There is a message that we get as creatives that in order to sell well we have to have a singular voice, a brand that is recognizable. Ok- it might be easier for people who are getting to know your work to recognize you, and it might make people feel more comfortable with that sense of recognition. But it does not serve the world and it does not serve your own creative exploration to limit yourself.

We all have very different sides to us. It would be disingenuous to limit yourself to only one part of yourself in your creative work. It is like the woods I was walking in in this video, where it had recently snowed: it looked very different that day than the day before, expressed itself differently, but was in fact the same patch of woods that I know and love. It changes with the season, with the weather, with the quality of light and with time passing and parts growing and dying. As do you and I. We are affected by all the things happening to us through our lives, and we naturally express ourselves in a variety of ways.

The thing is that our audience needs the diversity of who we are because they too are complex beings. Our integrity and authenticity in this is a gift to them. It does not serve anyone to stay small.

I say go ahead and do all of your work and when it comes time show it, create the record, put together the look of poetry, create an exhibit, you can curate a unified body of work and talk about how of the pieces fit into a whole in your writing. Trust that it will be naturally unified because you are a whole person and all of the parts of you fit together, all of what you are learning and growing with fit together. You may not know how they do while you are making them, But when you look back over time, the connections are going to be the key to your greatest learnings.

I would love to know your thoughts about this idea- have you felt the pressure to limit yourself? What is your experience and what is your fear? Please comment below!

Warmly,
Val 
PS if you know anyone who could benefit from hearing these words, please pass this along or share it in any form you have!

​

​​There is a deep need I have in this time for quiet, for reflection and peace, but not as an escape. It is more a way to let in what is happening in the world and be with it.

LIMITED ACCESS
Site Specific temporary installation by Valerie Gilman and Rebecca Muller
On View at Gallery A3 in Amherst MA

September 3-  26, 2020
Available for viewing through the windows all day, every day. This work changes dramatically with different lighting- early morning sun, mid day, evening.
Pop-up open-door viewings Friday and Saturdays 4-6 pm and by appointment.
Masks and social distancing required. ​

Artists Forum on Zoom
September 17, thursday, at 7:30 pm

Today, after removing the front wall, the collaboration blossomed into something really beautiful. It was like the gallery took a huge breath of air and sunlight and opened its heart to us. ​

.Are you having trouble motivating to do your creative work?

It seems crazy because there is all this time at home, and yet you fritter away the day with reading news, watching tiktok, trying to get the house a little cleaner. Or maybe you are working at home because of the pandemic and work has taken over your home life. And if you have kids... well just multiply it all by 100. Keeping the chaos and amorphic time warp under control is next to impossible.

All of this lack of structure is a killer for the creative work that you want to do.

You need a little structure and accountability and frankly so do I.

So I am offering a Tuesday morning co-working time.
No Charge. Yup- free. I just want company.

If you don't know about this concept, you are in for a real treat. My coach introduced it to me a couple of years ago and I was stunned by how effective it is. It is a way to get focused on one thing and stay directed for a set amount of time. 

9:00- 11:00 am est on Tuesdays
We will meet on zoom at 8:00 am eastern time, do a short focusing exercise, do a simple go around to say what we are going to do, and then we will get off the call and get to work. Turn off the phone, no e-mails or FB- just focus on the creative work that you are doing. At around or just before 10:00 we will get back on zoom and celebrate our accomplishment.  Simple.

It is like book ends to focused working time. A sacred container of time. A gift of directed intention. It is a feeling of connection with other creatives. And a way to let go of all the other things that are pulling on your time for just a little bit.

You will be stunned by how much you are able to get done in that time.
​And how good it will feel.

Disclaimer:
While this is not a sideways sales pitch for my coaching work for creatives,  I am always happy to talk to creatives about what they do and where they are going with it. So most Tuesday mornings I will be happy to stay on the call after the co-working  with anyone who wants to talk about what is going on for them. And if you want to set a time to talk more in depth about questions or struggles, I am happy to schedule a conversation to see how I might be able to help.

So if you would like to try this out- or if you have questions- email me at [email protected].

Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested.

A note: The timing may need to change as the local school makes decisions around covid, I have a daughter going into 6th grade and who knows what her timing is going to look like! Please email me if the button link below does not work.

On July 10th I cancelled my subscription to netflix. My mother laughed when I told her, through tears, that I was binge-ing on Grey's Anatomy. Ok it is not as bad as alcohol or cocaine. Not by a long shot. But I was seeing tell tale signs of real issues. And I want to tell you about it because I want to make sure that you are not getting caught the way I was.

As a creative, I built my life outside the box. It is a patchwork life designed to make it possible for me to continue to make art, support other creatives, and raise a child by myself. It is a risky arrangement in that there is no external structure, like a job, that holds it all together. If I get lazy or uninspired, then things don't happen and opportunities dry up. 

These are some of the things that I had in place to keep me going before the pandemic:

• I taught a couple of in person classes so that I had a sense of being useful to other people and could connect actively to the values of creative pursuits. These classes provided a sense of structure to my week.
• I had some deadlines set up- a gallery show, a craft show and a commission- all of which gave me a sense of purpose in my creative work. Something to work toward. A way to share my creative work so that I did not feel like I was screaming into the darkness.
• My daughter went to school during the school year and camp over the summer. This made it possible for me to focus intensively on my creative work, on building my business and on connecting well in my classes and groups. I knew that she was getting valuable connection to others and was learning things that I could not have taught her. And I knew that I could be more present with her when she was back because I had had time for myself.
• I also had a few different groups that I did for self-enrichment and a few friends that I occasionally went to drinks with- these were essential for keeping me connected and grounded.

I always knew that I was living on the edge. My income was just barely enough. And I always felt like I was juggling and could be dropping balls. Maybe I lived with too much stress. 

​But I had a sense of purpose and focus and dedication. I believed in my ability to do this, and in the value of what I was offering. I could see how my art touched the deep tender places of my audience in the craft shows. I could feel the sense of relief and joy as my students got their hands in clay. And I trusted that just getting into the studio, I would know what to do and I could get some interesting things to come out of my own hands.

I am saying it all in past tense- and that is not fair. I have not given up. It is not over. But when it all got put on pause with the pandemic- I went into a kind of foggy frustrating place- not able to get a grip on anything solid- and the escape route of netflix lured me in. It is a serious time suck! And I have to say it did not make me feel better- I felt horrible!

I am sure you can identify- things have had to change because of the pandemic

For creatives who have built their lives in a patchwork way- it is a complete restructuring!

So this is what I want to offer by way of lessons learned:

1. Get off the couch!!! turn the thing off and get outside- I don't care if it is midnight- go out!

2. connection is still essential- taking walks while talking on cell phone works wonders. And zoom games of dictionary are fun if you are a geek like me. Also socially distant gatherings rock!

3. Structure is necessary- as this thing extends hopefully you have found some ways to create structure in your days and weeks. Setting clear time frames for making art is key- and hard to do for those of us who can get pulled in a million directions. virtual co-working with a buddy or group is very helpful. (I am offering a free co-working time on Tuesdays from 8-10 am. You can also set it up with a buddy and there are many platforms on line at this point)

4. If you have kids- finding a way to set time where you are both working on art is good- and a way for her to be occupied with on-line friends or pod friends.

5. feeling useful- find some way to be involved in something bigger than yourself. Activism, school planning, anti-racism study groups- whatever is important to you!

6. Practice kindness- toward yourself, your family, everyone you come into contact with. We have to forgive ourselves for our transgressions so that we do not live in anger and frustration. So forgive as quickly as you can and move on with love and compassion. 

 I have been so enjoying having an indoor outdoor studio this season. The chill is starting now, but it was sweet! The funny thing was that when I was starting to get ready for Paradise, feeling the urgency kick in, I found myself building a work bench and saying to myself wtf! what are you doing!? You need to make art! But a wise friend said- if this is where your heart is, there must be a good reason. And Yes- it was the key to getting things done this fall- I love having that space to work in! Keeps me connected to what is important to me, to my art, to the time that we are in- connected to the wonder of the outdoors! The sounds of crickets, noticing a coyote crossing the back, smelling fall come on, feeling the breeze. Yes! this is definitely worth living, working, fighting for. Lets keep this beautiful planet alive!

