The Circles of Life

An ARTsignment to try

July 18, 2015 By artellad

An ARTsignment is a project or exercise that uses creativity to provide valuable insight into your life. It is one of the core methods used in the ARTbundance approach to self discovery, which you can read about here.

1. To start, write down a question you have, something you’d like some insight around. An example might be: “What am I not seeing about my busy schedule? Is there a way I can shift things so I don’t feel so harried and pressured?”

2. Write down this phrase, in a fun, doodly way: “I am open to circles bringing me information and insight.” Decorate the letters and say the intention out loud. It might feel silly, but this part really helps.

3. Go on a circle search. Walk around your environment and look where you can find circles, especially hidden ones. You also can flip through a magazine or a book with a lot of visuals, and look for circles that way.

4. Whenever you see a circle, look closely at it. Observe it. Look for details you may not have seen. And check in with your intuition to see if there is a message for you here. Using the word, “Maybe…” is a helpful way to see possibilities that aren’t obvious.

The message might be something metaphorical or symbolic. Like:

I see the swirls in the sorbet. There is a way that they are blending together.

Perhaps I can do more blending of activities together.

Maybe I could exercise with a friend, to combine the act of exercise with the time of social connection.

Maybe there is a way to freeze time.

Maybe the way to do that is to put a hold on some activities, and see what that opens up.

Then later, when the calendar feels more spacious, those activities can “thaw” without any bad consequence.

What would it mean for me to believe this?

The message could be more direct and practical. For example:

I see circles on this Twister spinner. I wonder how I could use this. Could it become a tool for me?

Could I use this spinner as a tool to help me make everyday life feel more like a game?

Maybe I could spin the wheel to help me focus on one project or task at a time

Ah, there’s a circle in this picture of a sun. I am drawn to thinking of the sunrise and sunset as helpful ways for me to make the most of my days.

If I start and end strong, that will help strengthen the times in between.

Give it a circular swirl…what do you find?

3 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Use Play to Be More Productive and Creative

July 4, 2015 By artellad

I never planned to become an entrepreneur. I started Artella Land in 2002 as a fun hobby. It took off rather quickly, and I suddenly had a “business” on my hands. 13 years later, one of Artella’s main areas of service is inspiring creative entrepreneurs, and encouraging a more playful approach to work.

After all, in an entrepreneur’s busy life, it is easy to think of productivity and play as polar opposites, but when they come together, each becomes more vibrant. When we allow ourselves to feel playful, we connect to a sense of fun and flow, and what once felt like work becomes much easier. Similarly, when we bring a purpose to our play – when it becomes integrated into our business rather than just a mind-numbering activity at the end of the day – then we connect to our deeper sense of meaning in all we do.

Here are three easy ways to start using play to be more productive and creative:

1. Look at your relationships through a playful lens. Thinking of business meanings as play dates, and collaborators, team members, colleagues, and clients as playmates can enhance the productivity of business events and relationships. In the study of child development, different types of play are identified as being important, and these definitions can help us improve our business relationships. For example: rough-and-tumble playmates are those with whom you can toss and tumble with new ideas; celebratory playmates are there to be your cheerleaders and champions; belonging playmates know first-hand what you are experiencing and can normalize and empathize with your process; cooperative playmates work together to organize themselves in roles for a common goal. Even the perception of entrepreneurial competition can be reframed. It’s well documented that children need “parallel play” experiences, playful alongside others while remaining engrossed in one’s own activity. Try thinking of your competitors as parallel playmates, and see how this shift opens doors to new possibilities and potential.

Furthermore, just as children use imaginary friends to fill important roles or empty spots in their lives, entrepreneurs can create imaginary friends: individuals and idols – living or dead – who can step into the roles not be filled by your team or advisors at present. In your imagination or perhaps writing and sketching in a journal or planner, you can summon this group of imaginary friends to a board meeting of your business. Ask them about your current challenges, get their advice, and come away with new ideas for further exploration and implementation.

2. Use words playfully and powerfully. The words we use to describe our daily tasks and business goals hold a lot of power. You can shift the energy of any unsavory task by engaging in a bit of simple word play to change the word into something that makes you smile. My client Karen was procrastinating the task of studying a set of video tutorials, so I suggested renaming “tutorials” to become “tuliporials.” Having landed on this new name, she suddenly saw many possibilities: buying tulips to put by her computer; letting herself “tiptoe” through the material, going easy on herself rather than stomping through it; taking time to stop and smell each tulip as she went through the modules. The work itself didn’t go away – but the energy shifted to something that felt fun. Suddenly she was looking forward to the once-dreaded tutorials, and work felt a lot more like play.

