Beyond the crafting and selling of items there are many aspects to being a maker-of-things that I absolutely did not expect but so enjoy.
At the top of that list is the connection and interaction that develops with many of our customers. The exchanges that go on beyond the transaction are often born out of the desire to share stories or experiences or just random thoughts on the world of faeries and possibilities. And these can create longstanding bonds that may extend for months or years.
I have grown to love and cherish these interactions so much.
Once in awhile we also are given the chance to share thoughts and messages that seem "fairy-sent"
and such was the case today when one of our customers, who recently purchased a fairy house from us, was remarking that she did not feel fairy spirits were likely present in her own home due to something she does that she believed would be a detraction to fairy spirits.
Because this "something" falls into the category that I would consider to be purely modern "human ideals" and more specifically a cultural idealism of the last 20 years or so, I felt inspired to send the following along to her. . . by the way, her message ended with the question "Are you truly believers?"
The reply:
Oh we are true believers!
And let us say that we do not think fairies discriminate against certain "earthly",human ideals There is, in the heart, something greater than human idealism that fairies are drawn to and, we believe, that intangible energy and heartfelt awareness is what creates that fairy presence around us.
Openness and a compassionate, welcoming heart. The desire to revisit or resurrect that magic of childhood or of any period of one's life where possibility and imagination ruled or were in our awareness. Even just the desire or the need to know that we are not alone here. . . . all of these things are, in our experience, the true portals to visitations and fairy magic.
There is an old ctale, Gaelic or Celtic I believe, that speaks of the "little man". A sprite who tends to move objects and personal items to places the owner realizes are out of place and often just moments after they have been set down! Even this type of sprite, which is among the most common of the "visitations" humans receive is usually presented to someone for reasons we cannot always fathom. But "they" know we are in need of some magic in this world and so it may appear in many different ways. Gentle nudges to our consciousness. . .
In YOUR world and your home, just be open to whatever comes and presents itself as a sign. The simplest things really. . . occurrences that you may have not even given a thought to before can be recognized as these visitations and signs. . . just stay open to the possibility as all of them are the doorways to deeper wonder and possibility. All of them come with no strings attached. . no more of a "price" than our belief and the space made in an open heart.
Perhaps even a message like this, though flown through the cyber-spaces from our fingertips, may in fact originate somewhere else and is "given" to us to pass along? Who can say really. . .
We hope THAT magic and possibility is what you find in everything that you see. ;)
nicolas
Now, I LOVE writing such messages. I love pulling people back to this side of the landscape and horizon. Sometimes I think it really is about just giving people permission to open up and believe.
That's what it took to get me to a place, after so many years, of believing I deserved to do what I do and be a maker-of-things and that I could be a vessel for that magic to enter this world. Now it seems like I cannot imagine a time when I did not know this or believe it as such. . . but it took countless gentle and not so gentle budges and impressions. Moments of being "steered" one direction or another to keep me on the path.
I have known since I was a child that I was indeed "watched over".
Once or twice in enormously life altering ways and then again, in dozens of those slight, imperceptible changes of direction along the way too.
And the purpose is, in my way of seeing it, always small. I was, for years, too caught in the grandiose ideals of my own life and purpose and not ready to see that the simplest and most natural of our abilities are often the roots of the greatest purpose we may have.
Thank you faeries for all the love and guidance in all the forms presented thru these years.
I never forget. . .
nicolas
Showing posts with label purpose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label purpose. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
The Art of Sincerity and Authenticity
Recently I heard someone state that their belief was that "the universe always rewards authenticity and sincerity in our personal and creative work". While that statement did not come as an epiphany or shed any immediate light on my own thoughts, over the last month it has worked itself into my subconscious and I find myself now writing and thinking about it, and how it relates to my life overall, almost daily.
I cannot say or try to describe what that means for anyone else or even where one would begin to follow that path inthemselves, I just know that, looking back acros 40 years of creating, it rings 100% true in my world.
In retrospect, so much of what I tried to do creatively in my 20's and 30's was not quite either of those things. I felt that I had to find my angle, my way in, my one great idea or concept. All the while ignoring the places I truly came from and knew so well in my heart. Also, I totally bought into the idea of my work having to be "grown up" and to project a mature viewpoint or an adult perspective. I'd at least like to say that while I feel the work I created was always sincere, it usually lacked the personal authenticity that I find people most respond to these days with my creative offerings.
What I have come to understand is that I only really began allowing myself to be completely authentic with my work a few years ago and, with that, came the growth and means to now create for a living.
So I have been listing every possible example of this authentic and sincere approach from my life. Trying to follow it back to the roots of my origins and where my best examples of it came from, mapping it like a travelogue.
A polestar for my creative heart.
In 7th grade there was a boy named Timothy Jackson who sticks out in my mind. While may of us were trying so hard to be cooler or to at least not stick out as easy marks to the bullies, Timothy went about his days just being Timothy. He was an A student who never missed school or an assignment. Over that year we grew to become passing friends and we bonded over what I learned was Timothy's free-time passion. Drawing superheroes, super-villains, medieval worlds, spaceships, aliens and then, sort of out of context, all out army battles on regular lined notebook paper. Stick figure soldiers mostly populated those but the time was put into complex and well-thought-out landscapes, waponry, castles, fortresses, space stations and alien worlds with detailed terrain, battle simulations and situations. I had noticed Timothy often drawing something when he was done with class assignments. . . and at lunch . . . and at assemblies. . . and in homeroom. . . and after school in the library. He was far too smart and too much of a loner to be bullied and too nerdy to be "cool". He was invisible, untouchable, an alien himself to most.
Of course, looking back, he was the coolest kid of all in hindsight.
As we became friends, I took to sharing in this drawing with him and, for most of that year, we were always comparing images and battles waged. We lived too far apart to get together out of school but we found time during the week to share ot drawings and great epic stories told on paper. In 8th grade we shared just one class and then, on different buses sent across town to a school of 3000 kids for high school, we rarely saw each other. But the impression, as I now am understanding, was left just the same.
He is one of the few people I recall clearly from that time that I have nothing but love for in my heart's memory. Authentic. Sincere. Just Timothy being himself every moment. Lost in what I now call a "paracosm".
When I return home, as I did last year for a few days, I can't help but go by the old school which is closed and listed for sale now. The neighborhood is just a shell of what it once was in it's heyday.
The old soda fountain pharmacy. Gone
Steel Mill. Gone.
The old homemade Apple Butter ad painted on the side of the brick post office, Gone.
The little market. Gone.
Five and Dime. Gone.
The Hot sausage sandwich shop. Gone.
Library. Gone. . . well, moved. But no longer in the old gothic brick building that made it a welcoming and timeless place.
An abandoned school is a haunting sight. Sit on those steps and close your eyes and it seems like there is the echoes of laughter and nervous chatter on the wind. So many impressions left behind on those playgrounds along the way.
So much of it seems like a blur. two years in that middle school with so few friends and each day, for the most part, an eye on the clock waiting to be done for the day so I could head home to MY paracosm and my own world of creation. My own authenticity.
It's really only now, all these years later that I am thinking back and realizing how few people I knew then that were living in authenticity and sincerity then. School years are usually about anything but as we try so hard to grow up so fast and become. . . what exactly?
All I can say is that everything I do today. All that you see in my shops and in my work is drawn from those early days exploring my own inner world and creating this paracosm that I have returned to. That I thrive in.
And I just want to add that authenticity and sincerity are not just about creative work of course.
