Sharika Roland

Skin gets dry in winter because there is no moisture in the air. You have to apply lots of cream to keep your face from freezing into a stiff mask.

Your whole life is like the weather. When you have dry spells of creativity and inspiration you have to think of ways to get everything moist again. There are several ways to do this but I think by far the fastest is to look at old work. Look at where you came from and see the evolution of your output.

Dry spells are chased away when we get a new perspective of where we are going. Sometimes you can use old idea and tweek them a little and they seem new and one thing leads to another. You only need a little bit of a push in the idea department to get a whole new line of thinking going. I read interior design magazines to look for little things that set me off. A color combination and a line that is gorgeous.

Writing makes you access your logical side of the brain so writing down what your abstractly thinking helps make it more concrete so you can do it.

Dreams and writing make reality possible.

Photo by Ruby Blossom

The second we get up in the morning we have a plan in mind of how the day should go. As soon as that plan gets thwarted by one thing going wrong, we get in a state of mind that is anxious. There is a reason things go wrong and that is we are not in control as much as we think we are. Walls are just places for doors to be put. Without a wall to support it a door falls down. So walls are good because they are the end of ourselves and the doorway to something better. Not ourself. Not ourself is better than ourself because it draws on what we do not yet know. Mistakes are always doors to something better. Even when taking a test mistakes show is the door we need to find a new way to learn what we are trying to learn.

Usually our first instinct is to get upset.

You can train yourself to have an entirely different reaction. You can be calm and immediately look for the door in the wall to walk through. We are not our own.

photo by dedalus

Working on a project with no end in sight can quickly become discouraging and tedious and horrible.
It seems like nothing will ever change and then one thing changes and it opens up anew road that was not there before. You just never know when you are only one inch away from the answer because until then we are looking in a glass darkly.

Merry Christmas

I just got back from spending three days in silence . NO radio or computer or any distractions. My friend and I  also spent time walking in the cold and not eating anything except fruit and vegetables. We talked about everything but mostly we enjoyed to silence. It is very quiet in Soap Lake and the sky is very big.

We slept a lot too. It was very wonderful and I think it was extremely useful to being well. Everyone should spend time in the quiet at least as often as possible. Being aware of time passing and actually feeling it is a wonderful thing.

I can see why someone would want to live in the wilderness of Alaska . You can feel everything better and your mind is clearer.

I first found Heather Cornelius’ work at the Mad Hat Tea Company during a Valentines show. They had a lot of work there but Heather’s stood out to me like a lightening bolt. The sweetness of her sculptures was equally matched with inventiveness and charm and reality. I love how the folds of her body were so graceful and made being less than perfect actually quite beautiful. The face on the woman is especially endearing to me as it reminds a self confident mature woman who is at ease with her body.

We bought it immediately at the show and now it has been in a prominent place in our home for months and months. My husband and I went over to to her home and studio and were delighted to see several more wonderful works. I really liked the four foot ones and If I had enough I would love to put one in the garden.