A friend showed me the lovely art book Fire and Shadow on “spirituality in contemporary Australian art.” I particularly liked Inga Hunter and Kate Brison reminded me of Louise Bunn’s art. Then, I noticed the publication date was 1996 and so rather hesitantly googled the names. Are they still on the planet, let alone still in Australia?
Answer: yes, and so I’m enjoying “meeting” them online and seeing what the past 20 years has meant for them.
A friend gave me a datebook and a note titled “the gift of mental health” for Christmas (actually Solstice/Yule). (Yes, she’s a therapist and no, I wasn’t the only one she gave this to).
The technique she said was simple and she professed it was the “winner” of all happiness strategies.
You record three things that went well that day every day. The explanation included it didn’t even have to be anything you were responsible for. I’m keeping the datebook and a pen beside my bed and most days I remember to write in either at night or in the morning. But a lot of things have been going well — so well I forgot to write — and so last night I reminisced over the previous few days and found it easy to recall three things that went well for those days I’d missed.
It doesn’t take much time and I’m finding easier to think of three things that went well than things I’m grateful for –although it’s not really all that different. So this morning I wanted to share it with friends and so I google searched “mental health happiness went well”. Here’s one of the blog posts I found with lots of footnotes, in case you’d like to try it out.
I bought an Asus Transformer last January and we haven’t had a good relationship. I’ve lost 2 (really!) power chargers and recently was sure it wasn’t recharging – and didn’t use it for months till a technically-oriented friend got it going again. He politely said maybe it had to be charged directly through the tablet (which he did not knowing I usually charged through the keyboard).
More than anything I’ve just had a hard time adjusting to the Android operating system which I know many people love and also the tiny keyboard (I can type really, really fast on a “normal” keyboard).
Now it’s working again, I decided we might work together better if I named it. In case you don’t know, the transformer looks like a little netbook until you pull it apart and it becomes a tablet (read: “iPad”.) The cool thing is that each part charges up and the keyboard operates a bit like an extra battery. And although I may complain about the small keyboard, it *is* a keyboard at least!
I have decided to name it after the Ravens in Norse mythology:
In Norse mythology, Huginn (from Old Norse “thought”[1]) and Muninn (Old Norse “memory”[2] or “mind”[3]) are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring the god Odin information. (Click here for more from wikipedia including images.)
Messing with Norse mythology might be risky, but since I’ve been incorporating (in-crow-porating) corvids into my artwork for quite some time and I have sunglasses from Corvus Fittings (gift from son), I’m hoping it’ll be a creative and respectful relationship. Stay tuned.
I love seeing what other people do with the things I collect and share at collage workshops. Three entirely different approaches to collage today.
Adult Religious Education Brochure
The adult religious education brochure is out including my workshops:
MBTI(C) Step II
Kinderg ART en for Adults
Monsters to scribble over or with from The Scribble Book published by The Tate
It’s great to do a degree in Art Education: You get to go back and do all the things children do that you might not have enjoyed as much the first time around. I was terribly inhibited about anything other than numbers and letters. My older sisters had “played school” with me, and I’d been an apt learner. But I got used to being at the top of the class, and they hadn’t bothered to do art, music and physical ed with me.
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