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September 14, 2005

artist's way: week 1

by gl. at 6:44 pm

so both the tuesday night and the wednesday morning creative clusters have met for the first time! alas, we've already lost three members, including the two i suspected wouldn't make it: one boy decided to do it on his own, one girl couldn't come to the first few sessions because of her wedding, and another had pregnancy complications. laura was also home sick with a fever, but i'm glad she didn't bring it to us and as far as i know she'll be back.

it felt fairly chaotic to get a rush of new registrations and then an equivalent amount of fallout, but as i said today at the end of the morning cluster, i'm glad it's begun. this i know how to do; promotion gives me hives. i wonder how much i could afford to pay someone to do promotion for me, if it could be a fee-per-student arrangement.

but the art activity, which for the first time is always a 20-minute intuitive collage, was very successful in both clusters. it's a deliberately short timeframe to thwart the demons of perfectionism and self-criticism. i think i might call it an "exuberant collage" rather than an "intuitive collage" because it more accurately conveys the sense of energy and enthusiasm i see when people are engaged in this activity. afterwards we discussed three different ways to give feedback and respond to artwork without being critical about it: phenomenological, aesthetic, and artistic.

having never had a cluster form in the morning before, i have noticed some differences from the evening clusters: in the physical checkin, people are less likely to say they're tired; the room feels lighter with so much sunlight; the construction workers mercilessly grind away at the stone facade on the house across the street (argh); the stars & candles don't really need to be lit but i like to do it anyway. and when i'm done, i have the whole day ahead of me. :)

posted by gl. | September 14, 2005 6:44 PM | categories: artist's way