April Showers

Dear Friends,

As I write this, the sky outside is about as grey as it gets. The rain/drizzle has been constant the past week, and it’s left me with a near constant chill. Thank goodness for the space heater and heating pad, both highly useful things in this drafty Victorian house. The rain is needed, though, and I know that it’s feeding my flowers, which will in turn feed my soul as the days go by.

I’ve had a pensive month, filled with deep thoughts, simple joys, and surprise projects. Once upon a time, I worked as a teaching artist for the Arts in Education Institute of Western New York. During a training, the executive director of the program asked all of the teaching artists what art we had consumed in the past month in our particular discipline. She was quite earnest about it, and I’ve never forgotten her insistence on our need—as teaching artists—to be regularly engaged in the arts world.

I think the need goes deeper than that; I think we ALL need to be regularly engaged in the arts world, not just those who are artists of any form, not just those who are teaching the arts. Museums are medicinal. Creativity expands your lifespan. Making things makes us happy. Dare I say that we could all use as much medicinal happiness as we can get these days?

The Gingerbread Man and I went to see the Boston Ballet to celebrate our anniversary this past month. This is one of the pieces we saw. This is the music. Here’s more. The full production performed by the Paris Opera Ballet can be seen here beginning at 1:58. Click any one of these links and either watch or just listen to the music on YouTube. Nearly a month later, I’m still thinking about it. At the time, I felt as if I was watching the very act of creation. Even now, when I hear the violins, I feel as if something tangible is happening to me on a cellular level.

Crystal Pite, the choreographer, said, “For me, the process of creation is like looking through a lens. It’s an opportunity to see the world in greater detail and clarity. It’s a magnified experience. Choreography is a way for me to grapple with the very meaning of creation. It is the crafting, colliding, collaging, framing, layering and excavating—the acts of making, and of seeing—that most deeply connect me to nature and all the beauty and brutality it contains. The Seasons’ Canon is . . . my way of confronting the vastness and complexity of the living world, while at the same time giving thanks for it.”

Of course, this may not be your thing. But something is. Find your lens and look through it to see the world in greater clarity. It’ll be better for you than vitamins.

As for my reading goals, I paused my red shelf reading when I came to a book that I bought some time ago (The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes), but didn’t realize it was the third in a series. As I began reading, I found that I was missing out on some essential pieces of the story, so I decided to go back to the previous books in the series before attempting to finish that one. So I’ve listened to the audiobooks of The Inheritance Games, and I’m about halfway through the audiobook of The Hawthorne Legacy. Once I’m done with that, I’ll go back to The Final Gambit and this time, it’ll make sense.

I did move ahead on the red shelf and grab 101 Classical Texts and immediately put it in the donate pile. As I suspected, life is too short for excerpts, especially when I have the entire set of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower sitting on my shelf. I’ve continued both listening to the audiobooks and reading the paper copies of volumes 3 and 4. They’re still delightful. Also, I’m still working on The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing by Adam Moss. It’s been fascinating to peek into the minds of a variety of artists from very different disciplines to see their processes of creating.

In other news, I continue to prepare for the genesis retreat. Applications are currently being accepted, though spots are filling up.

I’m also preparing a new piece for the next Arts League of Lowell show, with the theme of On the Merrimack. Lowell is celebrating its 200th anniversary, and the League is honoring that history with their next show. I’m working in ink this time, to let the medium mirror the Merrimack River.

And last, but not least, I’m narrowing in on a color palette for the picture book I’m revising/illustrating. Work, work, work.

Never a dull moment.

I hope your April is full of delight and cheerful umbrellas to fend off the inevitable rain.

Hugs to you!

Ginger