My grandfather, during those two years of middle school. and all four years of high school, rose every day at 4 a.m. (as he had done for 35 years for his job at the the steel mill) to make sure I had breakfast before school. During the middle school years, since the school was just three blocks away, I'd walk home each day at lunch, which he always had waiting for me upon arrival.
That, in my memory, is about the most devoted example of sincerity and authenticity as I can show. That was who he was to his core.
I hope all of you are exploring and expressing and embracing what is natural, sincere and authentic in your own souls. FInding it in your past or present and carrying it with you into the future.
It will, undoubtedly, serve you well.
xo
nicolas
I cannot say or try to describe what that means for anyone else or even where one would begin to follow that path inthemselves, I just know that, looking back acros 40 years of creating, it rings 100% true in my world.
In retrospect, so much of what I tried to do creatively in my 20's and 30's was not quite either of those things. I felt that I had to find my angle, my way in, my one great idea or concept. All the while ignoring the places I truly came from and knew so well in my heart. Also, I totally bought into the idea of my work having to be "grown up" and to project a mature viewpoint or an adult perspective. I'd at least like to say that while I feel the work I created was always sincere, it usually lacked the personal authenticity that I find people most respond to these days with my creative offerings.
What I have come to understand is that I only really began allowing myself to be completely authentic with my work a few years ago and, with that, came the growth and means to now create for a living.
So I have been listing every possible example of this authentic and sincere approach from my life. Trying to follow it back to the roots of my origins and where my best examples of it came from, mapping it like a travelogue.
A polestar for my creative heart.
In 7th grade there was a boy named Timothy Jackson who sticks out in my mind. While may of us were trying so hard to be cooler or to at least not stick out as easy marks to the bullies, Timothy went about his days just being Timothy. He was an A student who never missed school or an assignment. Over that year we grew to become passing friends and we bonded over what I learned was Timothy's free-time passion. Drawing superheroes, super-villains, medieval worlds, spaceships, aliens and then, sort of out of context, all out army battles on regular lined notebook paper. Stick figure soldiers mostly populated those but the time was put into complex and well-thought-out landscapes, waponry, castles, fortresses, space stations and alien worlds with detailed terrain, battle simulations and situations. I had noticed Timothy often drawing something when he was done with class assignments. . . and at lunch . . . and at assemblies. . . and in homeroom. . . and after school in the library. He was far too smart and too much of a loner to be bullied and too nerdy to be "cool". He was invisible, untouchable, an alien himself to most.
Of course, looking back, he was the coolest kid of all in hindsight.
As we became friends, I took to sharing in this drawing with him and, for most of that year, we were always comparing images and battles waged. We lived too far apart to get together out of school but we found time during the week to share ot drawings and great epic stories told on paper. In 8th grade we shared just one class and then, on different buses sent across town to a school of 3000 kids for high school, we rarely saw each other. But the impression, as I now am understanding, was left just the same.
He is one of the few people I recall clearly from that time that I have nothing but love for in my heart's memory. Authentic. Sincere. Just Timothy being himself every moment. Lost in what I now call a "paracosm".
When I return home, as I did last year for a few days, I can't help but go by the old school which is closed and listed for sale now. The neighborhood is just a shell of what it once was in it's heyday.
The old soda fountain pharmacy. Gone
Steel Mill. Gone.
The old homemade Apple Butter ad painted on the side of the brick post office, Gone.
The little market. Gone.
Five and Dime. Gone.
The Hot sausage sandwich shop. Gone.
Library. Gone. . . well, moved. But no longer in the old gothic brick building that made it a welcoming and timeless place.
An abandoned school is a haunting sight. Sit on those steps and close your eyes and it seems like there is the echoes of laughter and nervous chatter on the wind. So many impressions left behind on those playgrounds along the way.
So much of it seems like a blur. two years in that middle school with so few friends and each day, for the most part, an eye on the clock waiting to be done for the day so I could head home to MY paracosm and my own world of creation. My own authenticity.
It's really only now, all these years later that I am thinking back and realizing how few people I knew then that were living in authenticity and sincerity then. School years are usually about anything but as we try so hard to grow up so fast and become. . . what exactly?
All I can say is that everything I do today. All that you see in my shops and in my work is drawn from those early days exploring my own inner world and creating this paracosm that I have returned to. That I thrive in.
And I just want to add that authenticity and sincerity are not just about creative work of course.
My grandfather, during those two years of middle school. and all four years of high school, rose every day at 4 a.m. (as he had done for 35 years for his job at the the steel mill) to make sure I had breakfast before school. During the middle school years, since the school was just three blocks away, I'd walk home each day at lunch, which he always had waiting for me upon arrival.
That, in my memory, is about the most devoted example of sincerity and authenticity as I can show. That was who he was to his core.
I hope all of you are exploring and expressing and embracing what is natural, sincere and authentic in your own souls. FInding it in your past or present and carrying it with you into the future.
It will, undoubtedly, serve you well.
xo
nicolas
Sunday, February 16, 2014
The Thread
I think my blog will be taking a turn in the coming weeks.
I have, for two years, been telling myself I wanted to write (seriously) more often in the hope of sharing and explaining my creative path and the way my childhood informs all of my creations today. I’ve been successful in fits and spurts. Yet it has been extremely hard to write about the most important details of that childhood and share them.
To be truthful, I had no idea why.
Last night I read a wonderfully thought provoking short story called “Mr. Goober’s Show” by the esteemed sci-fi writer Howard Waldrop which, today, has me going deeper into my own world to understand why some things “work” and some don’t for myself, for others and for and within the creative life so many of us wish to live.
In the story a man relates the experience of his sister and he in the 1950’s when, while visiting with an Aunt, they uncover a mechanical (pre-war) television that, according to the Aunt, does not work because the way television is transmitted in the story’s active time (1950’s) has changed and so there are no programs broadcast the old way anymore.
The children, left alone one evening, plug in the old TV and, after a bit of fiddling with the knobs, they DO find a broadcast which, since there is no sound, they can only watch. They dub the show “Mr. Goober’s Show”. The genius of not explaining exactly what they see is part of the draw of the story. The years pass, the sister becomes obsessed with discovering what they saw as the brother seems to be less concerned and interested over time. The sister goes to work in the technical/ TV field and, in a series of letters over the years to her brother, explains the futility and ever-increasing obsession with wanting to know what they saw. How it was even possible given the technology and the science.
I won’t give the end away but, the thoughts that are now in my mind began with my own recollections of two shows I saw as a child that I simply have never been able to find in adulthood, even in this vast internet age of every little detail of every single movie, show and program being catalogued. They seem to not exist.
Now, the two characters, the brother and sister, go in opposite directions with Mr. Goober’s Show. While they both are totally taken with it as children and talk about it into their young adult lives, the boy, we are led to believe, simply loses interest and the girl becomes obsessed with unraveling the magic though the obsession leads her deep into the technical aspects of what it COULD have been and away from the early experience of it.
To me, it reads as a dual warning for adulthood.
When I was a child, my world, from a very early age was filled with my inserting myself into many roles and fantasy worlds. These were based on historic or dramatized events. At one time or another I was an astronaut in a cardboard capsule fitted with hundreds of christmas lights and switches I taped in place or poked through holes. I was a high seas pirate on a front porch ship, a Shaolin monk, an Egyptian scribe (and sometimes pharaoh) , I stormed the beaches at Normandy and climbed Mt Everest, explored alien worlds and fell through time portals. I lived in Medieval castles and fought dragons and demons time and again the victor. I lived on the Prairie along with the Ingalls family and solved crimes as many 70’s TV cops (often Kojak because it involved the lollipop and wearing my grandfather's fedora). I created entire sports leagues in the back yard and invented my own futuristic sports, made up board games and card games of my own in winter too.
