Creative Risk-Taking

I have been mulling over what I wanted to write about regarding Chapter 3 of The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative Women. This chapter is all about taking creative risks and following your intuition. A major risk for me was starting this blog to share my creative journey. Just a year ago, I would not have imagined posting online something I had drawn. It really started when I joined Art Every Day Month hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day this past November. I posted drawings in the flickr pool and was inspired by the kind comments others left for me. So in January I decided to try her Creative Every Day Challenge. She had suggested keeping a creativity log which I have done and for the month of January, I believe I only have two days where I didn't have anything creative to log! I feel pretty good about that.

Today I decided to challenge myself with one of those 25 Random Things About Me tags that are flying around facebook. At first I thought, "What could I write about that anyone would care to read?" I did make my list and even felt good about it. It was liberating for me to see in writing who I am, at least in bits and pieces, and in how I see myself. I decided to post the list here as well for my fellow book bloggers. I guess you can call it a first step in understanding the person I truly am.

1. I was born in California and grew up in Mississippi, so I consider myself a southern belle.
2. My favorite vacation was spent in Western Australia searching the forests for wildflowers and orchids.
3. Music has always been my preferred form of escape.
4. I grew up with a Chihuahua named Cisco and now I have a Greyhound named Belle Starr.
5. I have not gotten over the passing of certain pop/ rock singers like Andy Gibb, Michael Hutchence and Bradley Delp.
6. I have a thing for men with strong, beautiful voices, like Raul Julia.
7. I have a dream of singing in front of a crowd. Now if only I had a set of pipes to pull it off.
8. I am a nature girl at heart. I love wildlife, trees, flowers, babbling brooks, etc.
9. I am looking forward to the classes to become a Master Gardener for Loudoun County, which start next week.
10. I despise politics because everyone has their precious agenda and no one knows the meaning of compromise.
11. Even though I am fairly organized, detail-oriented and studied business in college, I am much more interested in artistic pursuits.
12. I don’t much care for amusement parks. Rollercoasters can be fun, but the rest of it bores me to tears.
13. I want to visit the town in Poland where my paternal grandmother was born.
14. My favorite city is Florence, Italy. Seeing Michelangelo’s David for the first time was an amazing moment in my life.
15. I felt in awe upon seeing the Venus de Milo at the Louvre, but not about Mona Lisa. I expected to have the opposite reaction.
16. I grew up water-skiing, so learning to lean forward to snow ski has been a real challenge for me.
17. I broke my arm snow skiing in 1996 and had to have the bone set with external fixation, meaning six screws sticking out of my right arm. I had to learn to write and eat with my left hand. And I was unable to drive the Thunderbird with the stick shift for quite awhile!
18. I swore I would never drive in Italy because it was such a scary experience with tiny vehicles and scooters zooming all around me. But somehow I learned to make that “too-narrow gap to get through” a lot smaller while I was there. My life did flash before my eyes more than once!
19. I didn’t think I would learn to drive on the LHS of the road in Australia. But I did, and even now I sometimes forget which side of the road I’m supposed to be on.
20. I am an introvert, but I am very compassionate about other people.
21. I can crochet, but have yet to master the art of knitting.
22. I love when synchronicity occurs. That’s why I named my blog “Artful Synchronicity”.
23. The most beautiful place I have ever been is the south island of New Zealand.
24. I despise clutter.
25. I am inspired by art, nature, soulful writing.