*5 things we might not know about you*

1. I am a flutist and have had formal training in the areas of Flute Performance and Music Education, having obtained degrees from both Rutgers University-Mason Gross School of the Arts, and the Boston Conservatory. I taught K-12 public school music over a span of ten years, in both the Greater Boston area and in my current home state of Maine prior to becoming a mom and full-time artist.

2. In 1996 I was in a serious car accident and came away with only minor injuries. The car was completely crushed — a heap of mangled metal — and all the glass had shattered from the windows. There was one area in the totaled car that looked protected, like a safe bubble amidst the wreckage. That is where I was sitting. It was not my time to go.

3. I back-packed by myself across the UK in my early 20’s. This trip was an important milestone for me — I came into my own and really felt my inner strength and inner beauty for the first time.

4. I used to create dollhouse miniatures with a Halloween theme and sold them on Ebay in 2002. I own a dollhouse with a haunted party theme.

5. I played my flute in Carnegie Hall.

*5 things going on in your creative world*

1. I am teaching online digital art classes on the subjects of digital photomanipulation and digital collage and montage. For more information visit this link

2. My new book, Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, is available for preorder on Amazon and will be released by North Light Books in May 2010. My first book, Exhibition 36: Mixed-Media Demonstrations and Explorations (North Light Books 2008) is currently available.

3. I will be teaching a digital photography/art workshop at Valley Ridge Art Studio in October 2010. For more details

4. I have prints of my photography available in my etsy shop

5. My work will be featured in a Faber-Castell journaling kit and presented to the public at CHA in January 2010.

*5 things that really inspire you*

1. The blog Au Fil De:
2. We Heart It
3. Art and Ghosts
4. Bon Iver
5. ReadyMade

just like i promised, maddie is gifting another one of her wonderful prize packages to another lucky wishstudio reader this month. enter for a chance to win a spot in her newest ecourse yes! , which encourages you to awaken your wishes and deepest dreams, allowing them to pour out of you in your writing and photography. in addition you will get to choose one print from her lovely shop as well.

by christine mason miller

“You must burn with passion for this earth and for all the splendor it can give you.”
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I have a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that my best friend gave me just after college. It is paperback, and at more than 1000 pages, two inches thick. The spine has been reinforced with clear packing tape, and a quick flip through the book shows page after page of folded corners, pen marks, underlines, asterisks and other notations that highlight my favorite passages. As I browse all the notes I’ve made over the course of four readings in eleven years, I wish I had used a different colored pen with each reading so I could see which passages spoke to me at different times in my life. Did I underline “All work is an act of philosophy” the first time I read it in 1991 or 1993? Was the mark I made next to “She had learned…that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted” in 1999 or 2002? Which quotes resonated with me every time I sat down with Atlas Shrugged? Which ones inspired me in my twenties and which ones stood out in my thirties?

I have read a number of books by Ayn Rand, but Atlas Shrugged is the one that has been a constant presence in my life. It is a book of extremes, of taking certain ideas and following them to their most tragic and, at the same time, utopian degrees. There is no room for exceptions, for special circumstances or for anything outside the realm of Rand’s philosophy. What I appreciate about this is that Rand makes no apologies for her beliefs and is willing to shine a light on every possible angle of her hypotheses. It would be easy to accuse her of being rigid and myopic, but in Atlas Shrugged, she maps a minutely detailed exploration through her own philosophy that would make our most daring space explorers blush. How many people throughout history have been willing to stand up for what they believe with such ferocity and devotion, to take responsibility for what they say and express? In an age fraught with example after example of people doing everything within their power to avoid responsibility and accountability, I find Rand’s commitment to her ideals a bright light that I turn to again and again.

On a trip to Buenos Aires a few years ago, I met a man who had recently immigrated to Argentina from Cuba. When it came up that I had read Atlas Shrugged four times, this man looked at me with tears in his eyes and told me he was reading the book for the first time. I think of that man a lot, and of how Rand’s treatise on personal freedom and responsibility – borne from an upbringing in Communist Russia – must have opened up a whole new world for him, a world that, in Cuba, he could only dream about. As a new citizen of Argentina, he was taking his very first steps of real freedom, and those steps were being taken with Atlas Shrugged at his side, which put him in a long line of readers whose lives have been impacted by Rand’s words. I will likely never see that man again, but thanks to Ayn Rand, we shared a moment that has stayed with me ever since, coming up now and then to remind me how fortunate I am to live in a country that doesn’t aim to limit the scope of my dreams and ambitions.