Try this for yourself. Write down one word that sums up something you’d like to make more fun. See what other words you are reminded of. It helps to look for the rhymes syllable by syllable. For example, if I have an organizational project, some playful possibilities to transform the word “organize” include orcanize, which reminds me that yes, I can do this; orcansighs, which reminds me that this can be relaxing, and smorgasbordanize, which might mean laying it all out visually to show the deliciousness in its variety.

3. Add elements of play in your environment. We become more aware of the presence of play by having playthings around us. Give yourself a treasure hunt to find retired toys in thrift stores, garage sales, and sometimes even in your own drawers and closets. Paying attention to toys — and actually playing with them – focuses our minds to think playful thoughts, and perhaps revisit the kinds of toys we enjoyed as children. Our favorite toys or playful games as children offer many clues to the types of play that will help us most in our grown-up productivity. Think of toys you loved from your childhood and a message those toys might bring you today. Perhaps a memory of playing jacks might remind you of the importance of coordination, rhythm, skill building, and appreciation for design. A memory of a Tiny Tears baby doll might represent the importance of supporting the vulnerability of your clients and customers.

When it comes to the intersection of play and productivity, the secret is quite simple: what moves us is what moves us, which simply means what moves us emotionally is what moves us to action. This is why play helps us be productive. Play is many, many things, but it is never still, stuck, or stagnant; it somehow always moves. So when it comes to being more productive, play works.

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Take the Hop, Skip, Jump quiz to find out your primary manifestation type at http://www.artellaland.com/play.html

Seeing in the Dark

March 9, 2015 By artellad

Think of a time when you were sad, fearful, angry, lost, depressed, confused, or in a similar state of less-than-happy emotion. For the purpose of simplicity, we’ll call these types of experiences “dark times”.

And if you’re feeling that way now, think of a time when you felt worse than you do right now.

Now…can you remember what it like to get OUT of that state? What it felt like to feel better?

Maybe nothing comes to mind. But give it some time and see if you can remember some times in your life when you can remember coming out of a time of darkness to feel much better – even if it was just for a moment.

When you have recalled a memory of a “coming out of darkness” experience, do something to record it — write about it on a page in your journal, create a quick collage, or just write a quick sentence that sums it up.

This creation, whatever it is, can serve as an anchor for you the next time you face moments of darkness – reminding you that yes, you have been there before, and that you did emerge.

Here’s a piece I did to serve as a reminder of an emergence from darkness to light:

During the cave-like times, it always reminds me that there is more outside the cave. I remember, because I’ve been there before. This little painting helps me remember how good the sun feels on my neck when I climb out.

What helps you remember?

Being What You Love in Your Colorful Castle

March 2, 2015 By artellad

I often hear from artists who fear that the colorful castles in the sky from which they create will inevitably turn into dull and drab cubiclesque containers if they commit to being more visible and expansive with sharing and selling their creations. Basically, they are afraid to even try to make money from their art because they don’t want to end up hating or resenting it. Have you ever felt that way?

There’s a lot of talk about “earning money doing what you love”, but there’s less said about earning money while being what you love. Take a moment and answer this question: “What words most describe the ways you love to be?”

For me, some of the words that come to mind are: playful, joyful, silly, outrageous, daring, colorful, whimsical, bold, fantastical, meaningful, alive…

What words come up for you?

This is an inquiry that doesn’t get enough emphasis, especially in our very goal-oriented, doing-focused society. The traditional structures with which we are familiar are not inherently set up to create a template for being the things we love as we follow our creative dreams. Yet I believe not only is it possible to simultaneously do what we love and be what we love, in fact, one fuels the other. When we engage in a dream fully committed to be what we love, that solid commitment provides the momentum, motivation, and magic to help us do what we love. What we need are more tools and resources to help us know how to bring more beingness to the process…in short, how to make work feel like play.

We’ve already begun to see changes in the way that our society approaches work. As the economy moves up and down and people are expressing discontent in louder voices than ever, companies are trying new strategies for employee retention and performance improvement. On the individual level, there has never been a better time to step forward with new dreams, doing what you love and being what you love in new ways.

The people that are going to be the biggest catalysts of change will be the steadfast, nurturing weavers of wisdom, the illuminating, passionate painters of purpose, and the encouraging, persistent, handcrafters of hope, that one by one touch lives and inspire souls…and do it all from their colorful castles in the air.

If you could create in the colorful castle of your dreams…and dare to be doing what you love while being what you love, what do you see out your window?

