Wow where have I been??

Yup, sadly I have been neglecting this little space of creativity for a while now. It’s been an exhausting few months to say the least. I’ve been pretty busy doing photography and painting and am excited that a direction of sorts seems to be emerging a little at a time. A direction, I am hoping, that will touch others’ lives and help me to continue this path of making meaningful art for a living. I’m starting to see a style in my photography… a “something” that connects to my soul. That something has been emerging in whispers over the past 3 years, oh-so quietly, without me realizing it. As I look back, I see the moments where I connected to it, fleeting moments. But it seems that since the loss of my fiancé last year, I’ve been so in touch with my intuition and soul that a lot of things have become much clearer. Photography has also been such a huge part of my healing and navigating this new life without him. Which is perfect. He was the biggest supporter of my photography, so how exactly right that it become a part of how I will live again.

And that painted feather I shared on here in November? Well, it seems I might have fallen on something there. I’ve already sold several online and have two local art galleries that are interested in selling them! This thrills me to no end, especially because symbols of flight have become so important to me since losing Drew (for those who don’t know, he was a helicopter pilot). So every time I send one of these beauties out into the hands of another I feel like I am sending out his passion for flight as well as his belief that should never stop reaching for our dreams.

I’ve also been working on my fine art site Seven Shooting Stars (which may eventually end up being where I move the content for this blog over to) and started up a new Etsy shop to sell my photos and nature art. Yippee! I opened up a business bank account and worked with an accountant to get a crash course in what all I need to do as I enter into this self-employed world. I hired a creative coach in December to help keep me focused, accountable, and pumped up… and boy does she rock! There’s something about hiring someone else to help you out – its like telling yourself that you are now officially taking this seriously enough to invest in it and invest someone else’s time in it too. That’s a big move for me.

So that is what I’ve been up to since November. Good lord, when I read it all written out, its a crap ton of stuff! I have to give credit to everyone who has supported me fiercely this past 8 months, because the only way I’ve had the strength to do any of the above is because of the amazing support and love I’ve had along the way from my own family, from Drew’s family and from friends both new and old, near and far!

I’m hoping to get back on track with the monthly challenges this month. These challenges really are so helpful in pushing creative boundaries I’ve found. I’ll try to get a new theme posted up for this month before too long! In the meantime, I’m wondering what sort of creative challenges others have been up to? Please share in a comment below!

November Blog Challenge! Theme: “Flight”

As promised in my previous post, here is the first creative blog challenge! The theme for November is “Flight”. What do you think of when you hear this word? It’s a powerful symbol, and immediately conjures up a multitude of images and feelings for me. We each have our own unique experience with this theme in our lives… somewhere in our journey of life there are dark times, painful and difficult places we must take flight out of. Somewhere else there are the things we take flight away from. And then there are the things in our story that hold our hearts… the things we spread ourselves wide open for and take flight into with boldness and passion. Flight is open, limitless, perpetual.

I’m excited to see what the results on this first challenge… and I’m deciding to ignore the voice that says “what if NO ONE participates” – because, oh, its there. But I’m not listening! You’ve got a whole stinkin’ month to make something – so no excuses! Time to take flight!… paint, draw, sculpt, write, photograph and collage your heart out! And when you’re all done, please please email me at sarahtreanor[at]icloud[dot]com with an image (or text if it’s a poem or essay) and a short description of your project and I will post it up on the blog the first week of December. (If you feature it on your own blog too I’m happy to throw in a link to that, just make sure you include it!)

Have fun!

Learning To Fly

Many of you know of my fiancé’s passing 3 months ago in a crash while working as a helicopter pilot in Washington state. In no time in your life do you become more clear about what is important to you than a tragic loss of a partner and best friend. It strips away everything until all that is left are the vital things that can still make your heart soar in the middle of the darkness.

Finding Flying Lessons
Drew’s mom bought me this painting about a month ago by Kelly Rae Roberts. I happened upon a whole wall of her paintings in the shop we were at, and tucked away in the corner, hiding behind a sign was this one. It reads “she lived her heart’s glowing truth every single day”. It sits by my bed and serves as my mantra… my commitment to live my truth each day – no matter how joyful or sorrow-filled that truth might be.

Then I went onto Kelly Rae’s site and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw her online course titled “Flying Lessons: How to make your creative business soar” – Drew had just finished his rating to be a flight instructor, and had spent many nights giving me flight lessons to practice for his final exam this past year. If ever there was a sign! I purchased the course immediately, as an early birthday present to myself. And today it starts, just a week before my 30th birthday.

