Part two of the "Exorcise a creative demon" exercise (ha! how often do you get to use those two words together in a sentence?) is to make a creatitivty totem. Because of the deep connection I feel with this painting of mine, I thought about how I could interpret this into something 3d that could sit on my desk or drafting table, and not be so fragile it would fall over.

I thought, a doll! I need to sew! But then I realized I wanted it small enough to sit in the palm of my hand, so I stopped mid-iron (I didn't want her to have wrinkles!), unplugged the iron, and ransacked the house for any kind of modelling material. You would think with 3 preschoolers I would have lots of stuff, but all I could find was brightly colored Play-Doh and I wanted white. All I could find was the world's tiniest can of white. I was so frustrated! So I sketched out what I wanted to make, and waited, rather impatiently.

Finally the weekend came, and even though there wasn't really any time for me to go to the art store, I threw dinner in the oven, gave Paul instructions on what to do with it, and ran (with his blessing). I can't really explain this whole thing except to say that there was another force guiding me and urging me to create. As long as I listened to it, things were good. When I denied it, I got cranky. Very cranky.

I grabbed 10 lbs of clay at the art store and ran home just as dinner was cooling on the stove top. We ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and I escaped upstairs to my studio to GET TO IT. I am by no means a sculptor, so I decided ahead of time to forgive myself and all my mistakes, and just go for it. I spread out all my newspapers and supplies, and opened the box to see that I had not, as I thought, bought 10 pounds of white clay, but instead, bought 10 pounds of brown clay. I took a deep breath, decided that for whatever reason, I was supposed to have brown instead of white, and dug in. Wrapping it back up and returning it to the store was not an option.

I let go of any preconceived notion about what this was supposed to look like, and just started. I thought, dryad. Nurturer. Mother. My figure initially was too girly and I added more and more curves so that she was more fertile and weighted. I made the bird separately, originally so that I could paint the figure better. But now I think that the bird won't always sit there. I want to fill that lap with flowers, shiny rocks, acorns... whatever I find on my walks that speaks to me for the day. When I finally stood up and looked at her, I realized I had created a fertility goddess.





I'm quite pleased with her, but she's not done yet; I plan to paint her vine-y hair green and brown and those tiny leaves bright green; her legs and lap dark brown and black, and paint tree branches growing up her front and winding around her arms.



Or maybe I'll just live a spell with her as she is, naturally. It really doesn't matter because I simply can't mess this up. This is all about the act of creating. As long as I'm creating, and honoring my creative spirit, there are no mistakes.

So my demon is that I constantly compare my work to other people's -- if I'm not in the perfect frame of mind, I see how everyone else's art is so perfect, well-known, ground-breaking, acknowledged... and I can't create anything, it just freezes me up instead of inspiring me and lighting a creative fire under me. I sit and watch bad TV and eat potato chips instead of painting up a storm.

So.... what I did was take a stock photo promo that had come in the mail with lots of other people's work on it. I cut a monster's shape out of it, with horns, big claws, a pointy tail. (My kids, by the way, were fascinated and wanted ones for themselves.)



Then I painted green over him (for envy, natch), and splashed some red paint in the general vicinity of where its heart would be. And a little coffee.

I wrote all over the back of it with my feelings of jealousy and inandequacy, hole punched him a few times in the heart (take that!) and then burned him and watched him writhing on the fire. HA! We made a little ceremony out of it.

Not only was it fun to create this little demon, it was quite fun destroying it. I could have buried it in the snow, ripped it to shreds, spit on it, run over it with the car... my only complaint about the fire was that it burned rather quickly, for all that effort!

But isn't what this is about? I put in all this effort into whining and feeling inadequate, when I really had the power to banish all of that in an instant.

(Tomorrow.... the Creativity Totem makes an appearance.)

I haven't been blogging at all about "Walking in This World", mainly because I've been too darn busy doing the tasks and keeping up with the others in our group online to get to post much. We are just starting Week 10, which astounds me, because it means I'm in the homestretch! And what an amazing journey it's been!

Anyway, this task is too good not to share, and I invite anyone at home to try this and share your story here. I'll be sharing in parts, as soon as I can get my images off the digital camera and loaded here. I suggest you do both parts of this task.

1. Exorcise a creative demon: Reflect on a creative injury and make a creativity monster embodying all the nasty elements of your tormentor. Then destroy it! MUAH-HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!

2. Create a creativity totem: Make a being that embodies all the spiritual forces you would like to muster to your support. And then give it the honor it deserves.

I will be sharing mine here in the next few days. Can't wait to hear what others have come up with!