I am reading Atlas Shrugged again for the fifth time, and it is like taking a journey with a good friend. This time around I am reading my husband’s hardback copy of the book, which is forcing me to simply read the story and enjoy it. There are no pages being marked and no corners being folded; all I am doing is letting the story unfold in my mind as it has ever since I was 24 years old. I am following a well-worn path, remembering why I love this book, feeling grateful that Ms. Rand was willing to work so hard, look so deeply and stand so firmly in her beliefs. As an explorer, she is a kindred spirit, and I cherish every moment with this book, with her words, with her spirit.

*5 Things we might not know about you that you’d like to share*

1) I can juggle
2) I was obsessed with reading the Twilight books and didn’t do much for the two weeks I read them.
3) I made a drawing sitting in a restaurant one night in Alaska and the next day had it tattooed on my lower back.
4) I’m really shy about it but I can do the dance from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video.
5) As much as I love to cook, I can’t mix a cocktail to save my life. However, I can open a bottle of wine. (wink)

*5 Things going on in your creative world*

1) I’ve been thinking a lot about working with food again and how it relates to art and creativity.
2) My Equality pendants will soon be offered at a couple of retail stores. I am so excited about this.
3) I am working on a new Etsy store.
4) I really want to learn how to sew!
5) Oodles and oodles of writing.

*5 Things that inspire you*

1) The seasons, especially this one. I am in love with Fall.
2) Farmers Markets
3) Rich textiles, I am having a love affair with fabric currently.
4) My daughter, always.
5) My husband’s roast chicken, it has me singing.

by jenica mckenzie

I strode quickly into the living room, dead set on grabbing a canvas from the secretary desk and returning to the table. That is, until my three year old screamed. I jumped at the sound, unsure of what could possibly be wrong. I quickly realized that she was upset with ME!

“YOU AWE STEPPING ON MY CASTEW!!!”

I took a quick perusal of my surroundings, being careful not to make any sudden movements and progressively wreck said “castew.” But no toys were on the floor, no books… what was she talking about???

The screaming lengthened. It almost felt comical at this point, what was all the fuss about? I was doing no wrong and yet she was continuing to scream at me to stop stepping on her “castew.” Finally, after wiping the tears from her face, she grabbed my hands, turning my position and plead, “Wisten to me mama. Wook down, can’t you see my bootifu castew???”

And I finally looked through her eyes and saw what she was seeing. As the late afternoon light cascaded in our window, it moved across a stack of books and legos sitting on a bench: creating a picture perfect castle onto the floor.

How often do we as adults forget to look for magic?

How often do we forget what magic even looks like?

We spend so much time trying to be seen as adults, as reasonable and rational grownups, perfectly in control of our emotions and thoughts. But in this process we lose the play, the imagination, the mess, and often the JOY of life around us.

When I finally woke up to the magic my three year old was seeing, I dropped my canvas, grabbed the nearest doll and we had a tea party within that little castle of illumination. The light moved on within a few moments, off to another magic making adventure. But my heart learned. I learned that when I find myself stuck in my head, worried about adult things, stuck in my creativity, it’s very often time to put on a pair of silly glasses, get down on the floor, tickle some toes and go on an expedition of enchantment.

Look around, look with fresh child-like eyes, what do you see?

xoxo

*Jenica McKenzie is first and foremost a woman, a creator of life and beauty, a mama to four little ones, a wife, a painter, a photographer, a yogini, a hammock dweller, a voice, a gluer, a birth attendant, a laugher, a friend, a blogger, and a phoenix rising from the ashes.

find her here… blog, Art blog, Etsy, Flickr

*5 things we might not know about you that you’d like to share*

1. I’d never sing in public yet i love karaoke
2. I’m a total sci-fi geek and love TV shows like Fringe, Heroes and Battlestar Gallactica
3. I have an extensive collection of vintage glass bottles
4. I’m addicted to Polaroids, but you probably knew that already!
5. Giving up smoking was easy but i don’t think i’ll ever be able to give up coffee

*5 things going on in your creative world*

1. The next session of Unravelling: Ways of Seeing My Self starts January 4th 2010
2. Enrollments will open on December 1st, with brand new gift vouchers available, ready for Xmas!
3. Next spring i’ll be launching a new course that will teach students how to take beautiful photographs of ordinary things (join the mailing list for updates)
4. Coming soon: a book of Favorite Things, my Polaroid collaboration with Alicia Bock
5. My new course, Unravelling: Exploring the Senses, is going really well – feedback from a current Explorer: ‘there is something magical about this [new course]. My world is becoming so sensual, romantic and delicious – thank you for bringing me to the present and seeing the magic in this world.’

