It's Been Like a Really Long Monday . . .

Earlier this month, Bitter Betty talked on her blog about how January can be a lot like a really long Monday . . . and boy, this one's been a doozy! You know, one of those Mondays where you start a new job and wind blows shingles off your roof and you're getting ready for Bargain Hunting 101 and you decide to reorganize your office . . . It's been exhilarating, overwhelming, and exhausting . . . and there just hasn't been much time for blogging.

In the midst of all of this madness, it's been wonderful to be teaching the Artmaking as Playful Prayer class - I've got a great group of women in the class this winter, and it's really rejuvenating for me to spend time making with them. The first night, we did intuitive collages:

We each pulled a bunch of images from old National Geographic magazines, just ripping out the ones that appealed to us in some way, and then sorted them into four groups . . . just to see what kinds of patterns emerged in the images. I encouraged people to make four distinct collages, one collage from each grouping of images. My groupings ended up focusing mostly around color - though there were certainly other patterns that emerged.

This one is brown and blue, and I like the repetition of the striding people and the curving shapes. It's fascinating to me how my mind will work and work to make a story out of it . . . to make meaning, not just connections. Yet, if I let the story get in the way, the piece becomes forced and it loses that spontaneity and spark. There doesn't have to be a story for the artmaking to be meaningful . . . the real meaning in the work comes from being mindful, from being fully in the moment and open to the intuitive impulses.

And that is something that is all too easy to forget on a 31-day Monday spent chasing down a to-do list.