What happens in adulthood is clearly a duality that we often choose one or the other path as laid out in the story I read. We either lose the sense of magic and wonder of childhood and move on leaving it behind, or we get so caught up in the explanation of all things magical, how things work, what they mean, that they must make sense and what is and is not possible, what we imagined versus what is “real”. We get so wrapped up in this that those early worlds are torn down by the time we reach adulthood and left in tatters around us.
But adulthood is just another fantasy world. And while people look at artists as dreamers, it is often the average 9-5er who is living just as distorted a dream. Usually one that is constructed of, and constricted by, equal parts “have to” and “reason” that the magic is often left out altogether.
Have to and reason can destroy artistic magic too. . . which is why I think art schools ultimately damage as many as they help. . . so why would any other lifestyle be any less damaged by the same factors?
What’s the balance then? For me, it seems to be that we never should leave that magic behind or totally understand it either. This is why, in a nutshell, I have been unable to write about those early experiences.
Technical explanations and scientific certainty can be fascinating but deadly to the imagination as well. I’d rather not know how things work and I’d rather not try to explain where my ideas come from or how they are completely linked, every one of them, to something within that has been nurtured since my childhood. There's a magic in them that I lived, have understood as inherent, and I have tried to explain without success even to myself. And there are those few events that are truly and simply unexplainable. How can I write about them without feeling like I have to explain them or say, "This is what I have come to understand about that day, that event or that memory."
I think the key to telling great, compelling stories, and that is what all artistic outlet can be reduced to, is in what you do not reveal. I tell bits and pieces of the whole but I leave just enough out to allow for the viewer to have a door in for themselves to my world and my work. I want to create things that inspire imagination and open to larger landscapes within. It’s pure storytelling and it is the core of every creative being.
It’s the ephemeral, untouchable essence of who we are. . .
In the simpler sense, there are parts of me that desperately want to know what those two old shows I saw as a 6 or 7 year old were. . . and an equal part of me that never wants to see them again. I want to maintain my own memory of them as they were experienced then which, in seeing them 30 years later, can never be the same, can they?
So this creative dream I live now. . . yes, it is a construction of my own. No one wrote the book on living it and no one told me how to make it happen.
I am asked constantly, "You can make a living doing THAT?" and while the simple, actual answer is "Yes." it leaves out all the magic because, in truth, not everyone can. It's not enough to be good at something or to excel in business or have great people skills and even a staunch self belief matters only a smidgen. The creative path requires the absolute presence of magic. And the magic requires that we never answer all the questions ourselves. We leave them for others to discover and to find within their own creations in their own time.
That’s the magic of the story.
Of life.
I’ll be trying to create a more revealing feel here in the coming months. Posting more updates on projects and little bits of inspiration here and there going forward. Turning the focus into more of a daily process of what I am actually doing and how.
Focusing on the magic of my todays as much as my yesterdays.
In those posts, some of the larger story will come through but, in the grand scheme of things, the magic I want to convey is not from the past.
It’s in the here and now.
Today.
It’s not a memory but the one constant and unbroken thread of my life.
The one, as in the William Stafford poem, that I will never let go of.
I hope you will continue creating the magic of YOUR life
And follow along with me too. : )
nicolas
I have, for two years, been telling myself I wanted to write (seriously) more often in the hope of sharing and explaining my creative path and the way my childhood informs all of my creations today. I’ve been successful in fits and spurts. Yet it has been extremely hard to write about the most important details of that childhood and share them.
To be truthful, I had no idea why.
Last night I read a wonderfully thought provoking short story called “Mr. Goober’s Show” by the esteemed sci-fi writer Howard Waldrop which, today, has me going deeper into my own world to understand why some things “work” and some don’t for myself, for others and for and within the creative life so many of us wish to live.
In the story a man relates the experience of his sister and he in the 1950’s when, while visiting with an Aunt, they uncover a mechanical (pre-war) television that, according to the Aunt, does not work because the way television is transmitted in the story’s active time (1950’s) has changed and so there are no programs broadcast the old way anymore.
The children, left alone one evening, plug in the old TV and, after a bit of fiddling with the knobs, they DO find a broadcast which, since there is no sound, they can only watch. They dub the show “Mr. Goober’s Show”. The genius of not explaining exactly what they see is part of the draw of the story. The years pass, the sister becomes obsessed with discovering what they saw as the brother seems to be less concerned and interested over time. The sister goes to work in the technical/ TV field and, in a series of letters over the years to her brother, explains the futility and ever-increasing obsession with wanting to know what they saw. How it was even possible given the technology and the science.
I won’t give the end away but, the thoughts that are now in my mind began with my own recollections of two shows I saw as a child that I simply have never been able to find in adulthood, even in this vast internet age of every little detail of every single movie, show and program being catalogued. They seem to not exist.
Now, the two characters, the brother and sister, go in opposite directions with Mr. Goober’s Show. While they both are totally taken with it as children and talk about it into their young adult lives, the boy, we are led to believe, simply loses interest and the girl becomes obsessed with unraveling the magic though the obsession leads her deep into the technical aspects of what it COULD have been and away from the early experience of it.
To me, it reads as a dual warning for adulthood.
When I was a child, my world, from a very early age was filled with my inserting myself into many roles and fantasy worlds. These were based on historic or dramatized events. At one time or another I was an astronaut in a cardboard capsule fitted with hundreds of christmas lights and switches I taped in place or poked through holes. I was a high seas pirate on a front porch ship, a Shaolin monk, an Egyptian scribe (and sometimes pharaoh) , I stormed the beaches at Normandy and climbed Mt Everest, explored alien worlds and fell through time portals. I lived in Medieval castles and fought dragons and demons time and again the victor. I lived on the Prairie along with the Ingalls family and solved crimes as many 70’s TV cops (often Kojak because it involved the lollipop and wearing my grandfather's fedora). I created entire sports leagues in the back yard and invented my own futuristic sports, made up board games and card games of my own in winter too.
What happens in adulthood is clearly a duality that we often choose one or the other path as laid out in the story I read. We either lose the sense of magic and wonder of childhood and move on leaving it behind, or we get so caught up in the explanation of all things magical, how things work, what they mean, that they must make sense and what is and is not possible, what we imagined versus what is “real”. We get so wrapped up in this that those early worlds are torn down by the time we reach adulthood and left in tatters around us.
But adulthood is just another fantasy world. And while people look at artists as dreamers, it is often the average 9-5er who is living just as distorted a dream. Usually one that is constructed of, and constricted by, equal parts “have to” and “reason” that the magic is often left out altogether.
Have to and reason can destroy artistic magic too. . . which is why I think art schools ultimately damage as many as they help. . . so why would any other lifestyle be any less damaged by the same factors?
What’s the balance then? For me, it seems to be that we never should leave that magic behind or totally understand it either. This is why, in a nutshell, I have been unable to write about those early experiences.
Technical explanations and scientific certainty can be fascinating but deadly to the imagination as well. I’d rather not know how things work and I’d rather not try to explain where my ideas come from or how they are completely linked, every one of them, to something within that has been nurtured since my childhood. There's a magic in them that I lived, have understood as inherent, and I have tried to explain without success even to myself. And there are those few events that are truly and simply unexplainable. How can I write about them without feeling like I have to explain them or say, "This is what I have come to understand about that day, that event or that memory."
I think the key to telling great, compelling stories, and that is what all artistic outlet can be reduced to, is in what you do not reveal. I tell bits and pieces of the whole but I leave just enough out to allow for the viewer to have a door in for themselves to my world and my work. I want to create things that inspire imagination and open to larger landscapes within. It’s pure storytelling and it is the core of every creative being.