What Is My Passion?
In the midst of his loss, and with the help and support of many beautiful people in my life, I found my passion… the thing that is to help me heal and carry me forward into a brilliant shining life. It was there all along you see, it’s been there since I was a little girl, but its been hiding beneath all the clutter of everyday life until this loss stripped away everything else. I want to make things. I want to make things that excite me and make a difference in people’s lives. And I don’t want to have to fit that into a box anymore. I draw, paint, photograph, write, design, weld, sculpt and do whatever else I fall in love with. And that is what I want to build my life and career around.

The Journey Ahead…
So I don’t know much right now – but I know the most important thing. I know that I’m not going to play by the rules anymore – the old restrictions of fear and doubt that have kept me in a box most of my life. Done. My fiancé faced the biggest fear of all to achieve his dreams of flying and doing what he loved for a living, so being afraid just isn’t a good enough reason anymore. I’m going to pursue the life I want – and nothing is going to stop me. I’m going to follow my heart and soul, because now I truly believe in myself. It is mine to have, so I’m going to take it. And I am SO thrilled to have this course to help me get further on my journey. I’m also thrilled to share my journey with all of you here on my blog. So here’s to flying high my friends.. I hope to see you on a cloud somewhere up there!

Robocop Arm to the Rescue!

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and encouragement from my last post! It really means a lot to me and definitely encourages me that they will one day go off to new homes and be enjoyed each and every day by their owners – just as I enjoy some of the art toys I have from other artists. I’ve also have a few people interested in commissioned felties – and hoping that will pan out! I’ve still yet to have my first commissioned critter!

I confess I have not been very motivated to blog in the past few weeks – hence the lack of posts. My wrist injury has really been limiting what I can do creatively, so I’ve been a bit restless and spending a lot of time just sorta zoning out reading or watching TV. So this wrist thing – which I originally thought was a sprain from working out – turned out to instead be tendinitis in the thumb joint of my wrist… caused by – you guessed it – needle felting! So no, I don’t burn myself welding or pull muscles in pilates… instead I inflame tendons stabbing wool! Sheesh, who knew this was going to be such a dangerous hobby? =P

As per doctor’s orders, at night I get to wear this truly fabulous Robocop brace that immobilizes my thumb and wrist. During the day, thankfully I get to wear a smaller one that looks more like I got in a hardcore fight and punched someone’s lights out. Not gonna lie, I do pretend that’s the real story just to feel extra badass walking down the street or driving with it on. Hey might as well use some creativity to turn it into a positive, right?

So the past few weeks I’ve stopped felting pretty much entirely, trying to give myself a good chance to heal up. I cannot rock climb, I cannot kayak, and I’m insanely restless to do both! Thankfully, this week the pain has almost entirely subsided – Prednisone dosepack & Robocop arm to the rescue! I think I am only a week or two away from being able to do all of my favorite things again, and am even able to start doing little things this week like open bottles and cans and lift stuff. My god, I never realized how important thumbs are! I certainly have a new appreciation for these digits!

At this point its pretty obvious I won’t be making my June deadline for the art market, but you know what? That’s okay. Even if I don’t get selling at an actual market this year at all, this project has jump started some great stuff for my Etsy shop. I hope to start photographing everything soon so that I can get a bunch of it up in my otherwise barren shop in the next few months! Woo! Even if it’s not the outcome I originally desired, it’s progress! And it’s still making things I love and moving forward with my overall goals of making some money from doing what I love. =)

Stuff To Do: The Adventure Project

The Art House Co-Op is always putting together some new and fun creative project that anyone anywhere can participate in. I’ve been following along for a few years now watching them grow. They’re latest endeavor is The Adventure Project, a fun (and free!) short video project. Here’s the details a snagged from their site:

Sign-Up Deadline: March 28th (hurry!)
Video Deadline: April 30th (uploaded to youtube)

“Can you capture an adventure in 30 seconds?
This week, we’re challenging ourselves to go on an adventure and document it in a video. It could be as simple as a walk around the neighborhood or as daring as you can imagine. The Adventure Project asks artists to shoot a 30-second video that captures an adventure, great or small. Upload your video to YouTube and send us the link (projects [at] arthousecoop [dot] com) — we’ll add each submission to our channel and exhibit the project online. Feeling adventurous? Then grab a camera and show us what you find.”

Since my boyfriend got an awesome GoPro camera recently that is great for shooting extreme sports and such, I’m excited to finally have something we can put it to use on! Perhaps a kayaking trip is in order soon… what sort of adventure would you film? I’m curious to see what sorts of things people come up with for this! I urge you to join in the fun and sign up to play! Don’t wait – signup ends on March 28th!

