Everyone look busy, Mr Maisel's coming!

People say you should never meet your heroes lest they horribly disappoint you and make you forever disillusioned with all those people you've carefully been placing on pedestals over the years ... I've managed to avoid this risk of certain disappointment by interviewing one of my heroes instead ... as announced just over a month ago, the ever-inspiring Eric Maisel will be stopping off at my humble little blog on February 9th. So in just under a month I'll be hosting Eric as part of his virtual book tour for a new edition of 'Van Gogh Blues'. I have the chance to ask Eric questions about his book and just about anything else that's related (I guess) ... no of course I'm not scared, nope, not scared in the slightest. To be honest my mind is a big gaping void of nothing-ness exactly where all the 'questions for Eric' should be piling up ... it's practically like meditation in there! It's also fairly blank when I try to recall what I was thinking when I put my blog forward as a host. Still I'm looking forward to it and am feeling so honoured when I look at the company I'll be keeping on this tour ... just take a look at my immediate neighbours ...



Appearing directly before me is http://janallsopp.blogspot.com/ - Jan has some gorgeous prints and sketches on her blog ... she also owns a Gocco printer (so jealous!) and has just opened a beautiful etsy store - if you love teacups and graphic prints full of charm then you'll feel right at home.

Then following after me is http://annemarchand.blogspot.com/ - Anne is a painter whose paintings are vibrant expansive canvases full of energy, movement and a sense of quiet kind of drama ... I'm smitten with her colour-filled cityscapes - they're the perfect antidote to the wet and gloomy weather we're currently having here in York :-)

Eric's tour kicked off today with his first stop at http://www.gabrielleswain.blogspot.com ... I'm not looking until I've had a go at coming up with my questions, but don't let that stop you heading off and taking a peak - I'll catch you up :-) You can follow the rest of the tour by taking a look at the tour schedule here.

a gift to myself

I've been going great guns with my photography in the last year and I've even been doing a teeny tiny bit of art but while I was reading Poemcrazy and Foolsgold (by Susan Wooldridge) around Christmas it struck me just how much my writing has really fallen by the wayside. I have an awful lot of words swirling around inside me that would probably benefit by being released into the ether ... you never know, it could even help quieten down my monkey mind a notch.

Serendipitously enough I recently opened my regular helping of 'secret sauce' from Sophie Nicholls (a friend of a friend who is a professional hypnotherapist and passionate about creative writing). The newsletter announced the launch of Sophie's e-book 'Hypnotic Journaling' ... now I can't emphasise enough how cynical I am about e-books ... in my experience 99.9% of the e-books I stumble across on the web look like the author is pulling a fast one and trying to trick me into buying the book equivalent of the emporer's new clothes. But having met Sophie earlier at a party last summer (she was lovely, I was slightly tipsy) I decided to throw caution to the wind and treat myself to it in a spirit of 'new year, new me'. I downloaded the e-book the other day and I'm already loving the warmth of Sophie's writing style. I'm being strict with myself and not reading any more until I've done the first exercise but I'll let you (my imaginary blog audience) know how I get on :-) In the past I've had a tendency to greedily race through books without doing the exercises so I can always tell just how good a book is by whether it inspires me to stop and put pen to paper instead of racing to the finishing line telling myself I'll go back and finish the blanks in later, which of course I never do!

Survival Kit No. 1: Creativity

I feel like a main theme of my life has been the gradual return to creativity that I naively abandoned as a 13 year old girl (more on that later). I think my journey back started around 10 years ago and more often than not has involved me slowly inching my way up the down escalator at rush hour. Sometimes I've skipped all the way to the top, artfully avoiding the flood of people heading in the right direction, only to get distracted and find myself frozen to the spot as the escalator carries me all the way back to the bottom again, travelling backwards all the way. Other times I've doggedly trod water on the bottom step as I aim for the top but manage only to not fall off the bottom. On a few, ever-so-rare, occasions I've scampered up and down the escalator like a giddy fool having the time of my life and enjoying the bemused attention of onlookers. Well I could go on with this escalator analogy all day but eventually my fear of falling over on escalators will rear it's ugly head and I'll be telling you all about my 'being eaten by the teeth at the bottom of the escalator' daydream that I have to supress *every single time* I step onto one ... shudder!