It’s the ephemeral, untouchable essence of who we are. . .
In the simpler sense, there are parts of me that desperately want to know what those two old shows I saw as a 6 or 7 year old were. . . and an equal part of me that never wants to see them again. I want to maintain my own memory of them as they were experienced then which, in seeing them 30 years later, can never be the same, can they?
So this creative dream I live now. . . yes, it is a construction of my own. No one wrote the book on living it and no one told me how to make it happen.
I am asked constantly, "You can make a living doing THAT?" and while the simple, actual answer is "Yes." it leaves out all the magic because, in truth, not everyone can. It's not enough to be good at something or to excel in business or have great people skills and even a staunch self belief matters only a smidgen. The creative path requires the absolute presence of magic. And the magic requires that we never answer all the questions ourselves. We leave them for others to discover and to find within their own creations in their own time.
That’s the magic of the story.
Of life.
I’ll be trying to create a more revealing feel here in the coming months. Posting more updates on projects and little bits of inspiration here and there going forward. Turning the focus into more of a daily process of what I am actually doing and how.
Focusing on the magic of my todays as much as my yesterdays.
In those posts, some of the larger story will come through but, in the grand scheme of things, the magic I want to convey is not from the past.
It’s in the here and now.
Today.
It’s not a memory but the one constant and unbroken thread of my life.
The one, as in the William Stafford poem, that I will never let go of.
I hope you will continue creating the magic of YOUR life
And follow along with me too. : )
nicolas
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Fairy Tales
It occurred to me very recently that perhaps the main reason I drift in and out of blogging is because I feel that so much of what I want to say and convey about the creative path I am on and the origins of it in my life are not spoken but, rather, find a way into my work each and every day. Often, at then end of the day with a number of visual images, gargoyles, fairy houses and Egyptian Gods and Goddesses all coexisting on my studio table, I realize my entire day has been filled with unspoken dialogues and enough words to fill a three volume set. :)
It also seems to make sense to me that I can choose the pieces to display here in blog form, not for publicity sake but for an opportunity to reveal what is behind them. Bit by bit to find the core ofmy place of origin and to, in a sense, add to the map of my life.
The other day I completed this piece as the first of a set that will be featured next year in Bewilder and Pine,
This piece speaks to many of my origins. The worlds I would create within my childhood. Often invested in them alone and keeping them close to my heart as I just felt that any outside input or exposure would change them. Alter them and, in fact, weaken their power and place within my own mythology.
Second, as a pre-teen, my love for model railroading and building entire scenes of a new layout every year remain one of the most treasured ways that I spent time in that older-youth era. Of course, this was a pursuit embraced by my family as well so I could work on it in the open but, I am positive, no one ever really saw INTO that world I created each year. Every figure and every part of the overall scene had a backstory. A dialogue and a plot that often changed over the two months it was up and running. I'd add to it and rearrange it each year with a fresh view of it. In reality, the train was the least of my concerns. It was about taking these little pieces, people and structures and making something new from them that fit wit my own paracosm.
And fairy tales. . . I simply adore them. The dark, the light, the rambling and the brief. They remind me, simply put, of the worlds I create as well as the possibility of anything becoming our reality in this world.
Once, when I first moved to the Oregon Coast, I considered renting a piece of property/that had been started as a retreat space with a beautiful A-Frame house. The price was truly way out of my price range but I debated and schemed how I could manage it all because the original owner had built, in the middle of the woods, a large, free standing mushroom room. Seriously. it stood 8 to 9 feet tall at the peak of it's red spotted mushroom cap roof and was about 7 feet in diameter on the inside with stained glass windows, electrical outlets and a hardwood floor. I mean, it felt like a portal had opened and this mushroom had somehow slipped to our side from a fairy tale side of existence. What magic!
So, my point is that I truly believe that every person must create from what they know inherently. Or it comes off seeming false somehow. That doesn't mean it should or will be easy as often the most difficult roads are the ones that lead us back to ourselves.
And if we are lucky we find that trail of crumbs that the little Hansels and Gretels in us left behind. . .
we find or way thru the dark woods and past the scary creatures of this world. We survive to create new and personal tales. . . .and we all do this no matter what the path we take.
So, you'll likely see me around more often and I hope you won't mind the display of my work in the posts. It is how I get to what is inside and to what I truly want to say. . . . and quite often, it is all I have to say. :)
Thank you, as always, for reading. :)
nicolas
It also seems to make sense to me that I can choose the pieces to display here in blog form, not for publicity sake but for an opportunity to reveal what is behind them. Bit by bit to find the core ofmy place of origin and to, in a sense, add to the map of my life.
The other day I completed this piece as the first of a set that will be featured next year in Bewilder and Pine,
 |
| Miniature N Scale - Hansel and Gretel Discover the Witches Cottage |
Second, as a pre-teen, my love for model railroading and building entire scenes of a new layout every year remain one of the most treasured ways that I spent time in that older-youth era. Of course, this was a pursuit embraced by my family as well so I could work on it in the open but, I am positive, no one ever really saw INTO that world I created each year. Every figure and every part of the overall scene had a backstory. A dialogue and a plot that often changed over the two months it was up and running. I'd add to it and rearrange it each year with a fresh view of it. In reality, the train was the least of my concerns. It was about taking these little pieces, people and structures and making something new from them that fit wit my own paracosm.
And fairy tales. . . I simply adore them. The dark, the light, the rambling and the brief. They remind me, simply put, of the worlds I create as well as the possibility of anything becoming our reality in this world.
Once, when I first moved to the Oregon Coast, I considered renting a piece of property/that had been started as a retreat space with a beautiful A-Frame house. The price was truly way out of my price range but I debated and schemed how I could manage it all because the original owner had built, in the middle of the woods, a large, free standing mushroom room. Seriously. it stood 8 to 9 feet tall at the peak of it's red spotted mushroom cap roof and was about 7 feet in diameter on the inside with stained glass windows, electrical outlets and a hardwood floor. I mean, it felt like a portal had opened and this mushroom had somehow slipped to our side from a fairy tale side of existence. What magic!
So, my point is that I truly believe that every person must create from what they know inherently. Or it comes off seeming false somehow. That doesn't mean it should or will be easy as often the most difficult roads are the ones that lead us back to ourselves.
And if we are lucky we find that trail of crumbs that the little Hansels and Gretels in us left behind. . .
we find or way thru the dark woods and past the scary creatures of this world. We survive to create new and personal tales. . . .and we all do this no matter what the path we take.
So, you'll likely see me around more often and I hope you won't mind the display of my work in the posts. It is how I get to what is inside and to what I truly want to say. . . . and quite often, it is all I have to say. :)
Thank you, as always, for reading. :)
nicolas
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Paracosm
It has been awhile since my last post and the reason is singular and simple. Writing does take my soul deeper into my own experience and, recently, in writing some unrelated thoughts to answer someone else's questions about my life as a maker-of-things, I came to a deeper revelation about that very part of myself. . . and so I have taken the time to really mull it over internally and explore it fully before writing about it here. And this is what I have discovered. . .
If there is one thing that most artists I know have in common who have been able to create a successful art business, and even most people I know who are TRULY happy with their day to day lives, it is that what they live, what they are creating and what they love in life is a direct link to something from their childhoods and that untainted past. Some part of them that never quite went away and fuels, in some way, their life pursuits today.
On the extreme end of those childhood experiences, there is the idea of the creation of a paracosm which is defined as: a detailed imaginary world or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.
I had many such worlds in my childhood.