Metaphors Never Lie

February 20, 2015 By artellad

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space”
– Orson Scott Card

When an experience is profound, words often feel so inadequate, and so we use metaphors to express what we mean.

But metaphors are more than just poetic descriptions of things. They can become powerful guides for living. In ARTbundance Coaching, we encourage clients to play with the metaphors, similes, and analogies to help see challenges in a new light.

For example:

What if this situation was an ocean? (How could I better ride out this situation, or appreciate its hidden power, or use its flowing nature?)

What if this project was a baby? (How could I better care for it, or appreciate the power of its yet unspoken words, or what could I learn from its pure heart?)

You can even get wild and throw in interesting adjectives, if you really want to get your mind stirring:

What if this challenge was purple? (How would I then think differently about it, how would it make me feel?)

What if this deadline was chatty? (What would it tell me? What would I tell IT? 🙂 What is its favorite song?)

Whenever you’re faced with a challenge, try opening up the situation to see what lessons are there in the metaphors you explore. A bad experience can be seen in a whole new life as you use metaphors to add new colors, textures, and depth to it.

Our lives are poetic novels, filled with the metaphors we choose, day by day, moment by moment.

What metaphor might YOU choice today?

Applications for ACT 14 are due Monday, February 23. Learn more here…

Make Your Own World

February 13, 2015 By artellad

Wallace Stevens wrote these words:

If you had to rewrite those words for yourself, what would you say?

There never was a world for me, except the one I _ and _, made.

There never was a world for me, except the one I painted and painting, made.

There never was a world for me, except the one I yoga-stretched, and in yoga-stretching, made.

There never was a world for me, except the one I connected and connecting, made.

There never was a world for me, except the one I mothered and mothering, made.

There never was a world for me, except the one I taught and teaching, made.

What is the thing that makes your world yours?

Play around with a few different words, filling in the blanks in Stephens’ quote, above. Look for the phrase that sinks down deep in your belly and gets you both a little nervous and a little excited.

Once you identify the word that holds your word, honestly ask yourself: am I doing it?

If your world is the one you are writing, are you writing? If not, how might you take one step towards writing your world.

Take a bold move toward creating the world that is made just for you.

After you create your statement, try illustrating it with your favorite art supplies. Turning an idea into art allows you to more fully absorb the concept and make it your own.

To summarize:

1. Complete your own phrase: There never was a world for me, except the one I _ and _, made.

2. Make a piece of art to illustrate it.

3. And now go make it happen!

Fall in love with the world you are making!

Join us for this free teleclass on Thursday, February 19!

http://www.artellaland.com/awe.html

The Chaos of Yes

January 6, 2015 By artellad

I recently led a Hop, Skip, Jump retreat in Portland. It was a wonderful weekend with women from across the country, coming together to playfully manifest.

This is a story about one of the activities that I led, with the held of Barbara Krauss.

We all stood in a circle, each with a ball of yarn in our hands, and then tossed the ball to someone else in the group, while finishing the phrase, “I am saying YES to _______________.”

After several go rounds, the goal was to then follow the ball of yarn to find your partner for the next exercise. Seems simple enough, and a fun kind of ice-breaker for connecting with your partner.

It didn’t end up working that way; the yarn was too tangled to easily find the partner. Yet it was just beautiful to see that tangled web in the middle of the circle, each of us holding a thread of it. It held our YESes.

We worked together to untangle. We moved slowly, we moved quickly, let go and held on. Eventually we stopped, and hung up the design in the window, a colorful web of light.

The “planned” partner activity gave way to something else…a moment of just being present. Nietzsche said “One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.”

How might you love the beauty of your tangles?

Art and Tell

December 18, 2014 By artellad

You may or may not know that the name “Artella” comes from the words “art” and “telling.” Combining words and art in a single creative work is my favorite kind of expression. Because I love words, I have always really admired lettering artists, who turn words into art. However, lettering arts – or even legible handwriting – has never been one of my creative skills. It’s always been something I’ve loved from the sidelines, fully convinced I could never do it.

Earlier this year, Angie Vangalis – one of my creative business clients in the Mapping and Mentoring program – was the organizer of an international lettering arts convention, and invited me to present some workshops on business-building and marketing. Letter Artists were there from all over the world, and it was amazing. I enjoyed teaching the workshops, but truthfully, what I really wanted to do was look at the portfolios of the students! I was completely inspired, and thoroughly intimidated.