15 Creative, Clever, Inspiring Blogs!

So I just learned there is this wonderful little award floating around the blogosphere (first time I’ve used that word, yep, I feel nerdy)… it’s called The Versatile Blogger award and is a really lovely thing I happen to think. Basically, the rules are; Thank the person who nominated you and share their site, share 7 personal things about yourself, and nominate 15  other bloggers who will then repeat the process. I happen to think it’s a pretty cool way to help get attention for your own blog as well as share and support some great blogs out there that people might otherwise not find… blogs building upon blogs… everybody wins!

I’d Like to Thank…
So first I’d like to give a shout out Munchow and Brenda Stonehouse for nominating me for this award via their blogs. Munchow’s Creative Photo Blog is a great blog about creativity and photography and is – from just the little I have seen – a very talented professional photographer. Brenda has a wonderfully gutsy project called Pencils, Paint and Pixels in which she is doing some form of art every single day for a year! Very inspiring stuff… Thank you both!

15 Creative & Inspiring Blogs!
Here are 15 of my favorite bloggers doing some really awesome creative things!

1. Skeptycal — Random creativity, inspiration, and bits of widsom from my brother’s life! (by Michael Treanor)

2. Middle of Nowhere — Home of Gretel Parker, the creator of ‘Puddletown Tales’, children’s illustrator, needle felter and toymaker living in a tiny cottage in the Cotswolds countryside, England. She was the first to inspire me to take up needle felting – one of my current obsessions!

3. FabFiftyFive — The (Mis)Adventures of a Junior-Senior. Speed skating, rock climbing, circus school… Julie Wise is celebrating turning 55 in a totally fab way!

4. Blissbombed — Living a divinely-inspired, kick-ass life (that rocks the world), Stephanie writes about relationships, love, life, and spirit in a refreshingly balls-out way – (By Stephanie St. Claire)

5. MusicalChairs — Adventures of Katharina Hoehendinger, who recently quit her well-paying job to focus on all the creative things she’s always wanted to do (and moving to China while doing it!)

6. FromSonika – Lovely and genuine poetry, inspiration and tidbits of life from a wonderful writer. (By Sonika)

7. Daily Walks — This is where I go when I want to feel incredibly jealous of someone’s daily walks. Just go there, you will agree. Seriously gorgeous photography. (By Diane Varner)

8. 12 Books in 12 Months — …Need I say more? (By Ali George)

9. Miriam’s Well — Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond (by Miriam Sagan)

10. Talin Orfali – Wonderfully inspiring writer sharing her wisdom, positivity and perspective with the world! (By Talin Orfali)

11. Burrard-Lucas Photography Blog — Two brothers from the UK, doing some incredible wildlife photography, much of which helps to raise awareness for preserving endangered species. I am a big fan. (By Will & Matthew Burrard-Lucas)

12. The Shine Project — A very passionate and vibrant woman with a wonderful mission to spread joy and helps others to find theirs through charity projects, scholarships for children, etc. Wonderful! (By Ashley)

13. Lightstalking — Awesome photo blog & community with tutorials, tips, themed photo collections weekly, and more.

14. The Pioneer Woman — So help me, I can get lost for endless amounts of time on Ree Drummond’s site about a city girl who became a country girl and now blogs voraciously about recipes, photography, country living, homeschooling and more.

15. Looking At The West — Beautiful photography blog exploring the landscape and culture of the American West. (By Andrew McAllister)

7 things about me you didn’t know:

1. I don’t like shoes. And I don’t like winter because I am forced to have to wear shoes. I like my toes to be able to roam free!

2. My favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip. (my favorite anything really is mint + chocolate) I used to eat a bowl with my dad many nights as a little girl while we watched Disney’s Fantasia.

3. I have a skull collection I started back in early college.. sparked by digging up the skull of my childhood cat when we moved out of our old house. Yes… I’m aware this is creepy.

4. My favorite color was once described as “baby poo green” by my design professor in college.

5. Both of my parents have passed on, my mom 20+ years ago, and my dad just a few years ago. Although I’m a pretty together person, I still have those days where I just want to be able to call up my parents and fall apart a bit over it. You never stop missing them.

6. I went hot air ballooning, para-sailing, sky diving, firewalking and met the man in my life in 2009.. yeah it was an adventurous year!

7. “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” are my shower songs. They are the only two songs I sing in the shower, and I never sing them outside of the shower.

Read more about the Versatile Blogger Award.

Sooo… what have I been up to this month?

I realize I have posted virtually NOTHING this month so far – yipes! Its true, the end of the month (and year!) are sneaking up fast! Have I finished a poster yet? Nnnnope… have I even started? Not at all! But I HAVE been thinking about it! (I definitely count that as productive). Even though I manage to do a lot of creative stuff I do procrastinate quite well still.