Nothing I played, drew or created was just a game but had back-story and detail and a running dialogue within. From my imagining of being alive in ancient Egyptian times or in the Roman Empire, Pompeii, Alexandria, Druid times, Viking times etc and on down to my creation of little towns and worlds each year with the model railroads I built under our holiday tree.
Everything had a place, a story, a reason.
When I sit and create the things you see in my shops, in all three of my shops, they are, in no uncertain terms, a direct link to my childhood experiences and explorations of the world around me.
As I grew into my teens and 20's I, like most, felt a need to become more "grown up" and set off into the "real world" to find my way. . . this was, unarguably, the greatest mistake I ever made. One that I plan to rectify for the rest of my days.
And I truly believe that the "mistake" part of that was the desire to leave that childhood past far behind. Of course, in my quiet, alone moments, I allowed myself to indulge and revisit it at times but, as my world became cluttered with people and social events and owning businesses and adult life. . . I left more and more of it there.
I will, in the near future, reveal more of my own paracosm and try to show how it formed me and how it has come full circle. How I believe that life is indeed cyclical and how we often allow the negative aspects, people and events to remain with us along our path while discarding the most integral parts of our soul which are meant to help us as we grow into our later years because they wre there at the foundation of who we are.
The thing that is often NOT talked about with paracosms is how so many adults are creating them daily in what we like to think of as our adult world. This life is. for lack of a better definition, ALL fantasy. All paracosm. It is US who creates the place, the story and the reasons for anything in our worlds. And if you can step back and allow that one idea to sink in and become truth, then you may recognize how the choosing of it is always up to you.
Whatever you subscribe to is indeed part of your created paracosm. Career pursuits, ideals of success, ideals of relationship, security and contentment. . . even the dialogues we desire to hear, the way we fantasize about one thing or another. . . we create all of those too. Do they work? I can't speak for anyone but me. Except to say that whatever you believe in is strictly YOUR creation. And often we are so caught up in wanting to "belong" in a union, a community or group, an accepted circle of some sort that we allow too much outside information and influence to shape our world within.
I tried many adult paracosms over the last 20 years that just did not fit because the inherent landscape of my childhood was simply too strong to be changed that much.
So, when I began to return to it and allowed myself to roam within it freely again just a few years ago, I immediately recognized that what I sought, what I desired and what made me happiest had been there all along. . . I began creating the creatures and worlds that were alive in my thriving childhood imaginings. I allowed them all to come back and through that indulgence I suddenly began connecting with others who found them appealing for whatever reason.
The more I allowed myself to dwell within that paracosm again, the happier I became.
The more of the "adult life" I left behind, selling my business, moving away from the grind of the city, leaving happy hours and social commitments and the larger community behind, the happier I found myself being as well.
My world of many and much became a world of few and little and allowed me the space to grow into that vast landscape again. It requires a lot of space. . . a lot of solitude. . . and a lot of internal silence.
I do believe paracosms are truly meant to often be singular experiences. But for children, that never seems to present much of a problem does it? For me, as that child, that alone time was so precious and desired over almost any activity involving others. I had friends. More than I can remember but only a few who were able to occupy the landscape I created in my deepest imagination.
It is funny how, as adults, so many take such a strong dislike to being alone. And maybe, just maybe, that is because we are not happy with the paracosm we have created as an adult. If it requires others for happiness, it is not deep and true enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting to share what is within. . . but that will follow the act of creation. . . not the other way around. Find and know yourself completely first and THEN others can follow safely in your footsteps. YOU are the explorer of the landscape within. The better you know it, the more likely others can traverse it with you in safety and
the more likely you will attract the right people to be a part of it.
I had that wrong for years too.
And of course, for me, this is all ultimately about creativity. One of my favorite writers once said that "if you want to be a writer you just have to be crazy enough to sit down and let the words bang out."
Often people come to creative pursuits from the perspective of how they can make a living doing the thing they want to pursue. . . but this is really backwards thinking. . . the creator must create first and find it within . . . it must come from the places deep within that are the storehouses of the inherent.
Those who try to "create to sell" rarely find success and almost never find lasting happiness or fulfillment within that pursuit.I tried that as well and guess what. . . it never worked.
I am glad I found my way back. Reconnected with the child within who had been waiting all this time for me to finally understand that HE is who I am. He was, after all, there first. He was born, not of a plan or a constructed architecture of hope. . . not of a reinvention that I contrived or designed. . . but of something so deep and pure that it simply can not be ignored.
I shall never set him aside for anything again.
So think about the idea of your lifetime thus far and the paracosms you may have once created and continue to create now.
Do you see the paracosms of your yesterdays and today?
Do you find it all to flow in a cyclical way too?
Do you see the pure essence of YOU in the child you were?
Does he/she still have a foothold in your adult world?
Are you kind to him/her when he/she appears?
I hope so.
There will likely never be a truer "you".
-nicolas
If there is one thing that most artists I know have in common who have been able to create a successful art business, and even most people I know who are TRULY happy with their day to day lives, it is that what they live, what they are creating and what they love in life is a direct link to something from their childhoods and that untainted past. Some part of them that never quite went away and fuels, in some way, their life pursuits today.
On the extreme end of those childhood experiences, there is the idea of the creation of a paracosm which is defined as: a detailed imaginary world or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.
I had many such worlds in my childhood.
Nothing I played, drew or created was just a game but had back-story and detail and a running dialogue within. From my imagining of being alive in ancient Egyptian times or in the Roman Empire, Pompeii, Alexandria, Druid times, Viking times etc and on down to my creation of little towns and worlds each year with the model railroads I built under our holiday tree.
Everything had a place, a story, a reason.
When I sit and create the things you see in my shops, in all three of my shops, they are, in no uncertain terms, a direct link to my childhood experiences and explorations of the world around me.
As I grew into my teens and 20's I, like most, felt a need to become more "grown up" and set off into the "real world" to find my way. . . this was, unarguably, the greatest mistake I ever made. One that I plan to rectify for the rest of my days.
And I truly believe that the "mistake" part of that was the desire to leave that childhood past far behind. Of course, in my quiet, alone moments, I allowed myself to indulge and revisit it at times but, as my world became cluttered with people and social events and owning businesses and adult life. . . I left more and more of it there.
I will, in the near future, reveal more of my own paracosm and try to show how it formed me and how it has come full circle. How I believe that life is indeed cyclical and how we often allow the negative aspects, people and events to remain with us along our path while discarding the most integral parts of our soul which are meant to help us as we grow into our later years because they wre there at the foundation of who we are.
The thing that is often NOT talked about with paracosms is how so many adults are creating them daily in what we like to think of as our adult world. This life is. for lack of a better definition, ALL fantasy. All paracosm. It is US who creates the place, the story and the reasons for anything in our worlds. And if you can step back and allow that one idea to sink in and become truth, then you may recognize how the choosing of it is always up to you.
Whatever you subscribe to is indeed part of your created paracosm. Career pursuits, ideals of success, ideals of relationship, security and contentment. . . even the dialogues we desire to hear, the way we fantasize about one thing or another. . . we create all of those too. Do they work? I can't speak for anyone but me. Except to say that whatever you believe in is strictly YOUR creation. And often we are so caught up in wanting to "belong" in a union, a community or group, an accepted circle of some sort that we allow too much outside information and influence to shape our world within.
I tried many adult paracosms over the last 20 years that just did not fit because the inherent landscape of my childhood was simply too strong to be changed that much.
So, when I began to return to it and allowed myself to roam within it freely again just a few years ago, I immediately recognized that what I sought, what I desired and what made me happiest had been there all along. . . I began creating the creatures and worlds that were alive in my thriving childhood imaginings. I allowed them all to come back and through that indulgence I suddenly began connecting with others who found them appealing for whatever reason.
