Category Archives: Art and creativity

Why I Art Journal

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Art Journal page – created in 2015

I am a visual thinker. I imagine/see/experience things in my mind’s eye – what’s in front of me, what’s behind me, what’s inside me, what’s beyond me – before I get to the touching, feeling, knowing stages.

It is my pathway into understanding, learning, growing, evolving. It is as much a part of me as my heart, limbs, skin, bones.

Which is why I art journal.

Art Journalling is my pathway to embracing all of life… its sometimes inexplicable, ineffable and incomprehensible moments as well as its exquisitely moving, breathtaking ones.

It brings me home to my heart. It reminds me to let go of judging and move with grace into acceptance, gratitude and trust.

Art Journalling soothes me, excites me, awakens me to the wonder and awe that is everywhere, in all things, in all ways of being present with, in and of life.

And… it reminds me to stop looking for ‘the path’ and let the path appear as I create.

Another gift of art journalling is its awakening of the muse within me because, while I often speak of her as being ‘out there’ she is actually ‘in here’. Within me, all around me, everywhere. Through art journalling, I connect with her flow and find myself unravelling the knots that get tied up in my thinking I know the way, I have the answers, I get it.

Art journalling reminds me, there is no need to ‘get it’. The gifts are in letting go of ‘getting’ to fall effortlessly into BEING. Of it. With it. Within it. All.

That’s why I art journal. It keeps me grounded in my heart and whole body and out of my thinking mind. It fills me with hope — that there is a way through everything even when I think all hope is lost. It brings me great peace full of the possibility in all things, all people, all life. And, it brings me into deep, abiding connection within the exquisite, ethereal and mystical nature of the world around and within me.

If you’re interested/curious about art journalling, I have a few short posts on my website on How to Begin. I’m working on updating them with videos but for now… they are a good place to get acquainted with, not just the ideas and concepts — and lack of rules — of art journalling, but also your own creative core. Because… the lack of rules is what intrigues me and excites me most about art journalling. It’s always, always an expression of YOU! And what could be better than that?

I hope you pop over and check them out — and let me know what you think. Please. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings and ideas.

Much gratitude.

Click HERE to access The Art of Journalling

A Love Story

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I have learned to not question the muse. To heed her urgings and let her whims take me where they will.

Following the multi-hued wisps of magical mystery she casts within me and all around is always a journey into, through and with trust.

This morning, her whispered incantations took me into the land of poetic free-form verse.

I had no idea where it was going. Where I would end up or even what story would appear.

All I had was one phrase… Serendipity, she said.

And I followed it.

What appeared warms my heart.

If I had to name a flower that described my father, it would be a rose. Deep. Mysterious. His words flowed like rivers of poetry peeling away life’s edges to reveal the delicate nature of life in all its seasons, all its manifestations. Yet, he was prickly. Cantankerous. Prone to flashes of angry outbursts. A hard man to get close to.

My mother. The Iris. Not only was it her name, but she was like an iris. Strong yet fragile. Elegant yet girlish. Beautiful yet unconfident in her beauty and her body. Uncomfortable with life and all its demands. Yearning always for a more peaceful, calm, still world. Like the iris.

As this poem unfolded, I followed the mystery of its threads and there they were. My mother and father. Laughing. Dancing. Spinning through fields of wildflowers. My father no longer clumsy and awkward in his movement. But flowing. Lithe. Strong. Supple. And as he spun my mother about, my mother who seldom laughed in life, through back her arms, leaned against his arms holding her and let joy fill her up like she’d never done in life.

I love it when the muse comes to visit and I throw away caution and fall into trusting her ways with all my heart wide open to the adventure.

A Love Story

by Louise Gallagher

Serendipity, she said
I was just thinking about you
wondering where you were.

Right here, he replied
flicking a speck of dust 
out of her hair.
It clung
like moss to a tree
until he blew on it softly
and it lifted off
and floated away. 

But where have you been, she asked, confused.  
She hadn’t seen him in years.
She was sure. 
Was her memory failing?

I have always been right here,
he said, next to you.
His voice was as smooth as
water flowing over a rock
in the river beside which she sat
bare toes stretched out to touch
the surface of the water.
It was cold. Icy cold.
I’m cold, she said.
Shivering.

Let me warm you, he said,
wrapping his strong arms around
her shaking body.

Thank you, she replied,
taking in his warmth,
the sweet tantalizing smells of
his breath, his body
pressed against hers.

Funny I don’t remember you,
She said, burrowing down into his embrace.

