I have been absent from posting and have decided on a new tactic to keep in touch. I will share my collage journal here. As mentioned before I use 6×6 spiral bound journals. I do some simple collage on the page on the right, intuitively choosing images. On the facing page on the left, I reflect with writing. Sometimes I do this after completing the collage but often it is sometime later as the collage may not speak to me immediately. My intention is to do one collage each day but when I miss I no longer beat myself up. Some days I create more that one. This practice allows me to check in with my “inner contents.” I collaged the above image on the back cover the new book I just started while on vacation at the lake. (I wrote about what I experience on my annual visits to the family cottage in another post, Down Time.)
I think the reason I stalled on blogging is because I wanted something really “meaningful” to share. I wrote several pieces but never posted them. When I began posting I ended each entry with suggestions for you to play and framed each post to mirror my book. What I am encouraging you to do, and need to remember for myself, is “Just do something!” Forget the end product and play with the process of creating. So in sharing my journal process I hope to model that “letting go” aspect. Let go of expectations; let the process lead you. I am letting go of the format I started out with. I had set up a rule of “be consistent” which restricts spontaneity.
With these journal postings you will see that each page is very different (consistency thrown away) but each provides a focus for a conversation with my inner contents. I actually began doing these small journals to be sure that I just “did something.” I never seemed to have enough time but these are very doable and satisfying to complete in a short amount of time. Also I gave myself permission to use any materials at hand removing the excuse that my “good” art supplies were elsewhere. I can do these in a motel room using the insides of envelopes and tourist magazines. I travel with a glue stick and scissors!
Hope you find this useful.
Wednesday, November 2 The Art of Play: Ignite your Imagination for Insight, Healing, and Joy
7:30pm • Free, but call to reserve a seat
As we get busier, it gets harder and harder to make time for ourselves. Joan Stanford talks about simple and useful tools you can use to carve out time for yourself, learn to play again, and inspire imagination in ways that bolster health, happiness, and creativity. These ideas can be implemented into and helpful with your work and home life. Joan will discuss tips and techniques, and will answer questions. See workshop, Nov 3
To reserve tickets, please call 650-988-9800
Thursday, November 3 Artful Play to Enrich your Life Workshop
7-9pm • $20 thru Nov 2, $25 day of
Everyone is busy nowadays. This workshop helps artists and non-artists alike carve out time to pay attention to the imagery in our daily lives that can expand our awareness and joy. Making time in this way helps with health and healing, as well as refreshing our minds and bodies to face our lives anew. Joan Stanford is a board-certified art therapist and full-time innkeeper who has been facilitating creativity groups for over twenty years, encouraging people of all ages, especially non-artists, to expand their awareness through playing with art materials. Attendance limited to 15. See lecture, Nov 2
My cousin has a plaque in the veranda of his cottage at the lake:
And I have the words from some ad on my fridge in my cottage:
I am in my happy place-my family’s summer spot on Lake Winnipeg. I am in the sun filled veranda watching the sunlight twinkling on this inland sea. The wind rustles the leaves, birds chatter and I am still. I am a receiver, open to what comes to me without any effort on my part.
A wonderful interview on Rare Bird Radio: Joan Stanford, owner of the Stanford Inn in Mendocino, CA and author of The Art of Play talks healing, wellness, mindfulness, and escaping the East Coast with Nadia Natali, author of Stairway to Paradise: Growing Up Gershwin.
Wanted to include some words about my “no” voice since I have been waxing on about saying “yes!” as though it is easy. I, like I am sure many of you, hear from this voice a lot. I have a section in my book about this “naysayer,” my inner saboteur. I share a dialogue where I confront the voice and try to get him to shut up.
Joan Stanford featured in Zoe Yudice’s article for TheMendocino Beacon …
Using Art as a tool for healing:
Owner of the Stanford Inn and long-time art therapist, Joan Stanford, has recently published a book, ‘The Art of Play: Ignite Your Imagination to Unlock Insight, Healing, and Joy,’ which details the healing powers of art therapy and her journey of discovering its benefits in her own life. Continue reading
Here it is! The book in my hands at last after an incredible journey! What generosity I met when writing to people for permissions or endorsements back at the beginning. It was not easy to send out a preliminary copy to respected writers that I had only met through their books. I had to trust that they would be honest and if their reviews were non-supportive that I could continue and not be shattered. Happily the first person I heard from, Jan Phillips, gave a wonderful blurb. Buoyed by this, the task became easier for me. We all need that confirmation when we step out of our small world. Especially for those first steps.
