Life is a Verb, Art is a Shovel

I photographed my new copy of Life is a Verb on the stool where my butt should be. On Patti Digh's site, 37 days, there are photos of people with the book in various settings, all demonstrating how the book is having an impact on their lives. I agree that life is a verb, must be a verb; I have always said love is a verb - didn't I have a post with that title? And, in reading the introductory pages and deeper, into the aptly titled, "Inhabit Your Story," which is  Part One,  I think that this book may indeed possess the motivation factor. 

Not that motivation is missing, more like time, well, energy time  when I can create. But it's more than just time. Yesterday, when I sat and looked at what I was working on, and compared it to the projects I most want to tackle, there was a gulf, a wide yawning space between the hands functioning, pasting, cutting, painting, and the heart that wants to scream, make itself known.

I love my art groups and every swap in which I've partaken. I have an invaluable collection of art pieces from buddies around the country, and I wouldn't have them if not for the connections of the art group. But, I'm cheating myself if I stop there, and resist going into the murky water beneath the current. 

So, I'm going to take my own advice and pick my journal back up (I've been keeping a written journal for 30 years, but doing art on the pages is kinda new) and use it as a shovel. Dig, deep, unearth those longings that have remained voiceless, unheard, in favor of the swaps and challenges that have stretched my artistic range, but not touched the images that haunt my dreams, float along like clouds hugging a deep blue sky, balloons with long, long strings that reach down into that place where the raw emotion lives. Life is a verb, so I'm going to go and do. Later.