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 one hundred and twenty-six:
Tell us about a time someone hurt your feelings.
We’re thrilled to have Lori Oles as this week’s Guest Artist.
Here’s a quickie self-bio for Lori:
Suit by day, artist by night. If you met Lori at her day job you would never imagine she had such a creative personality. As a full-time worker in the retail industry for a major Consumer Packaged Goods company, Lori’s day is spent dealing with large sums of money and many, many spreadsheets. But her creative juices are only temporarily bottled up inside. Once she gets home she pours out all of her creative juices into her blog.
And Vintage Flair isn’t just the name of her blog; it’s the inspirational mantra of her artwork, Etsy store and her life. Lori loves to work with vintage papers and old photos of children, and her desire for flea markets runs rampant in her blood. She also drives to impart some of this principle into her children, “I want them to grow up to appreciate items of the past.”
Even though she may live in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her husband and three children, Lori dreams of the times they spend in northern Michigan at their summer cottage house. Not only does it mean peace and quiet and time spent with family, but it also means great antique shops, “It is not a vacation if you can’t bring home a new treasure,” she says. Lori Oles uses her art as her relaxation and escape from the pressures of full-time work.
Make sure to check out Lori’s blog and etsy shop.
Here is Lori’s art with this week’s catalyst. You can click on it to see a larger version and a lot more detail.
Lori Says:
Looking back when I was little, as a child I had so many friends growing up. As you get older, true friendship seems harder and harder to hold on to. Sure I have many friends, co-workers or women in my neighborhood, but I don’t have that many true friends that I can really rely on….no matter what. One friend who I really thought was more than a friend, I really thought of her like a sister. Sadly, we no longer talk and it still really hurts. As you get older, people drift way, move or get divorced and your friendships suddenly change. My dear friend got divorced and suddenly our friendship changed. Going from talking on the phone two to three times a day and emailing everyday (we live in different states) to one day, no longer calling or emailing. Just stopped like that. Bam, in the blink of an eye, my dear friend gone, taken out of my life. I think I must be a reminder her of her past life and she just needed to move on. Not sure. Still very sad and I miss my friend.
When I saw this image of this woman looking so sad, I thought of my situation with my friend. I immediately knew at the flea market that I wanted to create a project when I bought this pink vintage jewelry box and I thought it would be perfect to use with the image of the woman. I wanted to use it as a holder for the collage to represent that chapter of my life closed. Who knows, maybe one day she will be back in my life and I can open it back up. For now, I will tuck it away and keep it closed.
Technique Highlight:
I created this collage using multiple layers of book pages that I took out of an old book and gluing them together. I used a craft knife to cut out the window and added in the image of the woman and embellished the collage and vintage jewelry box.
Here are some interpretations of the catalyst from members of our team.
Dina:
Dina Says:
My journaling is about a certain incident that happened with a friend of mine. Months have passed, and just when I think I’m past it all, something happens that makes it raw again.
Karen:
Journaling Reads:
There are many moments from my past that I can dredge up with sadness or hurt but I decided from now on the path is about looking forward and freeing myself of the idea that things can happen to me. I control my emotions and my life. People cannot hurt me if I don’t let them and I choose joy and not hurt. So here’s to being free and letting go of the past and embracing joy.
Wendela:
Wendela Says:
When I was young, I think at the age of 6 my mom sewed all my dresses and skirt, and a really LOVED them. It was a romantic style, with roses and other flowers combined with handmade crafty things like knitted or crochet bags or sometimes she crochet the upper part of my dresses. I was always happy when she finished something new for me, and I was so proud when I went to school with my new dresses…
But one bad day…the kids at school teased me with my dressed… you are ugly and what terrible clothes…they are old fashioned, and ugly!!
They hurt my feelings…and I didn’t want to wear my dresses when I went to school! My mom bought jeans for me, my first pair!!
What a big lesson for me for these days; my daughter become a teenager, she is 11 years now, end she doesn’t want hand sewed clothes!! So I buy clothes for her, and sew for myself!!
