Catalyst Fifty-Four

Catalyst Fifty-Four

March 22, 2009, 8:10 am
Filed under: catalyst

 

As always, thank you to all of our visitors and all the encouraging comments you left for us. For those of you who did, thank you for playing along with us.

 

Ok! Here’s catalyst number fifty-four:

 

What’s something you wish you could do? (Something you know how but are too afraid to try.)

 

We’re so overjoyed to have Cathy Zielske as this week’s Guest Artist.

 

If you’ve been scrapbooking for any time at all, you must have heard of Cathy Zielske and if you haven’t, you’ll be glad you did now.

 

Cathy was the Art Director of Simple Scrapbooks Magazine (which has sadly just released its last issue). She has also authored two fantastic books Clean and Simple Scrapbooking and Clean and Simple Scrapbooking – The Sequal as well as contributing to many special editions put out by Simple Scrapbooking Magazine. She also used to write a fantastic column in Simple Scrabooking magazine called About Design. You can now download 2007 and 2008 archives of this column here. Cathy also teaches classes at Big Picture Scrapboooking. I took her “Design Your Life” class last year and it’s one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. You can now sign up for her new class Everyone Can Write a Little.

 

I can honestly go on and on about Cathy. How talented she is, how much I love her simple and authentic style, how good a teacher she is, etc. But, in my opinion, the best part of Cathy is her sense of humor. How witty and funny she is and how much she makes me laugh. You can get a great glimpse of her wonderful personality and find out a lot more about her by reading her awesome blog.

 

 

 

 

Here is Cathy’s art with this week’s catalyst. You can click on it to see a larger version with more detail.

 

 

 

Journaling Reads:

One of my biggest fears—aside from someone I love dying, or me dying, or you dying, or someone you know dying—is the fear of success. I know I shouldn’t fear Success. Success is good. It’s a tricked out bus that rolls into town and everyone who paid for a ticket is in love with you, and everything that you’ve done to achieve this phenomenal state of being. But I fear it, because sitting right in the front, is the big, bad-assed chickie called ‘Failure.’ And Failure takes up more than one seat on the bus. In fact, she takes several. And she makes sure you are fully aware that you get off when SHE pulls the cord. Not the other way around. In effect, the fear of Failure exerts a certain pressure over you to just stay in your seat. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t change places with anyone. And always, and I mean always get off at the appropriate stop.

 

I fear standing up on the bus, and saying, “Sorry. I’m getting off right here, because I’ve got some serious shit to do.” The thing is, Failure, as I’ve found, isn’t that devastating, and I always, always emerge with something new. Something of value. Something to help guide my way. So why is that so hard for me to embrace?

 

Right now, I’m trying to just stand up, pull the cord, and get off. And I’m trying really hard to believe it’s the right choice.

 

Technique Highlight:

The only techniques were to hit the photos with a few Totally Rad Actions, from TRA 2, The Revenge set. The rest of the page was built using Adobe Indesign, as most of my pages are.

 

 

Thank you so much Cathy; we’re so very honored.

 

 

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Here are some interpretations of the catalyst from members of our team.

 

Lia:

Lia Says:

I like to see myself as someone who can sew. I’ve got a pretty impressive collection of yummy fabrics, and I do have some basic skills on the sewing machine. But I haven’t been able to commit to that vision of myself. I get very inspired by people like Amy Butler and Heather Bailey – they who can whip up such gorgeous sewing projects. I wish I could be like them. I suppose it’s something that I would have to work on … but somehow I have a feeling that no matter how much work I put in it, I would never be a Amy Butler. I’ll always be a wannabe.

 

Technique Highlight:

As this layout is about me wanting to sew great like Amy Butler, I added sewing elements into the project – buttons, fabrics and pins. I also stitched on the Amy Butler fabric cutout to emphasize the ‘sewing feel’. The stitching was also done around the patterned paper in the background.

 

 

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Karen:

Karen Says:

This one was easy for me. I’ve always always always wanted to be a published author. Fiction. Reading has always been and will always be my number one passion in the world and I’ve always dreamt of being one of those authors on people’s shelves. I have started several novels and have done a lot of writing over the years but I have never taken it all the way. Never fully finished, edited, and sent out a book to a publisher. In the last six years, I have mostly stopped writing altogether but I still think of it from time to time and the desire to become a published writer has not subsided one little bit.

 

Why is this in a binder?

 

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Dedra:

 

Journaling Reads:

Afraid! I would love to have contracts with boutiques to sell the minibooks I design….I know I could do it….I’m SO shy and afraid….Maybe I’m afraid of success? Now the questions is how to move past the fear and go forward toward a dream….Taking the chance!

 

 

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Severine:

Severine Says::

I really want to ride a horse but I’m terribly afraid.

 

 

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Debee:

 

Debee Says:

I love reading devotions based on the Bible written by Beth Moore. The actual journaling is from a page in one of her book of devotions. I’m learning to grow my faith. It’s a life lesson I wish I could learn with more progress. Without fear. At times I feel as if I need more patience with myself to do that. But I’m thankful that my faith in God remains true. It is something that despite wanting to learn to excel in other areas of my hobbies, I find I long to learn to live my faith a daily reminder. This in the end will outlast any art I ever make. And that is what makes it much more worthwhile 🙂

 

 

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Larissa:

 

Larissa Says:

I wish I could have the courage to go skydiving. I would love the free fall and the adrenaline!

 

 

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Now it’s your turn: show us your therapeutic art around “What’s something you wish you could do? (Something you know how but are too afraid to try.)” I urge you to give it a try. This was a particularly healing catalyst for our team, I hope it will prove to be that way for you, too. Embrace the healing power of art. It can be any form of art as long as it speaks to you.

 

Leave us comments with your work and you will qualify for the RAK we offer to a random participant. If you don’t have a community or blog where you upload photos, you can upload them on our flickr group.

 

 

Remember, this is not a competition. If your art makes you feel even a bit better at the end, you’ve won.

 

Until next week, enjoy each and every moment.

 

 

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