I was up late last night getting things packed up and trying to remember all the details!

Here are a few sneak peeks at the new work 

I am so excited to be back at Paradise City this Memorial Day weekend. Right now I am in the final laps in preparation and I thought you might want to see some of the behind the scenes action.

Repainting and upgrading the booth required moving everything out of the living room for a week. It was sweet to get our living room back after that!

Visiting Persephone at the foundry mid process- they cast her in 4 parts and then weld her back together. This is her in wax. It is a little unnerving, but I am working with an excellent foundry and I was very impressed with the detail and precision. I couldn't stop thinking that she looked like a chocolate Easter bunny- the cheep hollow kind!

A few new pieces in process. They will have a different surface color and a frame- if I can get all this done in time! I had to buy a new table saw- very exciting!

Exciting things are happening with Persephone's Dream; A Prayer for Peace. I made a radical decision to get her cast in bronze, and even before the casting is finished, she has been accepted to a very competitive biennial exhibit called Art in the Orchard! I will install her there in July and the show is open from August though Thanksgiving this year and next.

I will also have her available for sale at Paradise City on Memorial Day weekend - near the end of May.

And she won 4th place in the 9th Annual Figurative Exhibit in Light Space and Time.

What is she about?

It was last year that I realized that she had an essential message for our time about a kind of strength and presence, and I needed to get her out in the world. She is a powerful woman, and she is holding her own boundaries so that she can go inside and connect to her deeper self. She is making time for self reflection, even in the chaos of life. And she is calm and strong, not combative or overwhelmed.

We can find this place in ourselves and it is essential that we do, otherwise we are being reactive and stressed out, and this is not only not good for ourselves, but also for the people and causes that we care about. She is a deeply healing reminder of our own innate capacity for calm reflection and deep inner wisdom, for peace.

What is in a title?
Persephone's Dream: A Prayer for Peace
Persephone is a Greek goddess who has a story that speaks of deep compassion and the ability to hold both/and with love. She was the daughter of Demeter, the Goddess of the Harvest, and she was chosen by Hades, the god of the underworld, to be his wife. The story goes that Demeter was so distraught that she caused all the plants to die back and the cold to come. Life on earth was going to perish, so a deal was struck that Persephone would return for half the year, and in so doing would create new growth and vitality. 

 Persephone is married to Hades- which could be read as she was abducted and lives in misery. But what if she actually loves Hades and is wed with love to his mission as the god of the underworld. She can see all the pain and misery with a sense of compassion. 

And when she emerges, her presence causes spring, hope and new life. She can know and hold both the ugly truth of despair and also beautiful, hopeful growth. How amazing is that. She is not in denial, and yet she has peace.

I love this metaphor and I think we have a lot to learn in it.

I  would take it one step further and ask what if the underworld is not hell as we think of it in the western world, the painful pit of all things bad, but instead more like the subconscious? What if it is the un-illuminated space of the psyche, that part of the self and the culture that is churning with all the old stories, from which fear and struggle emerge, but also growth and change. So when Persephone emerges it is with a sense of clarity having grappled with the challenges in the underworld.

Either way, this sculpture is a beacon of strength, clear boundaries and silent contemplation. 


My intention is to get her out into public arts exhibits and to organizations whose mission is related to hers. If you know of any organizations that you feel she is well suited for, please comment and let me know!

Recently I have found myself using the term “creatives” as a label or shortcut term for my people. I am also seeing that term tossed around by others. I thought it might be useful to explore what I mean when I call my tribe creatives.

A creative might not know that they are a creative, they might not feel artistic or musical or whatever. I know that I did not- people had to tell me. It is hard to see from the inside.

So, these are some of the signs:

You have been called passionate- you can dive into an idea with all four feet because you see the ways that it can be so great for the world around you.

You have been called a dreamer- your imagination is always on. If you have ever run into a hypnotherapist, they might have told you that you were already in a trance.

You often have more ideas than you can follow through on, and may bounce from one project to the next – on a good day it is invigorating and affirming, and it can also lead to a feeling of ineptitude when you see all the dropped projects around you.

It can feel hard to trust yourself and your ideas because you know that you have not always been able to stick with one long enough to reap the benefits.

A creative is someone who thinks outside the box and makes links between boxes that others might never have thought of.
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​​Have you ever felt like you are juggling and all the balls are about to fall down around you? You have multiple projects and types of work going at once. It starts off well- exciting even. But so easily you lose the control, one ball falls and it feels like they are all going down.  

This is common for creatives because you have a lot of ideas that pop up and seem really exciting- it feels great to dream something up and put that starting energy behind it. But the anxiety and low self-esteem can so easily be triggered if you can't get a good rhythm going, and the balls begin to drop.