I picked these two up from the foundry a bit ago and finally got a good skin on them both. The smaller Persephone and a larger version of a little piece I made a while ago. I still need to come up with a good title for him!

I'm really excited by these clocks. I only managed 4 of them, but it is enough for the experiment to see how everyone at the show will like them- each a little different. The blue is not permanent- it is masking tape so I can sand blast the face and expose the deeper wood grain.  All of my work recently (and really if you look at older work, you would see an ongoing thread) seems to be about life cycle, the simultaneity of time. We are part of this gorgeous earth and we too have death and decay happening at the same time as birth and growth. It is not a linear projection. Nor is it a balance of good and bad. It is a continuous flow of overlapping cycles. Breathing in and Breathing out. Building and decaying. 

I can feel a longer essay working itself up. I am beginning to see that it is essential that we recon with our fear of death- that we focus on not just building things but also on being aware of a healthy decay. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could know that each and every thing that we use will continue to be used by other beings after we are done with it. Like caterpillar poop being part of the fertile and living dirt, and rotting wood, home to so many insects and organisms who break it down to wonderful dirt. There is such beauty in decay- exposing the interior structure and using the materials over in new ways. Why do we think it is ok to create waste that is poisonous? How do we get out of this pattern?

I do not say this from a place of having figured it all out- I am in the middle of this mess with everyone else. Feeling the urgency, grateful to Greta for speaking out and inspiring us to wake up. We are not evil. But we have been very selfish and short sighted as a culture, as a species. And we need to shift our priorities. In a big way. Now.

I can't wait to see what she looks like on site at the orchard! This is an image from another location.
​By the way- there is an audio guided tour of the show you can listen to on your cell phone as you walk around. I recorded 5 minutes of my thoughts about the sculpture- I would love to hear your thoughts about it!

I dropped "Persephone's Dream: A Prayer for Peace" off at Parkhill Orchard the other day. What a pleasure! Russell met me and gave me a golf cart tour of the place, (including drive by berry sampling- Yumm! I'm going to the market today to get some of those berries!), and showed me where all the sites where new pieces are going to be installed- including my own. And then we looked at the stones he had to mount her on. She is going to look great. The picture here is trying out one of the the stones, but not in its real location.

I have an admission to make. I have a history of having a fear of galleries- a fear of approaching them- like they are the big bad wolf for artists.

I tell you this in the off chance that you know someone who has had a similar fear. Because it has become abundantly clear to me, with experiences like meeting Russell,  that my fear was ill founded, and maybe yours, or your friend's is too.

One of the things that I love about working with and teaching clay is the wonderful life lessons that come out of it. It was in conversation with one my students a few weeks ago, that we came upon another one. It was a metaphor that bounced back and forth. My student was frustrated because the things that she was making kept collapsing for no apparent reason. 

I told her that drying time is kind of like aging in humans- we have different abilities and also different weaknesses as we age. The trick is to learn what those qualities are on an intimate and intuitive level and  take advantage of the abilities of the age while having patience, compassion and real acceptance for the things we cannot do.

I would break if I tried to do a back flip at this age, but I can lift 50 lbs of clay and run a business. 

The clay is wonderfully pliable and soft when it is in its plastic state, but it can only be so tall and thin before it collapses under its own weight. When it looses some moisture, it looses that malleability, but wow it can really hold itself up! The fact that it cannot bend easily at this point and will crack if you try, is the other side of the same quality that gives it the strength to hold itself up.

If you are frustrated with yourself or your kid or your aging parent, I wonder if your expectations are appropriate for their time in life? 

As we learn to be patient, compassionate and accepting with the clay, can we turn that back on ourselves and not push so darn hard, or give ourselves the support we need, or just enjoy who we are now?

I just got a fresh sense of ease with that thought. I would love to hear your thoughts! Please comment- lets spin this metaphor out!