I’ve always been here,
he replied, picking her up in his arms.

She felt light, like a feather
 fluttering
effortlessly
through the air
falling
falling towards the ground.

I’m afraid of falling, she whispered.

It’s only a short journey to the other side, 
he said as he stepped into the water
holding her tenderly in his arms.
 
He began to cross.
You have nothing to fear, he said softly.

She closed her eyes
and listened to the steady
thump
thump
of his heart 
beat
against her ear
where she pressed her head
into his body.

I’m not, she whispered.

And he carried her to the other side.


It was there, 
on the other side,
where rainbows danced on sunbeams
and wildflowers grew with abandon
in fields of summer blossoms 
strewn across a wide valley
that spread out in all directions as if it had 
nowhere else to go but everywhere that she ran
as if her bones did not ache
and her memory did not fade
.
It was there
spinning beneath a kaleidoscope
field 
of scarlet and lemon and lavender clouds
streaming across the sky
that she remembered.
Him.
His touch.
His breath.
His smell.
His body.

What took you so long to come and get me, she asked, trailing her fingers through the fronds of wildflowers
blowing in the wind.

You can only cross the river
in your own time, he said.

She watched his hands
the hands she remembered
toiling
touching
tending
to the fire
the fields
the cattle
her body.

He lifted those hands
she remembered so well
up
up
up above her head
and from his palms
petals of sunlight
fell all around her
showering her in beams
of golden joy
sparkling like raindrops
falling
on a spring fresh morning.

Have I died and gone to Heaven,
she asked,
her smile girlish
her laughter tinkling
soft
like the wind chime that hung outside the window
of the only home she'd ever known where she was safe
in the arms of the man she’d loved so long ago.

Death is just the beginning 
of what comes next, he replied.
And he bent down towards
the ground and picked a blood red rose from the field of purple irises 
through which they walked and 
gently tucked it behind her ear.

We’ve only just begun, my love.
We’ve only just begun.

Coming Home.

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Let the fun begin!

Coming home, I enter my studio.

The muse is calling.

I play. I layer paint. I scratch and inscribe and make marks on the paper until, satisfied, I begin to draw and colour in floral shapes.

When I’m done, I have a small, (5 1/2 x 4″) 8 page booklet. On each page, I print in gold, one letter of the word Thank You.

It feels good to be creating. Easing into the creative field. Full of inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, I feel myself swimming effortlessly in its vast open waters of imagination.

It is here I find myself coming home.

_____________________________

If you are interested in an online (or in person) workshop on how to create one of these little booklets… drop me a note — either in the comment box below or via email/messenger or on my FB page.

Here’s a 10 second video of the final result of one of the booklets I made.

Page 40. Line 8.

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Sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, she would sprinkle fairy dust on the flowers in her garden and watch the colours flow, wild and free, cascading like a stream pouring over a waterfall, onto the ground, turning the world into all the colours of the rainbow. 

Delighted by her creation, she'd splash with joyful abandon amidst the running colours until exhausted, she fell into a pool of cherry red and periwinkle blue and sunshine yellow and viridian green swirling all around her. Content to be amongst the living colours dancing in harmony, she'd fall asleep and drift into dreamland.  

It was there, floating upon a cloud of shimmering violet, she dreamt of flying high in the sky, sprinkling fairy dust all over the world. And as the colours ran free, pouring their beauty into the hearts and minds of everyone, notes of harmony and joy rang out amongst the hills and valleys, from mountain tops and deep from beneath the ocean beds. And all around the world, the animals danced and the people leapt for joy, and the trees swayed in the beauty, harmony and peace of the world around them.

Satisfied with her creation, she fell deeper and deeper into sleep, wishing and hoping she never had to wake up to a world without colours running free and mountains singing for joy and harmony ringing out in all the voices of humankind.

And so it was. And so it is. And so she sleeps on and on and on.

I have started a new morning practice. I read it on a thread in an art website to which I belong and felt so inspired by the idea, I immediately jumped in.

The process is simple — Close your eyes. Pick a book from your collection. Open your eyes. Open the book to Page 40. Go to Line 8 — read it — now let whatever is on Line 8 be your writing prompt. Set your timer for 6 minutes and begin to write.

The book that picked me this morning (my first morning of entering into this morning practice) was, CREATRIX: She Who Makes by Lucy H. Pearce.

Line 8 on Page 40 reads: “Because, while my own creativity scared me, I knew subconsciously that I still had to be around the magic somehow.”