I know this feeling well- in fact just last week it came up for me again. It can feel deeply undermining- like you are a fool to think you are capable of making your dreams happen. But the fact is that it is a sign- but not one of incompetence. It is a sign that you are stretching!

So what do you do?

Do you have to give up the variety and complexity that seems so endemic to who you are?

 So Life has changed. The career path you were on is ending, the kids are grown and no longer need you all the time, the divorce has done its upheaval. Whatever the reason for the change, you are in a place of having to rethink who you are and what you are "supposed" to be doing with your life, time, creative energy. 

Maybe you have done the counseling work to address some grief and self-doubt that comes with this kind of change. But now what? How do you sort out and reconfigure your life path when that other thing has been the major focus of your identity for so long?

You want to stay true to your life purpose and what you have to offer the world, but everything is confusing in the upheaval.

If you are a creative, you probably have too many ideas. One day you are ready to start your own floral business, the next week that has lost steam and you are looking at following that old vision of teaching in the inner city, or what would happen if you took your art more seriously, could you make a living with it? And if you did focus more on your creative passion, what would it look like, who would it serve?

Whatever the fantasies are they can get technicolor and stunning very quickly, but then kind of disintegrate and leave you feeling like you may never get anywhere.

It can be a roller coaster and not in a good way! I know I took that ride, and honestly it was not easy. If you have been following me for a while you know that I used to be a college professor. As much as I loved teaching and learned an enormous amount from it, I saw the writing on the wall- my career in academia was ending and I needed to find another direction. It was a hard time. And I am deeply grateful to the coach that I had during that time.

The good news is that it is possible to find the new direction that is just as satisfying and true to you, and not only that, all the experience you had doing whatever you were doing for all those years, it matters! It has become part of the mosaic of who you are and what you have to offer the world. You have skills and wisdom and interests and connections that will serve you well.

So what does it take to forge a new path and how do you do it? 
For most of us it is not an overnight turn around.

The first step is to buckle your seat belt- by which I mean take the time to create a place of safety for yourself.

• look at your finances and make adjustments so that you are not going to be panicked about money all the time- you really cannot build a new direction if you are stressed financially.  This may mean a temporary job or downsizing expectations. Get stable financially so that you can work from a place of  confidence.
• consider your support- the people around you.
  • you need folks to play with or hold space with you that is not the major shift- but is a steady on connection that you love being with- a sense of continuity and love.
  • you need at least one person who can listen really well, ask good questions and flow with all the indecision- who has nothing at stake in your decisions and believes in you and wants to see you land where you are going to be happy and fulfill your potential. For me this was a coach because everyone else in my life, as wonderful as they were, had too much at stake- they were panicked for me!
  • You need to continue to give to the world, your friends and family, whoever- you must feel useful. Do not let people say "oh, you have too much to worry about, I am not going to add to your load by sharing my problems". The thing is that you could easily get mired in your own head and it is a great relief to let go of your life for a bit and be with another person. It will give you energy and self worth.
• Self care- yoga, meditation, walking, exercise, play dates, music, art, good books, whatever feels nourishing and restorative to you- make sure you make room for it in your life.  Transitions like this are really challenging and you will need to take good care of yourself through it!

The second step is a kind of inventory. What are your deepest values, what do you enjoy doing, where have you felt most at peace and also most productive or useful. There are a lot of questions here that take you from the sense of loss or failure or fear into a sense of being grounded in your self and your positive qualities and potential. Your dreams need this base of self awareness and belief in the self in order to move from fantasy to reality. If you are working with a coach you will likely spend some time in this with various exercises that will help you find your own wisdom, clarity, identity.

Third is the dreams, though honestly they have probably been swimming around the whole time- so make sure you are jotting them down as they come to you. Every one of those fantasies is important not so much because they might be the one to focus on, but because they show you things about what you are drawn towards, what is important to you, what feels fun. So play in the dreams and notice what you notice about them- pay attention to what it is about running a floral shop that sounds great to you.

Fourth is The decision - clarifying the focus- understanding the direction. Don't rush this! I know it is painful to be in the not knowing and it can be tempting to jump into something because you just need an answer right away. But really, you need to know that the direction you are moving in makes sense on many levels- makes sense to who you are, makes sense in terms of being realistic and doable, and makes sense in a time line that keeps you healthy and strong and dare I say, happy. You will need to make sure that all of the parts of you are in alignment on this in order for you to be able to move forward with it with ease.

Fifth is the manifesting- setting goals, breaking down the steps, taking actions. This is going to be really fun if you have done the earlier steps well. If you have not, you may be undermined by self-doubt and slowed in the muck of internal blocks.

My biggest piece of advice in this transition is to get the help you need to move consciously through the steps and build not just your new direction, but also your sense of empowerment and trust, ease and confidence, so that you can take your creative work out into the world where it is most needed. Find a coach who fits well with you, who feels right, who you can feel safe and comfortable talking to.

