Looking For the Light In 2015

This new year, 2015, I am thankful for fresh starts.  I am thankful that despite everything that did or didn’t happen in the previous year, despite the position of our hearts, the world grows and we are forced to grow with it.

Typically at the years turn, I have a good grasp about what the last year was about; what I did well at, what I didn't do well at, what direction I grew, and what direction I felt myself growing.  I can pinpoint a mantra for the past year and intuitively know what it will be for the coming one.  This years change has been different for me though.

I entered 2014 feeling extremely strong and extremely high.  Perhaps it was the feeling of strength that actually allowed for pride and let in failure.  At the beginning of 2014, I felt infallible and made choices as though nothing could touch me, I believed that myself was stronger.  I did what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do, thinking that there wasn’t opportunity for me to get truly hurt or touched.

As the year unfolded, I worked hard and ran into road blocks.  I was frustrated by my inability to make the life that I wanted.  I made choices and saw me hurting myself.  But it was like a bad nightmare that I couldn’t get out of once it had been set loose.  My heart often hurt and I was plagued my the most extreme anxiety that I had ever faced.  I knew everything in my life was wrong, I had walked myself there, so I had to keep showing up for everything.  

But somehow, I believe through grace, I heard the smallest voice calling to me.  And I obeyed.  I obeyed the vision when I had no knowledge but only a heart felt understanding.  My soul began to weep, for everything broken, for all the pain, for all that was unfulfilled.  And I listened.  I soothed my heart through painting.  I kept my soul fed through church and reading works by those who understood the heart and the spirit.  I found a therapist who helped me trust my heart.  I felt the dark around me and myself blind in it, yet I conjured all the braveness I had, to just keep going.

Grace spoke to me in my darkest hours and showed me my heart.  And in the darkness I made choices that honored my heart, soul and spirit.  My choices haven’t come to pass yet, but they are set in motion.

I am humbled at this new year.  I do not know what tomorrow will bring and I can not claim a mantra.  As the year change came upon me, I couldn’t understand it fully, but I was thankful that this past year was over.  I felt I was given a gift, to be able to start fresh.  As I thought about this fresh start, and all the better decisions that I was making, I still knew something was going to have to give further in order for me to be able to shake the darkness that tainted my vision.  I was impressed to consciously think about light.  

I have a disdain for positive thinking, I always feel that reality is more than sufficient and most accurate, a bit of fantasy is necessary....but never, positivity - that is fake.  So what did I mean when I thought about my desire to look at things in a better way?  I think I meant, to see the light side.  I believe that 2014 brought me deeper to the vantage of the worst, to a point that I no longer saw the side that was light.

It is hard, as I said, I have made choices, but not all has come to pass and there is still much uncertainty ahead.  However, as the year turned and I felt grateful to be given a fresh start, I saw my need was to see light to stay alive.  So in 2015, I, the girl who hates positive thinking, but has now spent too long in dark depths, is going to make a small intention to look for the light.

I woke up on January 1st knowing this was right.  It was a small germination of thought that had begun to form a couple of days before, but as I stumbled out into the sunny and clear New York City morning, I knew that I was to look towards the light.

Grace and Peace in 2015

Simple Cool.

Absolutely beautiful in simplicity.  She is so cool.  Found this picture of Jean Seberg on The Impossible Cool.

Pastime of my summer.

Being at the beach has become my ultimate summer pastime.  I just spent a beautiful weekend in Montauk and I am becoming more and more obsessed with beach culture.  

I love the simplicity of only wearing a swimsuit and never dressing up.  I love seeing the surfers (maybe I'll learn someday).  I love the calmness of nature at the beach.  I love the deep relaxation in induces.  I'm finding everything there, and everything about the culture around it, very inspiring.

Audrey.

Finding some time.

Let Loose

I love when inspiration hits.  This past weekend I was in Charlotte, NC to celebrate a graduation on Saturday and Mother's day on Sunday.  Having had a prolonged winter in NY, I welcomed the sunshine in the south.

Stepping out onto a green field on the warm sunny Mother's day, the question was whether or not to run down the hill, inspired like a child.  We answered yes.

Letting loose a little sometimes brings good things; like a smile to your face, a feeling of freedom and inspiration, and sometimes, a few great shots.

The Most Delightful Holiday

Easter.  As I thought about it's arrival this year, I wondered what I would do and who I would spend it with...another Holiday in New York, unlike holidays at home with families, they are times where new traditions are born and things are done very unlike the ways remembered.

As I thought about Easter, I realized that it used to be one of the most exciting holidays when I was a child; with new dresses, shoes and hats, bright jelly beans (and loads of other candy), egg hunts, a day at Grandma's with family, fresh mowed grass, the arrival of Spring, and Christ's resurrection, why wouldn't it be a favorite?  Easter was perhaps the prettiest and most whimsical holiday of them all!