I set my timer for 6 minutes and began to write.

…There was a time when my creativity scared me, when I let what others think (or at least what I thought others were thinking) dictate how I expressed my creativity. Not that I expressed it much. Mostly I tried to hide it, shield it from outside eyes, keep it buried within me. For some reason, being ‘creative’, or acknowledging that I was creative felt foolish, uncomfortable. I was embarrassed by my own nature. It was as if the very word, ‘creative’ was a dirty word, never to be spoken out loud...

Released by my 6 minute writing flow, the ‘story’ above appeared and flowed out of my fingertips as I began to write this post.

I wasn’t thinking them.

I wasn’t wishing them into being.

They simply flowed.

I hope you try it — pick a book, any book and turn to a page (I like the symmetry of page 40 but you can use any number – your age, house number, day of the week…) go to a specific line number – and use that as a prompt.

Important caveat — have your number scheme organized before you begin. It helps stave off confusion, worry and the possibility of changing your mind to find ‘something better’ to use as your prompt. Part of the magic and beauty of the prompt is its randomness and its consistency.

I hope you do give it a go and let me know how it worked/works for you!

Oh… and do remember to stay out of self-judgement and criticism. Magic only works when we let go of telling ourselves it’s just not possible, or no good or… all that jazz.

Have a colourful, joyful and peace-filled day.

Namaste.

When Life Hit Hard – a poem

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No. 2 #ShePersisted Series — They said, be quiet. She spoke up.

This poem came to me this morning as I sat at my desk watching the river flow past.

Earlier, my daughter and I and our pups had walked at a park near their house and while walking along a trail through the woods came upon a large encampment.

It wasn’t there just a few days ago when we walked the same path, but now, it is well ensconced and easily visible. A bright blue tarp is draped across trees providing both shelter and privacy to the occupants. The smell of food cooking on an open fire permeates the air.

I understand the desire to build such an encampment, particularly if someone has no place to call home.

But there are challenges and dangers.

Community residents might not look favourably upon such an encampment and might decide to take matters into their own hands. Or, might call upon the City and insist something be done. In the past, this has sometimes resulted in City Parks staff dismantling and removing the encampment without showing much concern for the belongings or needs of the campers.

And, an open fire in the dense woods where this encampment is situated is problematic.

We are fortunate in Calgary to have the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) and the Encampment Team through Alpha House Society, an agency serving vulnerable, at risk Calgarians. Their focus is to interact with individuals where they’re at, and to support them in addressing their needs. The Encampment Team, in partnership with City-ByLaw, supports ‘rough sleepers’ to help them address their safety, well-being and housing needs.

For Calgarians, the benefit of these teams is that it gives everyone an opportunity to reach out and support someone in distress or in need of housing supports, knowing the response will be compassionate and humane.

I have phoned the Encampment team to alert them of the situation. I know that their response will honour the individuals involved and provide them support in a way that reflects their humanity and their needs and their rights.

If you have concern for someone on the street in Calgary who is intoxicated or in distress, please call the DOAP Team first. The number is: 403.998.7388

If you have a concern about an Encampment – call the Encampment Team. Their number is: 403.805.7388

It can be hard sometimes to know what the most humane response is. The DOAP and Encampment Teams are the right response.

And… if like me you need to give voice to what you experience, witness, hear and see, write a poem, speak up, volunteer…

And support the agencies doing the work on the front lines. They need our help to do the important work they do supporting vulnerable people in our communities.

When Life Hit Hard
by Louise Gallagher

When life hit
     hard
she stumbled 
and fell
     hard

She got back 
     up
and when life tripped her
     up
again
she fell
     not so hard
this time
but getting up
     was harder.

Life kept happening
and she kept falling
until the falling
     down
     was easier
than the getting up
until the staying 
     down
     was safer
than trying to find
     a way 
     to stop
falling
.

She no longer
     cries
     out
for help
when she falls

She no longer 
     reaches
     out
for help
to get back up

Trapped
between the fall
and getting up
she lies
     silent
dreaming
of a hand reaching
     out 
to help her
     get back up.

The Stories They Wrote

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No. 8 #ShePersisted Series
The Stories They Wrote
by Louise Gallagher

He wasn’t born
a criminal
though his mother said
on the day he was born
that he would grow up to be
a bad one
it was written in his stars.

She wasn’t born
drug addicted
though her father said
on the day she took her first step
that she would go nowhere
but bad
it was written in her blood.

