make more art

to Make more Art and Crafts.

or just: Make Stuff.

and maybe amalgamate it with the knitting goal.

any particularly good shorter term workshops/retreats/programs?

years ago i joined this canadian project that had the dual purpose of helping lower income people get in the habit of saving money, and getting people to invest in themselves in the broader sense. the upshot is that i now have $6,000 to spend as i like as long as it is for educational purposes. and i must spend it before may, 2007.

the part of me that thinks i should have always been a more practical person, that if i had been, i’d own my own house and have more control over my circumstances, says, “get your one-year B.Ed., or look into other one year, certificates in something useful in a growing industry. like health information technology.” i mean, optometrists have a well paying, portable career they can leave at the office at the end of the day and enjoy their evenings at home.

however, none of this (besides having more cash) speaks to my soul. i’d rather learn italian in italy for 6 weeks, or study nuns on bicycles in france, castles in ireland, or olives in greece. i’ve never done anything like that. this may be a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for me to do something normally out of my league and wonderful.

i’m interested in writing, so it could be a writer’s retreat, or creative writing program. does anyone know any particularly renown ones?

i’m interested in textiles - weaving, felting, silk creations, tapestries. i’m interested in pottery, and painting - particularly encaustic. i’m interested in stained glass window making. glass blowing. organic gardening. art history. art restoration. archaeology.

but i don’t know where to begin looking for programs to register in, and i don’t know which ones are good. you can’t tell online. can any of my dear, dear subscribers (or anyone else?!) help me?

what would you do with a free summer and $6000 you had to spend on “education”?

i seem to have duplicate goals—“declutter my house” and “learn how not to be a packrat”, “do more art” and “complete the artist’s way”, and the triplicate goal “get healthier”, “exercise more”, and “take vitamins daily.”

and this makes me feel silly. and kind of boring.

(in the very least it makes me feel repetitive.)

i wonder why i do this. i think it may be that one of the goals is short-term, and possibly a means to the other, longer term, more life-changing goal.

to that end, i’m trying to get through the artist’s way as a vehicle for generally doing more art.

i make candles for my partial living, and this is creative (which i love. and i love my candles—see them on my flickr site at the end of my photostream) but the commerce aspect changes things (makes me have to make candles when i don’t feel like it, or makes me have to make them in colours i don’t care for, that sort of thing). i want to do more art for the sheer joy of it. for exploration’s sake. and not for anyone else (because i do that regularly anyway.)

make sense?

sort of?