The Studio Monster

Cleaning up my studio intimidates me today - well, every day.

It's full of stagnant work. What do I do with it? Toss it? Pile it for later? Tear out the parts I like?

And then there's the issue of bugs. Several months back, my home was inumdated with spiders and roaches of various sizes, shapes and colors. I've sprayed and have been quite comfortable inhabiting the rest of the rooms in the house.

And I have quite a collection of finished work. Work that needs to move along. I have an Etsy account. Is it worth the trouble to organize my work, photograph it and sell it off? I guess the other option would be Goodwill and somehow that doesn't quite fit.

I do need to conquer my fear.

Head em up, move em out.

My creativity tank has been sitting on empty for the past couple of months. I have excused myself from the world of art due to the excessive strain placed on my creativity by teaching 630 art students each week. Excuses, excuses! No more. Time to move along, Cassidy.

My Art "to do" list:
1. Clean up the studio
2. Use the raw wool to make a hat.
3. Sew sweater blanket.
4. Continue with art journal.
5. Go on an art outing with myself.

Church

I visited church today. We (KC, Jerry and I) have been planning to do this for the last several weeks. It's time to meet new people.
Everything was fine - until we pulled in the parking lot. At that point, I pulled up my walls and ducked deep inside myself. Thoughts rolled around like: "too many people," "I don't know any of these people," "everyone's SO young."
Off we went. People said hi. They were all so close. Claustrophobia set in. I just wanted to watch. Where's my robe of invisibility? Who are these people? What do they think of me? All my senses were on alert. Everything was new.
The service was fine. Except the chairs. They were little and quite far apart. I was afraid that I would find the floor before I found the chair. Now why did I want to come to church? ah, to meet people - which I am afraid to speak to.
Next week, I have a deal with KC and Jerry. They can talk to whomever they like and I will people watch.
http://www.gracechurchsc.org/downtown-campus/

Extend

I'm still getting used to the idea that most people are able to extend grace because they have been given grace.

Yesterday, my sister showed up at my house in tears, hurting. Blistered by the tediousness of life and the salt of unkindness rubbed into the wound. The people surrounding her for the next nine months live in a paradigm of law. The system bends for no one. People forget how to extend grace or even a sliver of kindness when all they're handed is the law and its consequences.

I know. I was there both as a student and as faculty. It's easy to get caught up in the beauty of a black and white world. I found myself addressing every slight misdemeanor, anything that bordered on gray. I forgot how to extend grace. My peers seldom expressed it to each other, let alone to a student. It just wasn't done. God is holy. He is black and white. Banish the gray! became the unspoken motto. War rhetoric surfaced in our conversations.

Step outside the paradigm of the law to look inside. It's all so confusing. What's the big fuss over? Mountains arising from molehills. Redwoods being ignored in favor of splinters.

Oh, to step back from it all. Look up. Look around. Breathe in the multicolored breath of grace.

Relationship

So, I've been thinking about this thing called relationship. How do you find them? Not necessarily the dating kind, just a friend. It almost seems as though I need to join a club of some sort to have an automatic "in" with a group of people. But then that doesn't automatically create relationship either. Consider church: similar to a club, group of people with common interests, participating in group activities, and still overflows with loneliness. I have spent the majority of my life in christian circles: schools, church, family and friends. I can count on one hand the number of people out of those groups I would consider to be real-honest-to-goodness-come-through-in-the-darkest-part-of-the-night kind of friends.
So, how do I find friends? Strike up random conversations in the grocery store? Look for a ministry of some kind? Hang out in a chat room?
I'm just talking out of the smallness of my relational circle. Musing.

Driving Home

I went furniture shopping the other day. Four stores in a two hour time block. I know exactly what I'm looking for, the problem is that my friends can't remember the where they bought the sofa they gave me. The sofa I want an exact replica of. Creamy white, curved, overstuffed sectional. Not too big, not too small, just right, only the fabric is beginning to desintigrate after years of loving.
All those showrooms must have gone to my head, because I couldn't seem to get into the right lane to access the interstate and get home. Do I want to go North or South? Spartanburg or Columbia? By the time I figured it out, it was too late. I was doomed to continue heading into the evils of Friday afternoon shopping traffic. Two red lights later (the same red light, mind you), I turned into a shopping center to turn around. Stopped in a store for 2 minutes. Nothing was on sale, so I kept moving. This time, I knew that I needed to be in the right hand lane to access the interstate. I never made it. All the sudden I found myself back at the entrance to the shopping center, in the left hand turning lane. (No, there was no alchohol involved, just me in all my glory) While waiting for the light, I spoke with myself, argued with myself, berated myself and still don't know how I got myself in such an amazing situation.