And when he grew up
he lived true to his mother’s predictions
until he found himself in that place
where time was all you got
and he had no choice but to dig
for a way out
from beneath the layers
of a story
his mother wrote for him
on the day he was born.

And when she entered treatment
for the first time
she had to go back
again and again
to erase the scars
she’d etched into her skin
searching for the beginning
of the story her father had written
when she’d taken her first step.

And they both kept digging
and they both kept searching
and re-writing and re-wiring
the stories
they told themselves they had no choice
but to live
until to live the story of their own creation
they had no choice
but to walk away
from the stories they’d always known
but never wanted
the stories no one should have written
on the day they were born.

We all have stories. Stories we tell on ourselves, stories our family tell about us, stories we’d rather forget but can’t seem to keep ourselves from living again and again.

We all have stories.

And here’s the thing about our stories. They are personal to us. They are our experience. Two people can have a similar experience; one is traumatized and the other doesn’t give it any more thought.

Our responses are personal. They are a combination of our emotional make-up, history, experiences, environment, childhood…

In my family, there was a story of my birth that left me feeling unwanted and a disappointment. As I got older, my family quit telling that story. I didn’t. Until one day I decided, enough is enough. And I changed the story to something that celebrates my life and my being here on this earth.

The fact remains though, that until I made that choice, everything about me was shadowed by my internalized belief that I was unwanted and a disappointment.

Unravelling the feelings that story evoked and its limiting beliefs was critical to my freeing myself to live my life, my way, in joy, gratitude and Love.

Working at a homeless shelter, everyday I encountered people whose lives were a daily repetition of stories they didn’t want to live but didn’t have the knowledge nor resources to change.

This morning, as I was reading the news, the story of a young man I’d encountered at the shelter popped into my mind. When he was born, his mother had said he would be good for nothing.

At 26, he had been in and out of jail numerous times. This time, he was determined to stay out.

To do that, he had to learn tools that would help him in walking away from the story he’d been living out of his mother’s predictions.

He wasn’t born criminal. He was made that way by his environment, lack of nurturing, lack of good role models and a limiting belief that he would be good for nothing.

We all have stories. We all have limiting beliefs.

To live our own stories, we must set ourselves free of our limiting beliefs so we can write a story that celebrates the magnificent nature of our human condition.

Do you have a limiting belief that is holding you back from living life as the star you are meant to be? Are you willing to set yourself free to shine?

Re-Imagining

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I am off this morning to pack up my art from the art show, where because of COVID capacity numbers, no artists were in attendance, just their art. It was strange to receive texts and messages throughout the weekend asking, “Are you here? We are? Where are you?”

Back at home, I worked in my studio. Not creating art. Creating the space, or rather ‘re-imagining’ it.

Two years ago, when my daughter and her partner bought a bungalow and began to renovate it, I became the owner of two solid wood closet doors.

Last year, when we gave a leather couch to a friend for his lodge, one of the doors was used as a solid surface for transport. The lodge is closed in the winter so the door stayed tucked away in storage until our friend went to open up the lodge this past week.

Last week, when I got the door back, I decided it was time to do what I had always intended to do with the doors, transform them into tables for my studio. I’d been using two of those long plastic tables with the fold out metal legs — they worked well, but added no esthetic value to my studio.

It was time for beauty to supersede function.

Over the weekend, I attached the legs I’d bought and re-organized. I also hung the beauty art quilt tapestry that my friend Jane gave me. Bonus.

I LOVE it all. The process of re-imagining. The attaching the legs to the closet doors. The cleaning and organizing. The hanging my tapestry. The feeling of calm that my studio embodies.

This morning, as Beau and I went for our early morning walk, I was thinking about the process of getting ready for the art show and how the ‘knowing’ I had to create for it had sat at the back of my mind every single day for months. No matter what I was doing, there was always the thought “I need to be doing’ simmering away on a back burner.

This morning, that though was gone. Poof! Vanished.

I won’t know until later how I did at the show, though I know a couple of pieces sold, which is lovely.

What I do know is that not being there was strange. Kind of otherworldly almost.

And I know it’s just a case of it being ‘different’ than how I’ve done shows before. Not bad. Not good. Different.

In that ‘different’ is the opportunity to assess what I want.

Like the door that became a table when it returned, when my unsold art comes home, I can decide what next.

Do I re-imagine my online store? Do I hold an art show of my own? Do I….

Lots of options. Lots of opportunity.

All mine to explore.