The more I allowed myself to dwell within that paracosm again, the happier I became.
The more of the "adult life" I left behind, selling my business, moving away from the grind of the city, leaving happy hours and social commitments and the larger community behind, the happier I found myself being as well.
My world of many and much became a world of few and little and allowed me the space to grow into that vast landscape again. It requires a lot of space. . . a lot of solitude. . . and a lot of internal silence.
I do believe paracosms are truly meant to often be singular experiences. But for children, that never seems to present much of a problem does it? For me, as that child, that alone time was so precious and desired over almost any activity involving others. I had friends. More than I can remember but only a few who were able to occupy the landscape I created in my deepest imagination.
It is funny how, as adults, so many take such a strong dislike to being alone. And maybe, just maybe, that is because we are not happy with the paracosm we have created as an adult. If it requires others for happiness, it is not deep and true enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting to share what is within. . . but that will follow the act of creation. . . not the other way around. Find and know yourself completely first and THEN others can follow safely in your footsteps. YOU are the explorer of the landscape within. The better you know it, the more likely others can traverse it with you in safety and
the more likely you will attract the right people to be a part of it.
I had that wrong for years too.
And of course, for me, this is all ultimately about creativity. One of my favorite writers once said that "if you want to be a writer you just have to be crazy enough to sit down and let the words bang out."
Often people come to creative pursuits from the perspective of how they can make a living doing the thing they want to pursue. . . but this is really backwards thinking. . . the creator must create first and find it within . . . it must come from the places deep within that are the storehouses of the inherent.
Those who try to "create to sell" rarely find success and almost never find lasting happiness or fulfillment within that pursuit.I tried that as well and guess what. . . it never worked.
I am glad I found my way back. Reconnected with the child within who had been waiting all this time for me to finally understand that HE is who I am. He was, after all, there first. He was born, not of a plan or a constructed architecture of hope. . . not of a reinvention that I contrived or designed. . . but of something so deep and pure that it simply can not be ignored.
I shall never set him aside for anything again.
So think about the idea of your lifetime thus far and the paracosms you may have once created and continue to create now.
Do you see the paracosms of your yesterdays and today?
Do you find it all to flow in a cyclical way too?
Do you see the pure essence of YOU in the child you were?
Does he/she still have a foothold in your adult world?
Are you kind to him/her when he/she appears?
I hope so.
There will likely never be a truer "you".
-nicolas
Monday, February 11, 2013
Hide and Seek
Recently, while reading the blog of one of my customers from Etsy, I realized something that I feel is very critical to describing who I am and what my core beliefs of happiness are.
The blog is a spiritual based one and, I knew that this particular customer has, as many of us do, fallen in and out of their practice be that spiritual or creative) and was having some life difficulties during these times.
Their return to regularly blogging and practicing their spiritual path, marked a noticeable increase in their happiness and feeling good about themselves and their world again.
As that sank in, I realized that it is the same path for many of us in life. That, whatever it is we love, if we approach it with a spiritual regularity, we will likely find peace and happiness within. This happiness is, of course, not linked in any way to our lifestyle, standard of living, wealth, or even physical health. . . indeed it is something that we may foster to transcend all the difficulties that we may encounter in this physical realm and turn to in our search for solace and comfort and, most importantly, an understanding of self.
Growing up I would say my grandmother and mother were my finest teachers of this phenomenon though in completely different manners.
A devout Catholic, my grandmother went to church every Sunday well into her 80’s despite having difficulty getting around and she prayed the rosary and lit candles daily. Her faith was, not unshakable, but rooted and solid. Her personal polestar. . . and it saw her through many, many difficult times. One of the things that scare me to death as a child was how any mention of something fun. . .a drive to the park, a trip to the candy store. . . a ride in the country, , , was always followed by the stipulation that we would go “if we live.” So, “Oh honey, how about Monday we go get you some new things for school. . . if we live.” It was just matter of fact to her that we might not live to monday but her faith made that a fact, not a fear.
Now in comparison, my mother’s spirituality was her work and her job (and I should add, raising me). Hostess and waitress 5 or 6 days a week at an Italian restaurant. mother 7 days a week and then, when that became too much for her physically and I was grown and off on my own, she took a part time job office cleaning with her cousin. Work was her belief. Her trust in things being right. When grief hit the family, she was always better when she could go to work for 8 hours and put her mind elsewhere. I understood that as being a path as well.
In both of these examples there was something in the routine and the comfort each felt in their own way that was spiritual and not, even in my grandmother’s case, simply religious. My grandfather had an even larger impact in this way too, though it was clearly more beneathe the surface and will be looked at separately in future posts.
For me, that spirituality of life has always been my creativity. It is my absolute core foundation. My rock. If I practice it daily I am happier than I could be doing anything else. And it took me years to realize that my happiness in life was tied directly to it. That it was in every manner a spiritual sort of approach I needed to cultivate.
I spend each day creating and doing the hard and often exhausting work of selling what I make to allow me the gift of continuing along this path. . . and as I grow within it, I see distinctly, the paths of my grandmother and mother that are part of my own path and my success. I create religiously. . . I work religiously. . . I follow my soul as a spiritual path and, while it took me 40 years to figure out how to do that, I am grateful for the practice of all these years that prepared me for it here and now.
I also am a huge believer in geography as metaphor for most of my life. It shows in so much ofmy creative output. I find geography is a polestar for my soul. Books like Kathleen Norris’ “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography” stories like Barry Lopez’ “The Mappist”, even songs like Howard Jone’s “Hide and Seek” have all embedded themselves into my consciousness and are like Psalms to me. . and the writings and lectures of John O’Donohue a man who I feel possessed a perfect blend of religion, philosophy and awareness of life’s depths in all of his writing who said:
“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”
I’ve always been so close to that rhythm and maybe just a quarter beat off. . . and all of these things through the years were signposts. .. pointing me to the place I belonged. . . then it clicked . . . fell into place . . . this is my spiritual path. My practice.
I am a maker-of-things. Nothing more, nothing less.
That is my home
I only feel “right”. . . “centered” . . . and at peace. . . when I am doing this daily.
It is MY unshakable belief
I hope you find the same with everything you see within too.
nicolas
The blog is a spiritual based one and, I knew that this particular customer has, as many of us do, fallen in and out of their practice be that spiritual or creative) and was having some life difficulties during these times.
Their return to regularly blogging and practicing their spiritual path, marked a noticeable increase in their happiness and feeling good about themselves and their world again.
As that sank in, I realized that it is the same path for many of us in life. That, whatever it is we love, if we approach it with a spiritual regularity, we will likely find peace and happiness within. This happiness is, of course, not linked in any way to our lifestyle, standard of living, wealth, or even physical health. . . indeed it is something that we may foster to transcend all the difficulties that we may encounter in this physical realm and turn to in our search for solace and comfort and, most importantly, an understanding of self.
Growing up I would say my grandmother and mother were my finest teachers of this phenomenon though in completely different manners.
A devout Catholic, my grandmother went to church every Sunday well into her 80’s despite having difficulty getting around and she prayed the rosary and lit candles daily. Her faith was, not unshakable, but rooted and solid. Her personal polestar. . . and it saw her through many, many difficult times. One of the things that scare me to death as a child was how any mention of something fun. . .a drive to the park, a trip to the candy store. . . a ride in the country, , , was always followed by the stipulation that we would go “if we live.” So, “Oh honey, how about Monday we go get you some new things for school. . . if we live.” It was just matter of fact to her that we might not live to monday but her faith made that a fact, not a fear.
