creating: some deep [and maybe a little weird} thoughts

It all started when I found this painting when doing some cleaning out. I painted it 3 years ago. It awakened a desire to paint that has been laying dormant all winter long. It got me thinking a lot about creating. One of the things I love the most about creating is the problem solving. It is rewarding and fulfilling to find a solution to a problem. It might be needing a solution to the mess that is called your fabric stash that needs organizing, or it might be figuring out the exact color when painting a painting. Maybe for you there is another aspect of creating that you love. But it seems that creating is inherent in being human. I think on some level everyone not only has a desire, but perhaps even a need to create. Part of my beliefs involve knowing that one reason we are on earth is to get a body. Creating wouldn't be possible without a body, and having a body gives us an opportunity to take part in the process of creation. I love to create. I think the most important creating process I can be a part of is in my children's lives. I am responsible for creating the life and environment that shapes and molds their lives. Obviously each of my children is also a part of creating their own life, but it is a challenging, and problem solving process that involves a lot of imagination and a lot of work. Sometimes I don't love it. Sometimes, like a couple weeks ago when they were sick and not sleeping and I was running on 4 hours of sleep gathered up throughout the night, I wanted to run away. But I knew it would eventually run it's course and we would be back the normal. And we are back to the fun and the regular. It may not be all the time, but there are moments, sometimes even days, when motherhood it is the most fulfilling of creative processes. Nothing is better than those moments.

Spring awakens my creative hunger, and to me sometimes it is a real hunger. It needs feeding, and when I do something I feel fulfilled. Sometimes mothering doesn't quite hit the button and I need to do something else. Although perhaps not quite as fulfilling on a long term scale, painting is the next best thing for me. It is difficult, demanding, and requires a lot of patience and problem solving--just like being motherhood in many ways. I love it. And when spring comes around I just get this hunger to paint. I think it first really started showing up after I went painting "on location" with my dad 3 years ago. Because of his work schedule we were only able to get 3 paintings in before I moved away to Cleveland. The one above is one of them. It's a farming area not too far away from my childhood home. It makes me miss home, but it also really makes me miss painting. It is exhilarating to paint on location. You only have an hour or two to paint because the sun changes the shadows on everything so quickly that it's a whole new landscape in a couple hours. So we paint small and thin (as in not thick paint-easier to move around, etc . . .) You have to just get the "gist" of the painting because you don't have time for all the details, but the colors, oh the colors are divine! Seriously, of all the creative processes I enjoy, excluding mothering of course, painting is, the most fulfilling and exhilarating. I'm really having the itch . . .

This article was also on my mind a lot while contemplating creating. It is excellent--better than my own musings.