*5 things that really inspire you*

1. decor8
2. Miranda July
3. The Selby
4. Frankie magazine – i have a photograph in their new book, the Photo Album
5. Unphotographable

Many creative types that I know have this wanderlust itch (including myself for sure:) — this inner craving; heartfelt need for adventure, fresh experience and broadening of one’s perspective. Of course it would be a dream to scratch the itch aboard a plane to Paris, but when that is not a current possibility, where can you turn? The answer is that you need not look any further than your very own backyard for the adventure of a lifetime.

The journey may lie in a book upon the shelf of your town’s library — it’s got your name on it, trust me — if you go in search of it, the book you are meant to read will find you:) This one found me.

Take a walk today. Look down to see what sparkles below. Look. Really look, and you will bear witness to miraculous details you never noticed before…

Make some art. You can enter a new world that you create with your very own heart, mind and hands. Surprises will come through when you trust and open yourself to possibility. Ever get the feeling that you are not alone when that kind of magic happens?:)

Be transported with a movie
and the poetry of a song.

sip exceptional wine for only a few dollars

Take a different road home…

…and when you get there try a delicious recipe from my favorite culinary blog — Big Flavors From a Tiny Kitchen

…and while your dish is cooking, write a poem

or take a trip to a faraway land. A few of my favorite escapes include this portal, this, and this

“Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” ~Hellen Keller

Be well.

*Susan Tuttle is a mixed-media and digital artist who resides in a small-town community in the state of Maine. Her first book, Exhibition 36: Mixed-Media Demonstrations + Explorations, was released by North Light Books in December 2008, and her second book, Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, a technique-based publication on digital art, will be published by North Light Books in May 2010 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon. Susan is a frequent contributor to Stampington & Company publications and other mixed-media books. You can visit her site at www.ilkasattic.com and her blog at www.ilkasattic.blogspot.com through which she is offering online digital art workshops on the subjects of photomanipulation, digital montage, and a variety of Photoshop techniques.

by brandi reynolds

When I started blogging I was entranced by many of the bloggers I saw out there. Their lives seemed to be perfect: chock full of creative moments, deep friendships, sparking romance, beautiful clothing, magical days of sun streaming through hushed studio windows. I thought many of the bloggers I read had transcended the normal, boring details of life and that became my vision of being an artist.

And if I didn’t dress like they seemed to or if my life wasn’t as infused with seeming magic and stardust, then I wasn’t an artist.

Pffffttt.

Of course, now I know that the people I read and admire deal with the same crap that I do. That they pay the bills and deal with traffic and have fat days and zits and times when it seems their creativity has gone out the window in favor of the laundry.

What I have realized is that still answering the siren song that compels us to create, even amidst the laundry, is what truly makes an artist. NOT what clothes we wear or where we create.

I also know I am not alone in some of the assumptions made about what a creative life ‘must’ look like and that can lead to a lot of self judgment about our own lives. So I would like to take a moment in this space, where I have been so openly welcomed by the lovely Mindy to share to my voice, what my creative life is like.

Many of my meals require an interaction with someone through a drive through window. There are days when the only writing I do is rushing through 5 things in my gratitude journal. My clothes are mostly second hand or target and many of my jackets have been ‘distressed’ by my dog (lovingly of course). I watch biggest loser and big bang theory. Sometimes I forget to give my husband a good night kiss before stumbling to bed. My meditation practice is…inconsistent.

And I still smile when I look at my photos because they make me happy. Just jotting down those five things in my gratitude journal help me feel heard and connected. Any kisses I miss the night before with my husband can be made up the next morning

The point I would like to make is that being creative is all about what is within us to express and has nothing to do with what the outside details look like. YOU are creative if the only writing you do is in a journal, if you find beauty in fallen leaves, if you put love into creating your family’s meals and if you hear what the stillness tells you.