This time, inspiration beat intimidation, and I took a deep breath and said, “Why not?” I came home from the amazing conference, got a few lettering books, and started playing. I used the books to get ideas – the most helpful ones to me were The Art of Whimsical Lettering by Joanne Sharpe and Zenspirations by Joanne Fink and – but mostly I’ve stepped away from books or instructions and just let myself play and have fun.

The most delightful thing about playing with a new art form is that everything feels different. I love that this kind of art truly is portable, and is something creative I can do when I’ve got 5 or 10 spare minutes. It also lends itself nicely to meaningful multi-tasking; it’s relaxing to color in letters to break up a mundane task, or while on a phone call.

I completed the holiday piece, above, in my hotel room at my recent trip to Portland – a little bit each night. And this one has been on my desk, getting little bits of attention each day. I love it, smears and all:

For so long, I carried an “I can’t do it” attitude about making beautiful letters. It was one of those things that other people could do, and not me. This belief really held me back. Gosh, I even remember my attempts to make handmade greeting cards: I’d paint watercolors and then try to add handwriting to them. But when it came to the lettering, I’d get so frustrated that I ended up tearing up and throwing away dozens of perfectly good watercolor designs!

Well this time, I trashed something else: that old “I can’t do this” belief.

Crumpled up, thrown in the trash can. For good.

From Busy to Blissy

November 21, 2014 By artellad

Our experiences with time are deeply embedded in our longstanding patterns and old stories and beliefs; sometimes these beliefs no longer serve us, and can benefit from a bit of updating. For example, this time of year, it’s easy to subscribe to the old belief that “the holiday season is too busy to get anything creative done”. Do you find yourself feeling this way?

I believe that the exact opposite is true, and we can actually benefit from the very full days in the upcoming holiday season. There is something about movement that literally moves us. You may have heard me share the story that the idea and initial plans for Artella came to me while recovering from a knee replacement, and learning to walk again for the first time in quite a while. I fully believe that something about that time of intense movement got other parts of my mind and soul moving as well, and propelled me into a trajectory I could have never guessed. I’ve noticed that it’s surprisingly common that when people start one of Artella’s business-building programs, they are in the midst of a physical move. Moving is magnetic for more movement!

Take a moment to think about how your creativity might actually benefit from the busy-ness of the holiday season. How might you harness the movement, joy, and mirth of the season and funnel that directly into your creativity.

If the idea of blending productive creativity with the joy of the season appeals to you, might you be interested in taking a look at the upcoming series, “Passionate Packages Tied Up with Strings”, which starts on Monday. When you sign up, you immediately get a KickStart package and instructions to send your product idea for me to review, prior to when the session begins next week. Let’s play with some of your “favorite things” and get them wrapped up and ready to sell! You can find all the details below.

It starts next week… five creative weeks to guide you through every step of creating an eBook that you can sell, which can become the basis of any product or event you want to launch… and yes, to even bring it to completion before the holidays! Get details about Passionate Packages Tied Up With Strings, here!

Finding peace through pieces: getting ready for Portland!

November 17, 2014 By artellad

I am getting ready to present a wonderful weekend of workshops in Portland, OR starting December 4 – the Hop, Skip, Jump ManiFestival!

One of the workshops is called:

Playing the Game of LIFE: Your Anti-Boredom Board Game for Miraculous Manifestation

In this workshop, each participant will be turning her business plan or life goals into an actual board game, playfully customized for her own goals and visions. I know I personally would much rather approach my goals with a game, rather than a serious strategy or an overwhelming list of things to do.

To prepare all the supplies for the workshop participants, I’m going through old stashes of game pieces and parts. Lots of them were garage sale and ebay finds I had gathered for use in mixed media art projects, and some of them are family games that lost too many pieces to be playable. Almost all of them have some kind of memory associated with it – either through actually playing with the piece or from an association with the game. As I’ve been sorting, I’ve been enjoying memories and also questioning metaphorical meanings the games might have for me today.

On Galveston Island, my family’s favorite vacation spot, there is a lovely little cafe called Board Game Island. It’s a coffee shop/casual cafe that has an open library of over 500 games on its shelves. You are invited to come, order some goodies to eat or drink, and then pull out a game and play. What strikes me about this place is that each time we’ve been, the clientele represents such a dynamic range. Families with young kids are seated next to high school kids, who are next to young couples who are probably on a date, who are next to a group of boisterous retirees, who are next to middle-aged professors. It’s like a social throwback, seeing all these different people from varied walks of the world, all enjoying the same basic activity…playing games!

To meet up with your own group of like-minded souls to create the game of your life…and have fun PLAYING…come join me in Portland!