The Taoist call this "wu wei"; the art of effortless motion, like going with the flow. It's taken me years to stop clutching the reeds at the side of the river and allow myself to flow down it.....that is wu wei! These days, my back is slowly healing; I can walk for a half hour, continue to do my PT exercises and at the studio? My creativity is starting to flow back, slowly, with the funniest things and I am accepting of this time to float down the wu wei.
Thanks for the we wei reference. I am happy for your healing and getting your creative flow back. What wonders will you create after this life interruption!
BE THE RIVER!!! Indeed!! LOVE the analogy! It just figures out a way around the obstacles! Snatches of time, step by step, lead to creating something bigger. Art in all forms. Little Art is still Art. One Throw Quilt made is still progress. A River has Focus. Nothing stops it. It keeps moving forward. You have GREAT FOCUS & DRIVE!!
Flow was my word of the year! It’s a state of being that I think is critical to creative activity. Flow is natural to a 5 year old in the art room and by 6th grade it’s totally gone.
On a side note the guy who coined the phrase was at the University of Chicago. He was Hungarian and had an amazing name: Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi !
Yes I read that book. One of my quilts is called “flow”. I actually picked pieces of fabric up off the floor and sat and made the piece. In a day! Sometimes I’m in the flow of creating and other times I’m still with ideas flowing around me until it hits a snag and gets made and then goes on
I felt the same way. With 4 kids I managed to do a little needlepoint and knitting and then I got into quilting in the. 70s. I formed a weekly group and our kids played while we talked and sewed. My knitting also continued for years. It was portable when my youngest went to a local college I went too and took every art class. I’m still sorting through old paintings and monoprints and then 6 years of obsessive pottery making. And back to fiber art and I started a guild which is still going and also a weekly knitting group in a cafe and then an art group, the sisterhood of the traveling eyeballs. And I had a dyeing and marbling fabric business for about six years which I dyed and marbled thousands of yards of fabric….true colors. I was an obsessive maker. And I guess my family flowed around it. My hands were always busy cooking and making!!!! Now I have a house full of makings!!!! Still going and I think it’s the creative mind whirling with new ideas that keeps me waking up every day!
The Taoist call this "wu wei"; the art of effortless motion, like going with the flow. It's taken me years to stop clutching the reeds at the side of the river and allow myself to flow down it.....that is wu wei! These days, my back is slowly healing; I can walk for a half hour, continue to do my PT exercises and at the studio? My creativity is starting to flow back, slowly, with the funniest things and I am accepting of this time to float down the wu wei.
Beautiful. I hope you continue to heal fully.
Thanks for the we wei reference. I am happy for your healing and getting your creative flow back. What wonders will you create after this life interruption!
BE THE RIVER!!! Indeed!! LOVE the analogy! It just figures out a way around the obstacles! Snatches of time, step by step, lead to creating something bigger. Art in all forms. Little Art is still Art. One Throw Quilt made is still progress. A River has Focus. Nothing stops it. It keeps moving forward. You have GREAT FOCUS & DRIVE!!
So true, A river doesn't recognize little or big; it just keeps moving. We can do that too. Thanks for the comment, Jenny.
Flow was my word of the year! It’s a state of being that I think is critical to creative activity. Flow is natural to a 5 year old in the art room and by 6th grade it’s totally gone.
On a side note the guy who coined the phrase was at the University of Chicago. He was Hungarian and had an amazing name: Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi !
Yes I read that book. One of my quilts is called “flow”. I actually picked pieces of fabric up off the floor and sat and made the piece. In a day! Sometimes I’m in the flow of creating and other times I’m still with ideas flowing around me until it hits a snag and gets made and then goes on
That's a great accomplishment, Carol. Way to go....flow.
Such a good word of the year. I read Flow many years ago and value the concept and what it has contributed to my life.
I felt the same way. With 4 kids I managed to do a little needlepoint and knitting and then I got into quilting in the. 70s. I formed a weekly group and our kids played while we talked and sewed. My knitting also continued for years. It was portable when my youngest went to a local college I went too and took every art class. I’m still sorting through old paintings and monoprints and then 6 years of obsessive pottery making. And back to fiber art and I started a guild which is still going and also a weekly knitting group in a cafe and then an art group, the sisterhood of the traveling eyeballs. And I had a dyeing and marbling fabric business for about six years which I dyed and marbled thousands of yards of fabric….true colors. I was an obsessive maker. And I guess my family flowed around it. My hands were always busy cooking and making!!!! Now I have a house full of makings!!!! Still going and I think it’s the creative mind whirling with new ideas that keeps me waking up every day!
You are a true go-getter. Your calm demeanor hides the driven woman inside. Your accomplishments continue to be remarkable.