Anna:
Anna Says:
When I was a child and a teenager I was totally shy. I had problems with making friends with other people, I used to spend most of my free time alone, reading books or imaging stories. It was quite ok for some time, but I strongly felt, that I want to have a friend. Finally i found a girl who was quite friendly and we started to spend more time toghether – at school and after school. It was fantastic and so different! I had someone to talk to, someone a bit like me – with similar interests. We were good friends for over a year when something very unexpected happened… One day I was waiting for her near the street, as usual when we were going to school together. She was coming with one more girl, who i knew well. I said “Hi!”, but none of them responded, they didn’t look at me at all!
I simply couldn’t believe it – and she just went away without a look back. I thought: “So this is the end, right?” , I turned back and went home, crying. I didn’ go to school that day. I was 12 then and I felt as If my whole world turned upside down. I was never so sad before.
Larissa:
Anna Says:
This page is about a certain time when someone hurt me by not believing in my dreams, by not giving me the support I needed to follow the journey of my soul.
Now it’s your turn: show us your therapeutic art around “Tell us about a time someone hurt your feelings.” I urge you to give it a try. It can be any form of art as long as it speaks to you.
Leave us comments with your work so we can share in your creative therapy, too. 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.
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 one hundred and twenty-five:
Write a love letter.
We’re thrilled to have Lori Portka as this week’s Guest Artist.
Here’s a quickie self-bio for Lori:
I am an artist, doing what I love, in hope of spreading a little happiness around. I believe in loving kindness. I am trying to be as authentically me as possible. I am mostly sweet and compassionate and learning to say “no” when “yes” does not feel right and accept (and even embrace) the non-optimistic, angry, spitfire part of myself. I travel as much as possible. I love animals with all my heart. ./p>
Make sure to check out Lori’s blog and her site
and she also has an etsy shop.
Here is Lori’s art with this week’s catalyst. You can click on it to see a larger version and a lot more detail.
Lori Says:
My friends and have a birthday tradition that we have been doing for almost ten years. On the friend’s birthday, we say what we love about the friend and one wish for her. It is always the sweetest gift. I was thinking about that when I started this painting of a love letter to my husband. But once I started creating, the painting took on a life of it’s own. I think this painting was also inspired by my dear friend, Elle, who when I tell her I love her, she says, “I love you more.”
Technique Highlight:
I am a mixed-media artist. I use gloss medium and a foam brush to adhere various handmade and tissue papers to the board or canvas. Then I draw and cut out the subjects of the painting and paint over the entire canvas with acrylics and gouache.
Here are some interpretations of the catalyst from members of our team.
Dina:
Dina Says:
This page is an expression of love to my sweet husband. We’ve been married for 20 years this December. I appreciate his support, his goodness, and his friendship.
Karen:
Journaling Reads:
My love letter went to my husband for father’s day. It was long and deep and I worked hard to express the depth of my love and gratitude for him. I love and adore my husband and the life we’ve created together. I consider myself very very lucky. And I wanted him to know this. I made this little card and put my letter inside the card. On the back, I stamped “love.”
Opal:
Opal Says:
As I tried out different paths for this catalyst, first writing a love letter to my beautiful Madrona tree, and then to my cat, Kitty Boy, and numerous other objects of my affections, I kept coming back to a song that rings true in my heart every time I hear the words…even just the tune…simple words that say…”You are the sun in my sky, the light in my day, and you’ll never know how much I love you….” I have been working with triangles on another project, so these were perfect to configure my sun. The background is batik, the quilting in gold thread, and the words stamped on linen.
Wendela:
Wendela Says:
I wrote my text on a hidden tag…a love letter to my sweet daughter!!
Amy:
Amy Says:
The story (and song) of an unlikely pair: the goldfinch and the chicken.
Anna:
Anna Says:
My love letter is addressed to my husband and my best friend in one. I’m not good at writting poetry or emotional texts, so I decided to express my feelings using scraps from old magazines… and I really like the effect! The text says: What really happened? Should I wait a bit more? Am I sure? Love had smelled like vanilla. Compromise from the first sight. What next? You forget to tell that you love. I love the person who you will be in the future.
Now it’s your turn: show us your therapeutic art around “Write a love letter.” I urge you to give it a try. It can be any form of art as long as it speaks to you.
Leave us comments with your work so we can share in your creative therapy, too. 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.
creative Therapy 