visuals, and speaking the spoken word in front of live audiences.
As an artist and writer who specializes in personal narratives, visual storytelling is right up my alley. I appreciate my national storytelling exchange group via Zoom and the drafts they sat through, asked questions about, and provided constructive feedback on. The Bridgeport Art Trail Storytelling Exchange is phenomenal! Our local in-person We Rise Storytelling Collective is fun and risky and embracing. Thank you for encouraging me to tell my authentic stories in front of such an appreciative group! Then there is the national Artists Standing Strong Together that connects and weaves and advances the art of storytelling.
Recently, one of my stories “Art Saved My Life: Journey of a Lifetime” was selected for me to present in front of a live audience in a theatre alongside 12 other visual storytellers and the entire experience rocked my world. There is this vibe and connection between the PechaKucha Night Bridgeport storytellers that cut through any phoniness or pretense. The tellers shared their own true stories on the theme: Journeys: How Did We Get Here? Thank you City Lights Gallery and PechaKucha Night Bridgeport.
You can watch and listen to my 2022 PechaKucha presentation here. Please be advised it has adult content about healing and transformation.
Creativity and wellness message for today: Consider creating and sharing stories in the presence of others, it may just change your life!
Through the Lens . . .
On 9/23/22 I wrote in my journal . . . “I always see my life through the lens of an artist.” This image is one example of hundreds of what I see when enjoying a moment to myself. Here I am bowled over, in awe of the simple natural beauty around me.
Creativity and wellness message for today: Be in your life, experience it fully, open up with all your senses, and embrace every minute.
A.R.T.: Action, Reflection, Transformation
Watch out for who you run into at your local gardening center! There I was, minding my own business, choosing colorful potted flowers for my front porch, when I saw a friend browsing the outdoor aisles. We got to talking and catching up. She follows me on social media and asked about my recent art exhibitions and writing projects. Gab, gab, share, share, it was a lovely day to be outside and even lovelier to be chatting with her.
We say goodbye and a few weeks later, I’m asked if I would be interested in leading a lay-led summer service at The Unitarian Church in Westport, CT. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. What might be of value to the folks in the pews? I asked my friend (who was the Worship Associate) and she answered, “Talk about your art.” Hmmmmmmmmmm. Yes, I could talk about that until the cows come home, but is that really of value to the people in the seats?
Then I said, “I could speak about losing fifty years of my original fine art in a silent basement flood right before I was planning a retrospective.” She leaned in. I immediately followed my intuition and promptly said, “I could title my homily, “A.R.T: Action, Reflection, Transformation.” Ding, ding, ding, she thought it a great idea.
While it was a challenge writing my personal narrative homily with a message, I got as much out of it as the congregants. Being asked to speak was validation of me and my worthiness. Having my idea liked made me feel recognized. Hearing, seeing, and feeling the responses from the people in the pews and from them afterwards opened my heart.
Watch a video of my homily below. It starts at 13:26.
ART- Action, Reflection, Transformation from The Unitarian Church in Westport on Vimeo.
Creativity and wellness message for today: Just say yes and let your inner knowing take you to the next step.
Pink Teacups and a Chamois Cleaning Cloth
(c) Adair W. Heitmann
I’m still settling into our new home, still unpacking, creating new spaces, and using old things in new ways.
It continues to be a time of tripping down memory lane and being grateful for the past as well as the present and staying wondrous about how the future may unfold.
Today I celebrate my dear friend and chosen “godmother by love” Kazue Mizumura. I knew Kazue by her Japanese nickname “Baye” which means “baby,” as she was the youngest in her family.
We met when I was fresh out of art school, making my own way in the world as a single woman and professional artist. We shared creativity and independence and feminism and bonded immediately! Over the decades I spent many a dinner over long, deep, heavily-accented conversations filled with raucous laughter at her tiny pink house on the water.
She was an author, illustrator, and jeweler, an artisan par excellence. She gave me copies of her books and she bought some of my artwork. I commissioned her to make jewelry for boyfriends of the time. We supported each other, mostly emotionally. When I was with her, I never felt edited, only loved. We delighted in each other’s company.
She died several years ago. Many years after that, ten years after her death, her partner in life asked me to help her “clean out Baye’s studio.” RU hadn’t set foot in it since Baye died. Over the course of the arduous process RU kept asking me to take something to remember Baye by. I was there to help loved ones not to take anything so I continued to brush off the kind offer. Finally after weeks of helping out I chose to take home some of Baye’s sumi ink painting and calligraphy brushes. They were used and precious to me. Baye held them in her hands as she worked her magic. RU didn’t think that was enough! To me it was. RU insisted I take more. I then chose Baye’s set of pink porcelain tea cups . . . personal and priceless, and one other thing.
Today, getting ready to go celebrate a friend’s birthday I open a drawer to get the old, soft, supple, and previously-used silver polishing cloth I always keep in my bureau to polish my earrings. No one would ever know it was Baye’s. The holes in it were caused by her usage not mine. To me the chamois is a cherished object and of great value.
Being blessed with Baye’s friendship, love, and devotion and experiencing tangible connections to her daily, I never thought to Google her until this morning. Unexpectedly, I found a mother lode. I didn’t know one of her books was read on Sesame Street nor that she had illustrated a book by May Sarton. To me she was “Baye” my chosen godmother by love.
Creativity and wellness message for today: Be open to accepting love and finding your own riches.
Making the World Bearable
Falling Leaves Abstract by (c) Adair Wilson Heitmann, clay monoprint
It was George Bernard Shaw who said:
“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
Creativity and wellness message for today: Be inspired to make the world bearable.
Create When No One is Looking
(c) Adair Heitmann
One of my favorite authors, the Kentucky born Barbara Kingsolver says:
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”
Creativity and Wellness message for today: Just do it! Write, create, paint, dance, just do it!
Finally, Someone Who Understands! Thank you Misha
No longer will I feel guilty when I don’t want to talk with someone while I’m creating art in a community artists’ studio.
No longer will I feel ashamed that I don’t know Suzy Q, Barbi X., or John Z. when asked, “Why don’t you know them, they go there all the time?”
No longer will I apologize for getting snippy to my family when they interrupt me while I’m trying to choose which monoprint to submit to an exhibit, while reviewing art prints at our kitchen table.
Now I can proudly proclaim, “Don’t you know art is a very slow and fragile process? Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov told me so!”
While exercising this morning I heard on NPR about Baryshnikov’s Art Center in NYC, marking its 10th anniversary. Hearing Baryshnikov simply state the obvious changed my day, my week, and my world. He says that art is a fragile process and artists need privacy and space to create. I know that! Thinking back to when I had a separate studio space I remember those as the glory artist days. But I wanted more in life and co-created a multi-faceted, multi-use home and life. Yes, I adore our teenage son, but can’t a girl dream about “space, and light, and privacy?” That is just what Baryshnikov created for artists in New York City, an environment in which artists of all kinds can go and create to their heart’s content. Well done Misha!
Creativity and wellness message for today: Even if your kitchen table is filled with college tour brochures, applications, and forms, keep your vision of space, light, and privacy on the horizon.
With Art in Mind . . .
“Fine art is that
in which
the hand,
the head,
and the heart
go together.”
-John Ruskin
From Wikipedia:
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied.
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