Creating for Process

This is my second attempt at a post for today. There are times when I just can't post what I am writing because it is not conducive to my mental health or the purpose of this blog. So, the first post of the day went into my draft folder. I will not look at it again. It will just sit in that folder forever and ever.

Let's talk about something that makes me feel happy - creating art and other craft processes.

Yesterday, I sat on my bed and I created some word art.

Word art is something I enjoy - I use it as a stream of consciousness tool for myself. I write words in different fonts. The words are sometimes sentences, sometimes just single words, but they always show me something about how I am feeling or what I am struggling with in the moment. Sometimes there are song lyrics involved. Most of the time, though, the words are just that - words without much to link them together.

Yesterday's art consisted of emotion words about my near future and covered all of my current emotions - anticipation, worry, overwhelm, relief, fear, too much swirling around my brain. There were swirls in the art. There were arrows moving from word to word. There were lots of different types of lettering, and it encapsulated what I was feeling right then. I ripped it out of the pad and glued it into my everyday planning journal that I have been neglecting lately.

I, of course, glued it in the book upside down.

That's the way I've been feeling lately - upside down. I did not intend to glue my word art into my journal that way, but it happened. I laughed when I realized what I had done. It is just what I am thinking about these days - how every plan I make gets turned upside down by things that I do not foresee.

The dawn is happening outside my living room window. It is a peachy-turquoise type of day today instead of a pink-blue day. I am not sure what the differences are that make these dawns different, but I know that there is something going on in the weather conditions that changes what I see every morning.

If I was going to make some word art for today, it would have something about watching the dawn through still leaves of the tree outside my front room window. I really wanted east/west facing windows in my home. I enjoy watching both the sunrises and sunsets from my rooms. Morning Has Broken is one of my favorite hymns, and it is something that I sing when I watch the sun rise.

I am not going to make word art this morning - I packed my pad and my brush pen into my hospital bag to keep me occupied during my stay.

For me, the process of creating is always more important than the product. While the end result is usually pretty satisfying, I enjoy just sitting down and making something. I dabble in lots of different art media and crafts.

My family is a very creative one. My mom is currently working on making Barbie furniture, clothing, and environments as well as collecting and dressing Zuru mini babies. She crochets, sews, draws, paints, and does pretty much every type of craft imaginable. My sister is designing a new classroom theme - her gazillioneth theme over the years. She is fully immersed in all things Little Twin Stars. She also paints and is a good interior decorator. I wish I had her eye for spaces and decor. My brother used to be able to play any song he heard on the guitar - I don't know if he still does or not. My father was a good technical draftsman - he got a degree in industrial design, but he did not stay in that profession. He enjoyed figuring out how to make industrial processes more efficient.

Outside of my immediate family, I have cousins, aunts, and uncles who are also very creative. My family members tend to be either artistic or engineers (who are differently creative from the artistic folks). We are a family who creates.

At the moment, my sister is involved in developing her classroom theme for the next couple of years. She enjoys making themes - designing bulletin boards and creating a coordinated learning environment. Over the years, she has had Winnie the Pooh, Cars, Trees, Cats vs. Pickles, Green/Purple/Black, and a couple of other themes that I am sure I have forgotten.

Her themes include bulletin board designs, titles, classroom items like pencil boxes and name tags, colors, stories, hall passes - you name it. Her classroom themes are clever, thought-provoking, and just amazing to experience. I wonder if anyone realizes how much work goes into making a classroom a comfortable place for children to live and learn. In addition, she pays for all of her themes herself - from the hall passes to the bulletin board paper. It all comes from her salary. Without her money and creativity, her classroom would be a dreary place to spend seven hours a day.

My main point is that creativity is something to engage in - in any way that you can. If your creativity manifests in things like making dryer lint sculptures, then great! Do that. If your creativity leads you into designing systems for music therapists to use to increase their productivity, then do that. Find your creative outlet, and engage!

Well, it is time to clean out the fridge. Wish me luck!