Web fun: Paintings, jewels, creativity, and haikus!

Oh my, do I ever owe I a blog post! I’ve never owed a blog post more than I do now… First of all, I’ve just tarnished Sarah’s future enjoyment of The Sound of Music (I thought everyone knew that joke!), so I need to redeem myself. And there’s also the fact that a week of extreme pain followed by a week of extreme recovery pain left me sleeping most of the day simply so I could not feel pain while dreaming led me to abandon all blogging. Whoops — but at least I learned a good lesson: never allow your wisdom teeth to wage war shortly before New Year’s, as all dentists will be closed and you’ll just have to suffer and bear with it until they’re open again.

Though I wasn’t exactly in the mood to write something profound (or not profound, whichever the case may have been), I did spend a good amount of time browsing Web sites and discovering new fun! I’d like to share three of my findings with this here Indyish community… Who knows, maybe you’ll discover a new bookmark somewhere in this list!

First, there’s the awesome artist discovery. This is Jessica Gorlicky of Toronto, Ontario and her paintings and her jewelry collection. I came across these sites through a friend (okay, fine, her Facebook page) and WOW — this gal can paint! I’ve been having a love affair with all things brightly coloured for the past few years (and I think this trend might continue), so you’d better believe that as I browsed through Jessica’s paintings displayed online — and oohed and aahed and laughed and smiled and cried — I wanted to sell everything I owned just so I could buy as many as possible. These colours! When I’m looking at Jessica’s work, I see such joy on the canvas. Such strong, beautiful, feminine emotions expressed in such a beautiful way.

And there’s Jessica’s jewelry collection, JessGo Jewels. While my go-go-go lifestyle and serious yoga practice might deter me from wearing such lovely pieces, there’s no reason I can’t ogle them from a safe distance. What I love about Jessica’s necklaces is how varied they are, from simpler monotone beads to massive, multi-coloured, light-shines-through-them gems. 

While Jessica is hosting an invitation-only exhibit of her new 2008 collection at the beginning of February (in Toronto)… BUT she’s also going be participating in the Toronto Art Expo at the beginning of March. So if you leave in or near Toronto, check her out! If not… enjoy the sites. Or plan a road trip.

Next, there’s the goofy-yet-poetic Ramen Haikus. This may be a little ridiculous following several paragraphs about a serious artist with brilliant work, but we all need a little silliness in our lives (at least I think so). Plus, I firmly believe that practicing the art of composing haikus — or other poetry with similar form constraints — is an exercise both in expanding your artistic horizons and practicing a form of meditation. Have you ever read a haiku and then stopped everything to ponder its meaning, its sound, in the silence? If not, perhaps some silly haikus dedicated to ramen noodles (which was the closest thing to solid food that I could eat for some time!) might be easier to start with. Go on, find my haiku and compose your own!

Finally, a discovery that’s not really a discovery but quite a fun coincidence! It’s always seemed to me that everywhere I go in the artistic community, there are at least a few raving about The Artist’s Way. I’ve actually read some other Julia Cameron works, but never The Artist’s Way! And I knew, instinctively, that this was a book for me. Yet the years passed by…

Luckily, while I was stir-crazy from resting after my gum surgery, I had a few gift certificates from the holidays to play with. Maybe it was the painkillers, or maybe I really did get smart by going back to school, but I included the book in my order and got it a few days later. A few days after that… the lovely Kimberly of TranquiliT and Tranquil Space Yoga in Washington, DC, posted on her blog that she wants to lead a group through the book’s “creative recovery” program! For me, this is so perfect, because winter and Lise don’t mix and I often need some serious inspiration — or a serious being-thrown-out-a-moving-car-type-push — to get anything done during winter.

I’m on board with the group and once we start, I’ll be posting my updates here, hopefully with fun things we can all learn (or just need to remember)!