So what HAVE I been up to all month?
Well aside from the usual holiday chaos of hanging lights, putting out decorations and gift-wrapping… I’ve been working on a new project that is likely to become another year-long project on TOP of my 12 months project next year. (Sometimes I ask myself “what on earth have you gotten into now?!”). Yes, it came to me quite randomly a few weeks ago… I’d been trying to figure out how to open up my 12 Months of Creativity to other people. I wrestled with some different ideas, one of them being to have membership to a 12 Months blog where I would post about your project once a month. That felt off to me though… it still felt too much like me controlling/running a thing (taking precious creative time away from me) and plus, i didn’t much like the idea of making people pay for it. So I kept thinking and visiting various websites and online communities… until ONE day…

Something just hit me!
You know those moments people describe where something just hits them over the head? They’re going about their business or doing nothing particularly significant and then out of nowhere BAM!!! something just slams right into your head, decides to curl up inside your brain there and purr magnificence to you. Yes, we have all heard people talk of those moments.. they make us nauseous. Well, I’m here to say… sorry for the nausea! Indeed it did – just hit me like a ton of bricks (brightly colored ones!). Of course, it happened after spending many many hours and days and weeks and months thinking and talking to people about various ideas for how to expand my project to others. So I guess really, it wasn’t so much an “Aha!” moment as it just was finally the solution that seems to fill all the needs I was looking for.

So what IS this big idea?
I know… I’m rambling and really making quite a build-up to this idea of mine. (My boyfriend can tell you this is one of my many annoying talents). So the idea is to make an online creative community where people from all over the world can share their projects together… all kinds of projects! Art projects, cooking projects, craft projects, projects with kids, community service projects, science projects, anything creative! I knew it was perfect right away… because I love WAY to many things in life to ever just focus on one – and I know many other people are the same way too. I figure if I use the mantra I did during this entire 12 months project (Does it excite me? Then I’m DOIN IT!) then I could have a shot to really create this thing!

Soooo there you have it. BIG idea. Lots of possibility. We don’t know where it will go. It could crash halfway through the year, it could never really get off the ground to begin with, OR it could fly around the freakin’ world and touch million’s of people’s lives and get creative juices flowing all over the place! Haha, who is this person? I swear I NEVER used to dream this big… what is going ooon!

We Will Create
With that I will leave you with the link to the community page… wewillcreate.ning.com
I’ve got it up and running on a cheap and not-so-fancy community platform just to get things started. A) Because I’m cheap and B) Because I’m impatient and don’t want to wait to have some massive custom site built out. It’s all one big learning process right now, there’s still plenty of quirks and kinks to work out, but would love for you to stop by and join in the creativity! Starting first of the year there should already be several people beginning projects on there! Woohoo!! Thanks for reading!

Making Your Own 12 Months Project!

That’s right! You know you want to start out 2012 with your own awesome 12 Months (or 365, or 100 days, or 3 months, or whatever works for you!) I promised to share some info before the new year about setting up your own 12 Months of Creativity so that any of you hoping to start in January can get a little ahead of the game!

It’s embarassingly simple really…

1. Buy some notecards (preferably fun colors to jazz things up)

2.  Spend a few days jotting down all the projects you might want to do next year… (if you have trouble getting started, take a look at the Project Suggestions Page!)

3. While you’re busy thinking up projects, have your friends & family think up some fun themes for you. I sent out a mass FB message/email briefly explaining the project and what I needed from them… I ended up with SO many wonderful themes I never would have thought of myself, so I recommend this! Plus, you know, less work for you. Always nice!

4. Once you’ve got all of that, spend an evening narrowing down your cards if need be (if you’re like me, you’ll probably have WAY more than needed!). I narrowed my project cards to around 20 and my theme cards to around 30. This kept things fun as I could never really remember what was left in the stacks each month.. oooh the lovely anticipation! A tip for narrowing… pick the ones that either excite you the most or scare you the most. A good mix of both ends of the spectrum makes for a great year, in my opinion!

5. Last but not least, write out all your items onto your snazzly colored cards – making sure to keep the themes and projects in separate stacks. That’s it! You’re totally ready to get creating! (see I told you… ridiculously simple eh?)

Oh and don’t forget to contact me via sarahtreanor[at]gmail[dot]com to introduce yourself and your project. I would so love to share it on the blog and let everyone know of the grand creativeness that is about to ensue in your life! If you create a blog to share the entire journey, please also include the link so I can make sure everyone gets to see!

Also, feel free to alter this structure however you like. This is just what excited me. If it sounds like too much or not enough for you, please change it up! Do a 365 days, 3 Months, 30 days… whatever works for you. Next year I plan to change it up to a quarterly structure, still doing something each month but focusing on only 4 types of projects for the full year. So whatever your flavor… we want to see it!

Alright… I’m going to wait patiently now for a mass of emails! *turns on Sex and the City reruns and waits*