Saturday, December 31, 2005

New Years Resolutions

It's been a whirlwind year, this 2005. Personally, it's been a year of epiphanies and awakenings. That's really surprising to this old biddie who thought that such things belonged to the young just starting out with eyes wide open on a vast new world. So it was with great amazement that I found myself in four different courses of study--one professional and three artistic--opening myself again and again with wide-eyed wonder to this vast world we live in. I traveled--Phoenix and NYC--I love to travel!

What I learned again this year is that I have been swallowing back, holding down enormous amounts of my self and my psyche for a long time. I've really been holding me back and putting others first. Others will go on quite well regardless of what I do, and the results of holding myself back have been very harmful to my health and to my spirit and to my creative muse.

Creations have gushed out of me this year, this blog only records some of them, but is a good indicator for me that I have been very busy. While I am very much a student, learning from art quilt masters and printmakers, I am at least thinking about where I might go on my own after this self-made apprenticeship. Color, lots of bold color is important to me. Like the colors of the chakras, they provide a healthy energy for me.

This New Year's Eve I find myself alone for a couple of hours and I'm enjoying the quiet, my music, and some candles. I read a fine essay by Katherine Paterson, my all time favorite author of books for children. In the essay she quotes Jim Wallis, activist theologian as saying, " I now believe that the real battle, the big struggle of our times, is the fundamental choice between cynicism and hope. The choice between cynicism and hope is ultimately a spiritual choice, and one that has enormous political consequences."

I am too often the cynic, it's the easy way. My New Year's Resolution, then, is to work to be a person of hope.That's who I am at bedrock, but the job, and the relationships, and the war, and the injustices make me the cynic. Cynics just talk about it; people of hope do something about it. I'd like to be a better worker this year.

Naturally, I'd like to be thin, that'll never happen, quoth the cynic. But if I could work at healthier habits, maybe some of this weight would come off.

I'd like to find some joy on the job. I've just finished a hellish 4 years, with another tough one looming ahead. Some joy would make the hard work there a little easier to bear.

I resolve to keep making art. How far might I travel given a second year like this one? I am joyful and healthy when I make art, the quilts, the knitting, the prints. I will continue to work in these three areas.

There's more, but I will settle on these because if I concentrate here, other resolutions will be worked through in due course.

2 comments:

Karoda said...

Its hard work keeping cynicism in check! I useta be hopeful, very hopeful...but yeap the last 3 years have nearly squashed me...but ya know, you just can't keep a good woman down and all that jazz!

Hangeth in there Cheryl!

Jen said...

Cheryl,
A thoughtful essay, and I like the quote. In my less than humble opinion, nothing will feed your hopeful spirit more than spending time creating. I'm happy you have made such an excellent start in finding joy. Jen

PURLS OF WISDOM

"Color is the real substance for me, the real underlying thing which drawing and line are not."
--Sam Francis

"The great man is one who never loses his child's heart."
-- Philosopher Mencius

"We wear our attitudes in our bodies."
-- Patti Davis

Colour embodies an enormous though unexplored power which can effect the entire human body as physical organism.

Colour is a means of exercising direct influence upon the soul.
--V. Kandinsky
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way.. things I had no words for.
--
Georgia O'Keeffe

Nothing is really work unless you'd rather be doing something else.
--
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Faith is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
--
E. L. Doctorow

Somebody once said that people become artists
because they have a certain kind of energy to release, and that rings true to me.
--Dale Chihuly