WordPress has many helpful posts that enable a blogger like myself to see their evil ways. At the beginning of December, my intention was to catch up on all the changes, and helpful tips WordPress had to teach me. I’ve seen my evil ways…and now I want to change them! Well, it probably will happen a little at a time, since it takes me a “little time” to get it right!

I want this blog to reflect the thoughts, and ideas of a struggling mixed media artist, and blogger! At least I’d like to call myself an artist! Truthfully, I’m not really sure what to call myself; friend, sister, mother, grandmother, wife, artist, blogger, sick and tired! Or just plain crazy! All those things are true!

You call it what?

I’d like to call it the Stone Soup of life’s experiences, and the journey of creating art! That’s the closest I can come to describing the mix of thoughts, and ideas that go through my head. I’m most influenced by pretty much everything! Maybe that’s why they call it mixed media. Sometimes one needs to ponder the process, and sometimes one needs to dive in headfirst, all this ends up as the Stone Soup of art and life!

Here’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

After realizing how many of my friends are battling an illness, or have in the past battled an illness, so many thoughts enter my mind – horrible thoughts, funny thoughts, positive thoughts, dark and sick twisted thoughts! That’s right, you’re not the only ones, I’m a little twisted too! It makes me realize that I want this blog to reflect the crazy ideas that run through my tilted, twisted mind, maybe even your crazy thoughts and ideas if you are brave enough to share them. Oh believe me, I’m not giving up on sketching, or creating art each day, I’m just sayin’, there is more to life than that, and all this is an influence on what and how I create!

From the time I was a small child, there has been a pencil, chalk, crayon, or pen in my hands drawing. It seriously started at about nine or ten, drawing faces on a chalkboard. I had less trouble with faces then, than I do now! That’s what happens after being integrated (family mentality) into a society that frowns on being artists – I knew better than to even bring it up! In those days, you got a high school diploma, got a job as a secretary, found a good husband (the only kind available), bought a house, had a gaggle of kids, and lived happily ever after! Did I mention that once a housewife, you didn’t even think of working outside the home! I’m here to tell you, something went horribly, horribly wrong!!!

I’m a child of the 60’s!

First of all, I couldn’t wait to GET OUT of the house! I wasn’t born in the sixties, but that was when I found my voice, not to mention oh so many other things! My dear parents, although they were really loving, caring parents, were also terrified they would do something wrong (after all mother followed Dr. Spock religiously), so they kept all of us on a “very short leash!” If mother only knew about Dr. S, but I never had the heart to tell her. Who’s the joke on now? To say they were suffocating us, would be an understatement, but I know they were doing their very best to provide a stable home environment to be proud of, and children that others could only envy. HaHah, did I show them, or maybe the joke was on me!

He did What?

Can you visualize Dr. S. sitting back in his office, in his big chair, typewriter in front of him, typing one-handed, holding a BONG in the other, giving advise to parents around the world? Of course he must have been higher than a kite!

I aim to please!

Oh yeh, I got married out of high school, and had two boys right away. Perfect – now what! On the positive side – the boys and I grew up together! The struggle began, and didn’t let up until about twenty-five years ago, when they started to find their own way. Or maybe I should say, until I started to find my own way. It was at that time I realized it didn’t have to be this way! Many of my friends were telling me how they didn’t listen, and followed their own dreams! You can imagine, how horrified I was to think they went against their parents wishes! Horrified!

The other thing I have always been attracted to was writing. While struggling through the dark, and twisted days of my child rearing life, in the back of my head I had always seen myself as a writer. I hadn’t any idea how this was going to happen, but more recently in clawing, and scratching to the finish line (I’m really not that close, & I’m not finished yet!), my decision was to start a blog! After all, I have things to say…

I did it – It’s not a novel, but you have to start somewhere…

Now that the blog had started, I would be less than honest if I didn’t say that I’m growing each day as a writer, and an artist. WordPress has helped me grow, and I’m expecting I will continue to grow, just not around the middle!

Be the best that you can be!

Somewhere I’ve heard this before, and it’s so true. I have to do the best that I possibly can at the time! Both art, and writing are a journey! My son Dennis once told me, “I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I know I need to go down this path to live my dream! ” Dennis had an undying passion for his guitar, and for surfing – he has mastered both! I’m sure he’d say, he’s not nearly as good as I think, but he’d also say it a continual journey! Today, he doesn’t surf as much as he’d love, however he plays the most beautiful Flamenco Guitar, has his own business playing his guitar, and loves what he does for a living! Few of us can say that…

So as I grow as an artist, and writer, my blog will grow as well. There could be many changes in the future – as I morph, so will the blog. At least that’s what I’m hoping. This is what I leave you with… I believe you have to live the life you are striving for, or in other words… Call yourself an artist, a writer, an actor, if you love it, live it! Believe in yourself – believe it will happen! Or let me put it another way…

Fake it, ’till you make it!