What does the stillness tell you?

*5 things we might not know about you that you’d like to share*

1. My first impression of passionfruit was entirely wrong. Luckily I got past the appearance and discovered the delight!
2. I am passionate about helping people fall in love with themselves, their lives and the world.
3. I get nervous when my honey stands too close to the yellow line on the subway.
4. I once recited Edward Lear’s “The Dong with the Luminous Nose” while peforming as Imogen Nation on stage.
5. Champagne, sequins, jewels, you name it: I love sparkle.

*5 things going on in your creative world*

1. I am devoted to a particular datebook and couldn’t find it this year, so I’m creating my own! So far, so fun!
2. I’ve recently launched a podcast called Creative Living with Jamie, where creative independent spirits share their stories and strategies for bringing creativity to life. I have already talked to some amazing creative bloggers like Jen Lee , BlissChick Christine Claire Reed and Connie Hozvicka. You can subscribe here, find it on iTunes here, or on my site every Tuesday.
3. I’m weeks away from launching my first downloadable workshop called Soul Reflections. I guide you through a fun and creative process of collage and journalling to find the messages that are tucked away in your heart, waiting to be heard. My goal is to help as many people as possible find their inner compass so that they can start building their dreams on what they truly want. You can find out more here with more details coming soon.
4. I recently worked with a wardrobe stylist to revision my entire clothing collection. It was tons of fun, wildly creative and totally helped me fully embrace my taste and my style. The cool thing is that Safina and I are now developing a workshop together that will combine authentic professionalism and authentic style.
5. I’m leading The Next Chapter book blogging group through Martha Beck’s The Joy Diet. We’ve been through Nothing, Truth, Desire, Creativity and Risk and are on our way to Treats – yay! One special treat was that Martha herself stopped by and left us a message of encouragement. How exciting!
*Now, I know that’s 5 but I just want to whisper about something that’s in the works. It’s too early to share any details but in January I’ll be launching a brand new inspiring program! To be the first to hear about it, sign up for my newsletter here . I can’t wait to share!

*5 things that really inspire you*

1. Life. I know that’s corny but it’s the truth. The more I get in there and experience it, embrace it, revel in it, taste it, love it up, the more inspired I am.
2. Dance. When I dance, I know who I am.
3. The new wave of creative, heart-centred entrepreneurs that are changing the way we do and perceive business. I’ve really learned from Alicia Forest, Laura Howard West, Molly Gordon and Mark Silver. And of course, the Wish Studio’s very own Jennifer Lee is a part of that movement with her Right-Brain Business Plan.
4. Generosity. When people generously and honestly share who they are, when they share resources, when they reach out and uplift others while they are rising too, this moves me and inspires me to make a contribution wherever I can, whenever I can. Spread the love!
5. Ideas. Call me crazy but my favourite class in grad school was theory. I love exploring big questions. One of my favourite theatrical productions I ever created started with me asking, “What would happen if I translated an academic text into a movement piece?” I had no idea how it would turn out. I figured it would be cool or horrible. In fact, it was short, intense and glorious. I guess it’s one of the joys of living to me, asking “What if….” and following where that question takes you.

by stacy lewis

Om. It’s said to be the mother of all sound, and the word that birthed the world. My mother created me and she gifted me many things, one of which was a small book in which she had written in her crafted hand, “Stacy’s Journal.” I decorated it with frog stickers and started in the middle because that felt more secret. It was a book with white, unlined pages and a fake black leather cover. It was my first journal, begun at the age of nine.

It was magical how my mom knew I needed a journal and placed it under the tree for me that Christmas. A month later, I wrote about the Iran hostages and Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. I wrote about Mount St. Helen’s blowing its top. But mostly I wrote about myself, creating story out of all that happened in my small life: being mistaken for a boy, again. Worrying about my Grandpa Ralph’s drinking. Meeting friends at the ballpark.

I filled dozens of journals over the years, penned hundreds of poems, wrote many good stories. Stories from my still-child self, about squirrels and butterflies and fairies; and then later on, about war and love, friendship and independence. Stories that seemed to spring from my head fully formed, and stories that trickled from my life onto the page.