If you would like to see if I might be the right coach for you, please book a free initial consultation- Lets talk!

I was talking to a couple of good friends last night about new year's resolutions, it being New Year's Eve. They both said that they do not believe in new year's resolutions because it just sets you up to fail. Yup- I get that. We resolve to go to the gym and after two or three weeks, we stop. And feel yet again like a failure. Yuck.

So when I was on my walk this morning, with a beautiful fog ahead of me and delicately naked drippy dark trees all around me- I chewed on this idea. What if... What if there was a different way of looking at this?

The life of a creative is all about curiosity- the big and little "what ifs". Apparently John Grisham started writing his novels while being a full time lawyer and active parent. He wrote one page a day- only 1/2 hour of writing each day- squeezed in. And it was curiosity that helped him stick to it. The basic question was can I do this? But I am sure it also became what is going to happen next? Because this is what happens when you start something creative- it sucks you in with curiosity! 

So what if instead of declaring that you are going to lose 25 lbs or get into the studio every day or whatever you are deciding you want to do- and then gritting your teeth and charging into it, you approached it differently? What if you approached it with curiosity?

There is a lightness and play that comes with the open questions and a pull that is engaging and enticing. It keeps you going, draws you back into the journey.

On the other hand when you declare a goal and try to focus your mind around it, there is a heaviness and density of being- like you are set against the world- it is all opposition and effort. That kind of push can feel good for a while, and make you feel powerful with the effort you are putting in, but it will exhaust you because it is relentless. 

So what does it look like to approach a goal with curiosity? I recently lost 25 lbs with curiosity. I kept asking questions I wonder if I can make this program work for me? What if I did not eat anything after 7? What if I log all my food, what will I discover? Does it help to have an on-line community? etc.
 
There are a ton of little questions and you tested them out. It is very much like making a sculpture- I start with the bigger question of what if I set up these parameters- what will I find? And then as I move through it, the questions become minute design decisions and I do not even notice that many ideas fail because I continue to be curious and try anther idea. And eventually the whole thing is miraculously working together and I back up from it and notice that I have made something that looks really interesting to me and then I get curious about what it is saying... and that is another round of questions.

So try it for yourself right now. What is the goal that you would like to set for yourself, and that you are afraid will fail if you set it as a resolution? Now make it into a question- something like What would it feel like if I ... or I wonder if I can... or what if I...  How does it feel in your body and your psyche to reframe it? Can you feel the lightness and play coming in as you engage the curiosity? Then break it down to a smaller doable test- try it for a week or a month and see how it feels and make adjustments so that it is always about curiosity. Have fun!

If have creative urges that you want to move into this year, I want to encourage you to go for it! Your creative work is essential to you and to the world you are in! I also want to encourage you to get help with it. There are many good coaches and classes and communities that you can engage so that you do not have to feel isolated and suffer for the art. 

And if you are curious about whether I might be the right coach for you, please check out my quiz for creatives by clicking the link below. 

​Implements of the interior
These implements are the tools and weapons of the interior. By falling in love with them- feeling tenderness and compassion even there- you can let go of holding them against yourself.  I offer these bronze objects as a totem of loving kindness to that part of yourself that needs it most.
Hold the implement that calls to you as you meditate and feel the power of deep compassion.
The bronze material offers both heft and presence and also an intimate relationship. As you hold it, it will take on your body temperature, and over time the patina will change in response to your hands. Welcome this change as it is part of what makes it your own.
Val Gilman

A few pieces in this series are available at Salmon Falls Gallery in Shelburne Falls 

Upcoming Show • December 6-29, 2018

small wonders
​Holiday Show & Sale
small • fun • affordable
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OPENING / Amherst Arts Night Plus: 
First Thursday, December 6, 5-8 pm
 Gallery A3 in Amherst MA

The work that I will be showing is from The Cup series- this is the artist statement
The Cup
This cup sits with the landscape of the unseen body. It is awareness and presence to that which is in our lives and our history without needing to fully understand it; enjoying the mystery and allowing the unfolding. It is an invitation to tea, a moment of reflection, a place of calm in the turbulence of life. It is choosing gratitude for the empty cup- for being open to that which comes. We weave paths through this landscape- leaving marks and discovering relationships.
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Care and feeding: these pieces are made of clay with an encaustic (wax and pigment) surface. The cup is attached with museum wax- so it is flexible and removable and will not break fall off. Because the surface is wax, it needs to be treated delicately. You can dust the piece with a dry or damp cloth- do not use soap or chemicals and be careful not to scratch the surface. Do not leave it in a place where it could get heated such as in the direct sun or near a heater.
Val Gilman
2018