And, like the sparrows who are transforming the robin’s now empty nest outside my studio doors into a nest of their own, I get to re-imagine what was into something new and wonderful and inspiring just for me… What a lovely opportunity. What a wonderful day!

The Table Door

You’re never too old (or young) to live with Purpose. Passion. Promise.

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No 49. – #ShePersisted Series – https://louisegallagher.ca/shepersisted

In the 1970s, as baby-boomer girls stepped across the threshold from teenage angst into fully blossoming into womanhood, the woman’s movement began marching in earnest towards equality. By then, in North America, woman had ‘enjoyed’ the right to vote for 50 years. Fifty years. That’s it.

Here we are 50 years after the Women’s Strike for Equality of 1970 and glass ceilings remain largely intact, equal pay for equal work remains an unequal reality and in the area of reproductive rights and birth control, we continue to fight for the right to make decisions about our bodies as birth control largely remains a ‘women’s issue’ – there are many iterations of birth control for women to explore but other than condemns and vasectomies, no birth control pill for men. Go figure.

Yet, despite the fact women continue to experience workplace discrimination all around the globe as well as horrors such as genital mutilation in some parts of the world along with a lack of access to education, health care and more, we have come a long way baby.

And there’s so much further to go.

‘Cause here’s the thing. Baby-boomer women have been leading the charge on creating radical change all over the world for generations. And we’re still doing it as we enter our Third Acts.

We may be getting older but we’re not hanging up our shingles and putting our feet up as we pass the baton to our younger sisters.

We are still making waves, rocking boats and rocking chairs and standing up for those whose voices have been silenced beneath the yoke of patriarchy and discrimination.

We’re still marching. Maybe not as fast, but we’re still marching and demanding change.

Like Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks.

Yesterday, I re-watched her 2017 TEDTalk – Let’s End Ageism. I write ‘re-watch’ because I had seen it before and remember thinking, WOW! I must remember to not buy into the stereotypes of ageism.

And then I forgot. Not because my mind is slipping (rates of dementia are falling all over North America so it’s only a slim possibility I’ll succumb). But here’s the thing. It’s probably one of my biggest fears. That I’ll lose my cognitive abilities.

Go figure. If I hadn’t re-watched Applewhite’s TEDTalk, my fear might have overtaken my common sense.

I am getting older. It doesn’t mean I’m going to fall apart, lose my independence, memory, physical or cognitive capacity. It means all of that will keep changing, adapting, evolving — as life does. It also means… I have an opportunity to live agefully — and that’s what I plan on doing.

In her energizing TEDTalk Applewhite says, “It is not having a vagina that makes life harder for women. It’s sexism. It’s not loving a man that makes life harder for gay guys. It’s homophobia. And it is not the passage of time that makes getting older so much harder than it needs to be. It’s ageismm.”

Hell ya.

So here’s to my wrinkles. My sagging skin and my lapses in memory. It’s not age that makes them hard to see or appreciate or even accept.

It’s ageism and the fact that my entire life, and yours, and all of society, we have been bombarded messaging that says, “Nobody wants to get old. Getting old is … ugly. Hard. Difficult. To be avoided at all costs (so buy our products so you can defer signs of ageing).”

Here’s to women like Ashton Applewhite who are shining a light on not just how deeply embedded in our psyche and society ageism is, but who are also putting out a call for all of us to rise up, however we can, and raise our voices and consciousness so that we no longer accept discriminatory practices, politics and policies that deem older people as ‘burdens’ on society. It’s time to reframe aging as a time in our lives to celebrate our growth, our wisdom, our beauty in all its many facets and to see it as the gift of life that makes our Third Act a time of Purpose. Passion. Promise.

I do hope you take the 11 minutes to watch the video. It might just change your life, or at least how you look at the wonders of your body as it carries you successfully into your Third Act.

This post is also in response to the weekly prompt at Eugi’s Causerie — Celebration!

It was just… one of those…

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Drives. Yup. Just one of those drives that took way longer than anticipated. Even the lady in my navigation system who talks me into going places I’ve never been before didn’t know where we were going. She was so lost she led me down a road and told me to turn right when I reached the main highway — except, the road she led me down no longer has access to the main highway.

The south west quadrant of our city is under major road construction as they complete the last leg of the ringroad — which means…. directions, road access, signage… it’s all iffy! When I finally got to the highway (after many unnecessary extra kilometers) she still didn’t like the direction I was going and insisted I pull a ‘legal U-turn. Except, I was on the right highway, going in the right direction to get to Vale’s Greenhouse in Black Diamond, the site of the art show where my art is on display for sale this weekend.