Now in comparison, my mother’s spirituality was her work and her job (and I should add, raising me). Hostess and waitress 5 or 6 days a week at an Italian restaurant. mother 7 days a week and then, when that became too much for her physically and I was grown and off on my own, she took a part time job office cleaning with her cousin. Work was her belief. Her trust in things being right. When grief hit the family, she was always better when she could go to work for 8 hours and put her mind elsewhere. I understood that as being a path as well.
In both of these examples there was something in the routine and the comfort each felt in their own way that was spiritual and not, even in my grandmother’s case, simply religious. My grandfather had an even larger impact in this way too, though it was clearly more beneathe the surface and will be looked at separately in future posts.
For me, that spirituality of life has always been my creativity. It is my absolute core foundation. My rock. If I practice it daily I am happier than I could be doing anything else. And it took me years to realize that my happiness in life was tied directly to it. That it was in every manner a spiritual sort of approach I needed to cultivate.
I spend each day creating and doing the hard and often exhausting work of selling what I make to allow me the gift of continuing along this path. . . and as I grow within it, I see distinctly, the paths of my grandmother and mother that are part of my own path and my success. I create religiously. . . I work religiously. . . I follow my soul as a spiritual path and, while it took me 40 years to figure out how to do that, I am grateful for the practice of all these years that prepared me for it here and now.
I also am a huge believer in geography as metaphor for most of my life. It shows in so much ofmy creative output. I find geography is a polestar for my soul. Books like Kathleen Norris’ “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography” stories like Barry Lopez’ “The Mappist”, even songs like Howard Jone’s “Hide and Seek” have all embedded themselves into my consciousness and are like Psalms to me. . and the writings and lectures of John O’Donohue a man who I feel possessed a perfect blend of religion, philosophy and awareness of life’s depths in all of his writing who said:
“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”
I’ve always been so close to that rhythm and maybe just a quarter beat off. . . and all of these things through the years were signposts. .. pointing me to the place I belonged. . . then it clicked . . . fell into place . . . this is my spiritual path. My practice.
I am a maker-of-things. Nothing more, nothing less.
That is my home
I only feel “right”. . . “centered” . . . and at peace. . . when I am doing this daily.
It is MY unshakable belief
I hope you find the same with everything you see within too.
nicolas
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Escapism
Listening to the NY Times Book Review podcast yesterday and one of the guests was Joe Queenan who was discussing his habit of rereading books again and again.
At first I was intrigued because I have a few titles of my own that I could read a dozen times (and have) and always find something new within.
But what struck me most was a comment he made about how reading is, for so many people, an expression of the desire to escape their world into another. And he believes this is especially true of those who read voraciously as he does.
As he spoke of his own reading habits, it became clear that it is something more than just enjoying books and stories. . but that they are truly another world for him to exist in. He copies lines, passages and quotes for future reference, then organizes and stores them. So the escape continues outside the covers of the books themselves into his own world. . .
He connected this pursuit to being similar to anything people do in excess. . . and, for me, the light went off imediately in my own head.
*** *** ***
As a child, I did not create to escape anything horrible or unjust.
I had a rather charmed upbringing in a simple, working class, urban home in Pennsylvania. My hours and hours of "escape" were fueled by the fact that I simply preferred those self created places and imaginings more than most of the possible interactive reality with kids my age. (this from ages 7 to 17 really. . . and, in truth, through most of my adult years as well) My interests from sports, to ancient Egyptian art to sci-fi fantasy, writing stories, music and building miniature railroads was all something I felt most at ease delving into totally alone so as to be created by just one set of rules. My own. . .
And I was a voracious maker-of-things within each of those elements. The worlds I created extended beyond the time spent within them. In my head, there were constant dialogues and imaginings of what would come next. Sort of like previews of upcoming shows. This was the main part of my world for many years.
Somewhere along the way, in my early 20's, that got sidetracked . . . set aside. . . and I lost my way for awhile in life in general I think.
It seems to me that so very often, under the guise of growing up, we think we have to leave much of that early escapism and creation behind. Also, there are people who perhaps never had that in their own childhood years and they actually discover it later in life. Sadly, they relegate it to "hobby" or "interest" status as that is the more grown up way to give it voice.
Now this, it seems, is all in the interest of having these things fit into our adult lives and this is, in my world, backwards thinking.
Do we ever find it if we venture far from those childhood places or allow our passions and loves to be compartmentalized into being called indulgences, hobbies, interests and a few-hours-a-month-when-time-allows activities??
In my life, after all these years, those indulgences and worlds of my own creation are front and center again. They occupy almost EVERY waking hour and they are how I make my living now. They are the very essence of my world today, as they were all those years ago and, yes, that comes with costs that few would be willing to pay.
With the exception of the computer, where I do indeed sell most of my items and creations on the internet, I have left behind the modern world almost completely. I am certain that it is not a place where creativity can reign or be nurtured because it is all about the moment and the minutia of our lives. Instant and constant flooding of the unimaginative and mundane.
Creativity, on the other hand, takes time and effort and imagination and solitude to discover. . . to unlock something magical within.
The desire to connect in today's instant access world only serves to push more and more people into forced community instead of celebrating the unique, the individual, the mystery and, maybe most importantly, the solitude and aloneness of us all.
Which is, to me, the best thing we can slow down and explore.
And this, I think has trickled right down to every form of escape, even reading which, as Mr Queenan states in his thoughts about e-readers,“ they have purged all the authentic, non-electronic magic and mystery from their lives.”
It's all about magic really. . .
And taking the time to create it is the best thing I believe I can do every day. Because ithas paid me back ten-fold in ways I have yet to even tally.
I hope you will take the time and create it too.
nicolas
At first I was intrigued because I have a few titles of my own that I could read a dozen times (and have) and always find something new within.
But what struck me most was a comment he made about how reading is, for so many people, an expression of the desire to escape their world into another. And he believes this is especially true of those who read voraciously as he does.
As he spoke of his own reading habits, it became clear that it is something more than just enjoying books and stories. . but that they are truly another world for him to exist in. He copies lines, passages and quotes for future reference, then organizes and stores them. So the escape continues outside the covers of the books themselves into his own world. . .
He connected this pursuit to being similar to anything people do in excess. . . and, for me, the light went off imediately in my own head.
*** *** ***
As a child, I did not create to escape anything horrible or unjust.
I had a rather charmed upbringing in a simple, working class, urban home in Pennsylvania. My hours and hours of "escape" were fueled by the fact that I simply preferred those self created places and imaginings more than most of the possible interactive reality with kids my age. (this from ages 7 to 17 really. . . and, in truth, through most of my adult years as well) My interests from sports, to ancient Egyptian art to sci-fi fantasy, writing stories, music and building miniature railroads was all something I felt most at ease delving into totally alone so as to be created by just one set of rules. My own. . .
And I was a voracious maker-of-things within each of those elements. The worlds I created extended beyond the time spent within them. In my head, there were constant dialogues and imaginings of what would come next. Sort of like previews of upcoming shows. This was the main part of my world for many years.
Somewhere along the way, in my early 20's, that got sidetracked . . . set aside. . . and I lost my way for awhile in life in general I think.
It seems to me that so very often, under the guise of growing up, we think we have to leave much of that early escapism and creation behind. Also, there are people who perhaps never had that in their own childhood years and they actually discover it later in life. Sadly, they relegate it to "hobby" or "interest" status as that is the more grown up way to give it voice.
Now this, it seems, is all in the interest of having these things fit into our adult lives and this is, in my world, backwards thinking.