This is what I remember: There is a creek with a little bridge. She is on the bridge, watching the coins shining from the algae-covered rocks. She has a notebook and pen – did she write with a pen then? Maybe it’s a pencil, I can’t quite see. She writes words. She is intent, focused, and both seeking and receiving. She is writing, writing, writing. She is at fine arts camp, this 12-year-old girl who already thinks of herself as a writer, or wait, maybe this is the beginning of her conception of herself as a writer.

The world becomes a wish, a wish becomes a word, a word becomes the world.

But that was all so long ago. Just a child, really, full of creativity and channeling the world’s stories. Eventually, they stopped coming, and I stopped writing. The journals were the last hold-outs, but even those petered out in my late twenties, crushed by the overbearing minutiae of adulthood. The last one devolved into sporadic, incomplete notes about buying a house, and then months later, questions for our visits to the midwife.

I had felt the ebbing away of my creativity over the years, and watched with sadness as she made her final exit. I looked up quickly at the sound of the door closing: …who just left?

And then she rushed right back in. I held my newborn son in the sling and scribbled on scavenged scraps of paper as she swirled around me. I held my newborn baby in the sling and tried not to wake, rustle, or crush him as I wrote. I left my baby, with my husband, for the first time and went to the bookstore to buy a new journal. It was red, and I filled its pages with the delirium of new motherhood. I am a mother. And I am tired. I want to be good enough to give my baby the love he deserves. I want to sleep. I wrote about quitting my job. I wrote a poem.

I wrote in the car while the baby slept. I wrote on the bed in the dark. I wrote in the inside of my mind, repeating the words over and over, so I could transfer them, when given the chance, onto the page. Everything was shifting and shimmering all around me, and I sat perched on the bridge, mesmerized by the unexpected and ever-more persistent glimmers of creativity coming my way. Again, it started with journals, and free-writes, and then it kept coming. I felt thankful and I nurtured my budding craft with classes, writing groups, and eventually got up the nerve to send my writing out for submission. On doctor’s forms, I wrote, under occupation, in my hurried script: Mother and Writer, and I did both, all day, every day.

It wasn’t until I birthed a son, and then a renaissance of writing, that I could understand how the gift of creativity is simultaneously my own and not my own (and not just because taking care of a young child and writing often seemed diametrically opposed). As a child, it seemed as if I were transmitting the words as they came through me. As a mother, I felt as if I were transmuting the words that arose within.

When my son was two and half years old, I tattooed the symbol om on my lower back. When I say the word, I say it slowly, sounding it out a – u – m, and the sound arises from the deep waters of my belly, travels up my chest toward the light, and fills the cavern of my mouth, emanating into the world, where it eventually dissolves. The four syllables in this word-sound represent all that is and all that is yet to be: “A” is our waking state, “U” our dream state, “M” our deep sleep, and the fourth is the silence that follows, the void from which all life springs, and to which it returns.

When I was a child, the cycle moved so fast that I never even heard the silence, until then it was all I had.

I was born, I wrote.

I dreamed, I wrote.

I slept, I wrote.

I was silent.

I gave birth, and I wrote.

Shhhh. Hush now.

Start with one word.

Stacy Lewis lives in Seattle with her husband and their two young sons, who are now six and three years old. Her first child inspired her to find the connections between peace, community, creativity, and motherhood. Her second reminds her to just try and stay sane. She writes about her (bumpy) path to peaceful parenting at http://www.mama-om.com/.

*5 things we might not know about you that you’d like to share*

1. I am taking piano lessons – my first venture into anything musical in my entire life.
2. I am a Brady Bunch fiend, and once made a bit of a fool of myself gushing over Florence Henderson.
3. I usually work in silence.
4. I was voted “Most Individual” in my high school class.
5. I can’t stand cilantro.

*5 things going on in your creative world*

1. A new Ordinary Sparkling Inspiration Deck
2. Book Fairies from all over the world are helping with the 100 Books Project. Over the next few months, books will be left in Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Korea
3. My Demdaco Wall Art is back up on Etsy
4. The Core Show is coming up Saturday, November 7, 2009
5. I’m contributing a Creative Catalyst exercise to the Creative Therapy website next month

*5 things that really inspire you*

This is what has been on my radar recently:
1. India, and my friend’s recent journey there in particular
2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
3. Anahata Katkin
4. Charlotte Tarantola, my amazing fashion designer friend
5. My family

[photo by denise andrade]