The Artist's Way: by Julia Cameron (Link)
 
Hello again!

The first week of reading for this spiritual path has been synchronicities, and new experiences. I haven’t even made it past page 25, and this book is already influencing my creativity in ways I couldn’t foresee.

I urge you to pick it up, and give it a glance, or at least try the preview on Amazon, or something!

The Artist’s Way shares with the reader/artist/writer/whatever you do-er a feeling of shimmering wonderment at the world’s mysteries. Julia is a brilliant author and urges artists to “recover a sense of SPIRITUAL ELECTRICITY” which, being an engineer working with electronics during the day, I love.
So, for the first week getting into this book I wanted to start with the quote that caught my eye from the sidebar reading:

“In the brush doing what it’s doing it will stumble upon what one couldn’t do by oneself”
-Robert Motherwell


The sentiment is real here, and Motherwell hits the nail dead on. Julia’s initial message is to focus on removing the creative blocks we struggle with because of our own judgment of our own self-worth. Truth is, if you remove judgement from your work you can produce absolute garbage, and move on, and produce more, until you’ve produced voluminous amounts during your career. More, and more during this period you will develop your own sense of creativity, and the ability to engage yourself like a child, heading off to playland. More and more you can learn to let go of what is “good” and “bad” and just let it be “art.”

Sounds magical, and I am in for the ride. The Artist’s Way is a 12-week program designed to push you to creativity through dedicated free-flow thought and mindfulness practice. Meditation in simple terms.
 
“Accumulate pages not judgements”
-Julia Cameron


SO, on to the good stuff:
 
There are two exercises involved with daily creativity practice. The morning pages, and the artist date.

              Morning pages = 3 pages in the morning of free flow thought, and getting all your garbage out of your 4th dimensional brain, and into some sort of 3 dimensional space.
These are done every day.
              Artist’s date= Take yourself out for something fun and creative, something ridiculous you’d never normally do to escape your confines and gain inspiration
This is done once a week.

I am going to be practicing this starting next week 5/30, if you want to join me and leave comments feel free, if not, I look forward to sharing the art that comes from this practice with you anyway.

​I look forward to feeding my starving artist mind all the images and beauty that I can this week. Until next time!
 
- CJ

The Artist's Way: by Julia Cameron (Link)
 
This month's art themed reading is by Julia Cameron, espousing spirituality and faith through guided artistic meditation. I cannot wait to jump headfirst into this!

I'd like to dive into this book with you all over the next couple months. I plan to update this blog once a week and keep it going!

This book was kindly given to me by another artist as a birthday surprise. I am very grateful for the opportunity to explore new avenues to my artistic side. So far, my thoughts on the book are excitement, and a bitter distaste for my own lack of motivation. This year hasn't been a painting year for me, yet somehow, I have sold more commissions and projects this year than any year prior!

I am getting ready to start work on a children’s novel and hoping that we get some serious traction to make it into a published creature of its own right.
I know, I know.... I have only been doing this for three years so far but, look at me go!
 
Thanks for reading,
Talk to you next week

-CJ