I write it as ‘my art on display for sale’ as one of the things I mis-read in the instructions letter Vale’s had sent was the fact that artists are not actually in attendance at the show.

Due to Covid — capacity limits on the number of people in attendance are too low if all the artists are onsite. So… the show is on display, without artists.

I didn’t realize/connect to that reality until I was leaving after spending the day setting up. When the manager of the Greenhouse asked if I was not selling the three paintings I was taking back to my car, I said, “I don’t have enough room for them so thought I’d just leave them in the car and bring them in when space permits over the weekend.”

That’s when I realized my misconception.

It’s the same way they ran the show last year – and it went well so I’m not worried. Just a tad disappointed as it really is fun to be onsite and chat with people as they wander through the art.

Lady in Red – mixed media on canvas board, 11 x 14″

There was a woman yesterday who insisted she was coming back on Friday to buy my Lady in Red painting. And, several people did take poems from my Poetry in a Basket display — so I’m pretty pumped!

And, I have to say this — the show is absolutely gorgeous! I was too tired at the end of the day to do a slow walk around the greenhouses and plan on doing so tomorrow when I go back as a ‘customer’ – I also wanted to pick up some plants so it’s quite legit!

There are some incredible artists in the show and seeing all the work amidst the greenery and flowers is stunning.

And none of it matters. The getting lost. The tiredness. The did I forget anything worries nor the oh dear… I misread the directions angst.

In the end, my little greenhouse corner looks great and I have done something I’ve wanted to do — be part of the Vale’s Greenhouse Cultivation of Art Show and Sale. Yipppeee!!!

And here is a little video of my corner of the greenhouse.

Poetry in a Basket

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“Poetry … is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.” — Salvatore Quasimodo, from a speech in New York, quoted in The New York Times. 

— Salvatore Quasimodo, from a speech in New York, quoted in The New York Times. 

As I’ve been getting ready for the Vale’s Cultivation of Art Show and Sale this weekend, I was working on two things to have as an offering – one to give to patrons who buy my work. The other to have as a give away to anyone passing by.

The first was easy. I love making bookmarks so have created a stack of them to have on hand.

The second I struggled with. And then, yesterday afternoon, while I finished off getting a couple of pieces ready for sale, the idea came to me.

Poetry in a Basket

I have oodles of poems I’ve written over the years. They’re stored on my computer, in journals, on scraps of paper beside my bed or scribbled in the margins of a book.

Why not inspire acts of poetry by offering passers-by the opportunity to ‘pick a poem, any poem’ from my basket?

I am both artist and writer, creative imaginer and poet. Why not showcase my ‘other side’ along with my art?

And thus… Poetry in a Basket was born.

As I watched the final feature presentation of the THIRD ACTion Film Fest last night (it was AMAZING btw – the whole Film Fest. Kudos to founder and president of the festival Mitzi Murray and her team), I sat in the chaise beside my desk and rolled and tied-up poems to be put in the basket. I figure, if people can knit and crochet while watching a film, why not roll-up poetry? And the film, One Careful Owner, was the perfect inspiration for my random acts of poetry.

Poet Lucille Clifton wrote, “Poetry is a matter of life, not just language.”

Art is a matter of life becoming visible through the hands and eyes and words and bodies of the painter, sculptor, weaver, writer, architect, gardener, chef, dancer, actor, film-maker…

We are artists. All of us. It’s the mediums we employ and deploy to tell our stories that differs.

And for me, those mediums include both visual and written pieces.

Sooo…

Poetry in a Basket – A Gift of Words to inspire, awaken, challenge, move and motivate you into becoming the poet and the poem in your own life.

And now… I’m off to finish getting ready. I had noted my set-up time in my calendar as being Thursday afternoon. Yesterday morning, as I began to record my words for sale on the sheet to provide the organizers of the show, I realized I’d made a mistake — my set-up time is Wednesday afternoon.

I’ve got a lot to do between now and then….

I may or may not see you until I get to the other side next Monday.

But…. if you’re out and about in the Calgary area, this show is one of the most beautiful shows around. It’s spread throughout the greenhouses of Vale’s, along the Sheep River in Black Diamond. Seeing the art amongst all the flowers and plants is truly breath-taking. And there are weavers and jewelry-makers and potters and ceramics artists too, not just painters.

So… if you’re around Friday, Saturday or Sunday and looking for a lovely outing, do drop by!

Click HERE for details.