Do we ever find it if we venture far from those childhood places or allow our passions and loves to be compartmentalized into being called indulgences, hobbies, interests and a few-hours-a-month-when-time-allows activities??
In my life, after all these years, those indulgences and worlds of my own creation are front and center again. They occupy almost EVERY waking hour and they are how I make my living now. They are the very essence of my world today, as they were all those years ago and, yes, that comes with costs that few would be willing to pay.
With the exception of the computer, where I do indeed sell most of my items and creations on the internet, I have left behind the modern world almost completely. I am certain that it is not a place where creativity can reign or be nurtured because it is all about the moment and the minutia of our lives. Instant and constant flooding of the unimaginative and mundane.
Creativity, on the other hand, takes time and effort and imagination and solitude to discover. . . to unlock something magical within.
The desire to connect in today's instant access world only serves to push more and more people into forced community instead of celebrating the unique, the individual, the mystery and, maybe most importantly, the solitude and aloneness of us all.
Which is, to me, the best thing we can slow down and explore.
And this, I think has trickled right down to every form of escape, even reading which, as Mr Queenan states in his thoughts about e-readers,“ they have purged all the authentic, non-electronic magic and mystery from their lives.”
It's all about magic really. . .
And taking the time to create it is the best thing I believe I can do every day. Because ithas paid me back ten-fold in ways I have yet to even tally.
I hope you will take the time and create it too.
nicolas
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Wishing
I was reading a post today about making wishes. . .
It struck me as such a poignantly simple and beautiful thing to do. And one of those things we just seem to forget about along the road of adulthood. . . Sometimes I feel I am so fully connected to those childhood days and then, every once in awhile, I am reminded of something that I have somehow forgotten. Today it was wishes. . .
The simplicity of a wish. . . the multitude of reasons that we came up with to make them.
The power and the wonder of the things that inspired them.
But then, it occurred to me that I DO still make wishes. You might call it something else since it doesn't happen with a dandelion in hand or a falling star to prompt me. . .
But it's a wish just the same. . . after all these years of seeking and discovery, I feel I have found my place, my path back to the beauty of childhood.
My calling.
And every single day, I wish for. . . ask for. . . hope for. . . one more day to create beauty and whimsy and the certain magic that you might find within my work, be it photography, music, poetry and writing, miniature worlds or Egyptian statues.
To continue to be the vessel it comes into the world through. . .
I feel I am in service to it.
I no longer create what I want. . . but instead, I create what I feel called to make.
And every day, that wish I make, is for the chance to do that all over again. . .
Tomorrow.
It struck me as such a poignantly simple and beautiful thing to do. And one of those things we just seem to forget about along the road of adulthood. . . Sometimes I feel I am so fully connected to those childhood days and then, every once in awhile, I am reminded of something that I have somehow forgotten. Today it was wishes. . .
The simplicity of a wish. . . the multitude of reasons that we came up with to make them.
The power and the wonder of the things that inspired them.
But then, it occurred to me that I DO still make wishes. You might call it something else since it doesn't happen with a dandelion in hand or a falling star to prompt me. . .
But it's a wish just the same. . . after all these years of seeking and discovery, I feel I have found my place, my path back to the beauty of childhood.
My calling.
And every single day, I wish for. . . ask for. . . hope for. . . one more day to create beauty and whimsy and the certain magic that you might find within my work, be it photography, music, poetry and writing, miniature worlds or Egyptian statues.
To continue to be the vessel it comes into the world through. . .
I feel I am in service to it.
I no longer create what I want. . . but instead, I create what I feel called to make.
And every day, that wish I make, is for the chance to do that all over again. . .
Tomorrow.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Angel in the Fold
Ted Althof. . . of Tarentum PA. . . a man I never met. An angel none the less.
It is strange to write about the loss of someone you never knew. . . but who impacted your life in ways you can only begin to sum up at the time of their passing.
When, just a few years ago, I realized that my path, my future, indeed my purpose might be tied so intrinsically to all that I experienced, dreamed and created in my childhood, I found it hard to speak of it. To share it with anyone through any method other than my creations. . . and that, from a safe distance.
We are all too often told we need to "grow up", become adults and leave behind the wonders of childhood. That we can't "live in the past" and that we should move on from those old days and memories.
But i have believed for some time that ALL that we are is written in those early pages and all that time we spend trying to create the adult us is wasted most of the time when it does not factor in those early and pure pieces of ourselves.
But even I, who have clung to that childhood magic inside for so many years, have struggled with the notion it could be the basis of my purpose and pathways in life.
I do not remember how it was I came across the article that completely blew that out of the water for me but, upon first reading of Ted Althof, a collector of Christmas Putz houses who lived in Tarentum PA, not far from where I grew up, I found an angel in the fold.
To read of his love for the past, for his childhood memories and, above all else, the magic of Christmas, the way he had never lost that spark in his life. . . it did more than inspire me, it cast me in a form that will now remain with me forever to my death.
I am saddened today to have learned that Ted passed on last month after a long battle with illness. I knew he was not well for some time as he had not been updating his incredible Christmas Putz site for some time now. . .
I won't go into all the ways this stranger touched my life but I will leave you with this quote of his that has been woven into my heart for the last two years and that keeps me believing, daily, that I have found my path through creating wonder and magic in my miniature and fairy tale works. . .
"The power that an object unseen in decades can have to transport us in mind and spirit back to a specific period or moment of our lives -- to unlock long-closed doors in the mansion of our memory -- is the true value that it has." Ted Althof
Thank you Ted. . . you inspired the discovery, or rediscovery, of that magic in so many and many of us will carry it on for the rest of our days. . . just as you did in your life.
That original article can be found here:
It is strange to write about the loss of someone you never knew. . . but who impacted your life in ways you can only begin to sum up at the time of their passing.
When, just a few years ago, I realized that my path, my future, indeed my purpose might be tied so intrinsically to all that I experienced, dreamed and created in my childhood, I found it hard to speak of it. To share it with anyone through any method other than my creations. . . and that, from a safe distance.
We are all too often told we need to "grow up", become adults and leave behind the wonders of childhood. That we can't "live in the past" and that we should move on from those old days and memories.
But i have believed for some time that ALL that we are is written in those early pages and all that time we spend trying to create the adult us is wasted most of the time when it does not factor in those early and pure pieces of ourselves.
But even I, who have clung to that childhood magic inside for so many years, have struggled with the notion it could be the basis of my purpose and pathways in life.
I do not remember how it was I came across the article that completely blew that out of the water for me but, upon first reading of Ted Althof, a collector of Christmas Putz houses who lived in Tarentum PA, not far from where I grew up, I found an angel in the fold.
To read of his love for the past, for his childhood memories and, above all else, the magic of Christmas, the way he had never lost that spark in his life. . . it did more than inspire me, it cast me in a form that will now remain with me forever to my death.
I am saddened today to have learned that Ted passed on last month after a long battle with illness. I knew he was not well for some time as he had not been updating his incredible Christmas Putz site for some time now. . .
I won't go into all the ways this stranger touched my life but I will leave you with this quote of his that has been woven into my heart for the last two years and that keeps me believing, daily, that I have found my path through creating wonder and magic in my miniature and fairy tale works. . .
"The power that an object unseen in decades can have to transport us in mind and spirit back to a specific period or moment of our lives -- to unlock long-closed doors in the mansion of our memory -- is the true value that it has." Ted Althof
Thank you Ted. . . you inspired the discovery, or rediscovery, of that magic in so many and many of us will carry it on for the rest of our days. . . just as you did in your life.
That original article can be found here:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)