This year, I am remembering my Easters' as a child and spending it with the one family member I have in New York, my sister, doing fun and perhaps child-like things...the park, painting, cooking, church...attempting to capture the delight, joy and whimsy that I remember this holiday embodying.

For Friday

 As I was working last Friday, I walked past a mirror and stopped, thought about my weekend and said, "wooooo!", with a tilted head.  This illustration is what I saw in that mirror (sans the cute outfit).

Not that I hate working and not that I party-it-up on the weekend, rather, I get excited about the weekend because it feels like freedom, space to be creative.  We have to get excited about something and it seems my free creative time is what I get excited about...shocking, I know (said sarcastically).

Happy Friday! Happy Creative Time!

Outsider Art

 I had my first experience this week with Outsider Art,"art brut" in French, translated "raw art" or "rough art".  I am blown-away by this genre that I had previously known virtually nothing about.  Having heard about the fair through a Times article by Robert Smith, I was interested and went to check it out.  For those who like myself a few days before, do not know what this genre is, it is art that is created by individuals on the fringes of society, untrained in classical art, and separated from the traditional world of art.  Originally, this term classified mostly people in insane-asylums, people who did not think as the rest of society.  Now, the genre encompasses many more than those institutionalized for mental problems, it is any art that is made without the influence of the traditional.  Outsider artists are also people like Winfred Rembert, who while in prison, learned to make art on leather; his work is so descriptive as well as rhythmic and has a very clear commentary.

I found this art so special because it recognizes the artistic heart and sometimes the unadulterated flow of the mind; describing how things are and what the world is like.  In it, there often isn't such a strain to achieve perfection or demonstrate a certain learned skill and as a result, what is made often is very raw and very straightforward.  

Some of the art is very fun, and will make you smile.  Other pieces will make you think and stand in awe of the clarity that they achieve.  The genre on a whole, gives me inspiration and encouragement in my own work as well as renews my faith in our ability to see the value that all individuals have, regardless of what society at whatever particular time chooses to value.

Below are a few of my favorites from the show.

Daniel Belardinelli

Jim Bauer 

A Simple Kind of New York Morning

Breakfast at Foragers City Grocer on 22nd Street.

Remembering My First Love (suprise, it's Marc Jacobs)

This is the look that inspired it all.  Well, ‘all’ may be be a bit of an exaggeration because liking clothes and wanting to make them, somehow always seemed innate.  No, this look opened my eyes to Fashion!  That is capital ‘F’ fashion.
 
It was home economics class, 10th grade, North Henderson High School, Hendersonville, NC.  Flipping through magazines (part of an assignment that I can not remember), I found this look, part of the Marc Jacobs campaign of Spring/Summer 1999.  The memory of this moment is so clear because my world came to a stop.  "What was this? " I thought.  "It is so amazing, so wonderful, a little impractical, a combination I haven’t seen before...?!"  I tore the page out and taped it up in my vanity, where it staid the remainder of high school and college.  I craved more of this ‘Fashion’ and started buying Vogue, learning designers and following the world of Fashion.  In this image, I had found a little bit of heaven and at the time, I thought, there must be no greater genius than Marc Jacobs.

This memory is what always brings me back, remembering my first love.  As I have been delighted by what Marc has been doing recently, in his own collection and at Louis Vuitton, I am once again inspired by him and I recall this memory and the Spring/Summer 1999 campaign that started it all. 

Wish I could locate the campaign photograph, but I can’t, therefore, the runway shoot will have to do.

New Sight for the New Year

Happy New Year!  It’s here.  I am always so thankful when it comes around, not because it erases the past year, nor because it is a chance to start over- honestly, every day is a chance to start over (every day is fresh with no mistakes in it)- I think I love the change of year, because it always brings me into new sight. 

The change of year makes me take inventory of the past year, see the value in it, itemize the successes, the lessons, compare where I thought I would be last year at this time to where I am today.  When I do this, I see growth and I see the opportunity for more growth - which is the exciting and fresh part!

I’m not a big resolution person - as I said above, every day you can change your life.  What I am big on, is understanding what this year will mean for your personal journey in life; if you understand that, you make the minor changes along the way that people often categorize as resolutions (running more often, seeing more movies, making time for friends, writing, etc.).  I don’t like resolutions, if at some point you stop going to the gym because your life gets busy, your resolution becomes a failure.  We have to be adaptable because we can never be certain what life will throw at us.  What we can control in the next year and in our life, is the kind of person we want to develop into.

Put on fresh glasses! (I actually found a steal on my new Balenciaga’s, so I think this metaphor was meant to be).  What kind of a year is it for you?  Who do you see yourself as?  Let's make positive life choices and be gentle on ourselves in the small things, and let's grow on the greater whole.