This first survival kit is a place for me to dump all the things that aided me in my creative recovery. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to organise things but I'll start by telling you about the people who have been the hugest influence on me over the past decade and we can go from there. I'll order it alphabetically just so there's some kind of order as I add more and more :-)

Anaïs Nin - On a fateful valentine's day in 1998 my beloved gave me a copy of Delta of Venus. Something about it unlocked a part of me that I had buried deep inside and I started writing poetry again.

Natalie Goldberg - some strange serendipitous path led me to a book stall at the 1998 WOMAD festival ... through my 'all day spent drinking' tipsy state of mind I was somehow drawn to buy a small book called 'Writing Down the Bones' ... reading it was like coming home to me, simply life changing.

My blogging dilemma

Given that one of the gods of creativity will soon be darkening the doorstep of my much-neglected blog I have been racking my mind as to how I can get into the blog habit. I think I've realised that unless I am unemployed I will always struggle to balance work, loafing and sleeping with posting to my blog despite my very best intentions. Happily I've got past the point where I feel like I'm failing because I'm not posting everyday or weekly or regularly or at all for months on end ... I no longer equate my blog with all the many, many, many started-but-never-kept-up-for-more-than-a-few-days diaries of my childhood and adolescent years ... but having said that I still have a burning aspiration that involves blogging as a kind of online archive of what I thought and did over the years. After much humming and hawing I think I might have struck on a way of blogging that will keep me guilt free and will allow my blog to grow in a way that means something to me.

So, ladies and gentlefolk it is without futher ado and immense pleasure that I present to you the ever-expandable Creating in the Dark Survival Kits. The idea is that I'll start a blog entry for each survival kit and keep adding to the same entry every time I come across a new gem to add to the treasure chest. Really they will be survival kits for me because I am forgetful about how much joy there is in the world and this will be a place for me to remind myself what is so lovely about being on my journey on the days when I forget.

My first survival kit will of course be creativity ... let the great 'blogging for procastinators' adventure begin :-)

Making space for art

After many, many, many months of wanting (hoping, meaning, planning) to go to ArtSpace in York I finally did it! I went with a couple of friends on Friday which is their 'Art Jamming' night with music, wine and everyone enjoying making art. I've had a painting in my head for ages that was inspired by a photo I saw on Swirlygirl's blog (damned if I can find it now) so I had a go at painting that ... here's the result:



It started off life the other way up as lights hanging from the night sky but I like it this way - one of my friends said it looks like futuristic trees and I think she has a point :-)

Hostess with the mostess

A few weeks ago I was reading my weekly dose of creativity inspiration from Eric Maisel. When I got to the end of his newsletter there was an intriguing update note at the end which read:
"So far hosts have come forward for about three weeks of the Van Gogh Blues virtual book tour (a tour that goes from blog to blog). Please think about hosting me, even if you don’t have the most active blog in the world, as hosting me on the tour will increase exposure for your blog (the tour creates that kind of synergy) and may give you the impetus to begin or resume your blogging. So drop me an email if this intrigues you — I hope it will!"

I normally wouldn't give this sort of thing a second glance but something about it did intrigue me (especially the bit about not having to have the world's most active blog) and after a tiny bit of procrastinating I swallowed down all my doubts and emailed Eric to offer my blog as a host ... and he accepted my offer!

So on Saturday 9th February I will be hosting Eric Maisel's book tour for his 'Van Gogh Blues' book! I have no idea what is involved but I'm looking forward to finding out :-)

Illustration Friday: Rejection

Life is mega hectic at the moment but I had to make time to do a quick illo for this week's challenge (as it was me that suggested the word many moons ago) ...

Slight return no.2

Yesterday I got a very pleasant surprise in my inbox ... a word I suggested for Illustration Friday has been chosen for this week's challenge ... and given that the word I suggested was 'rejection' I think challenge is probably the right word :-} My first thought was 'shucks, that's cool' ... followed very quickly by my second thought which was 'aaagh, I haven't posted to my poor neglected blog for ages and all the nice people at IF who venture onto my blog will be disappointed by the dusty words and pictures they find languishing in this forgotten corner of cyberspace'. So I thought I'd write a welcome note to let any new visitors know I'm still very much alive :-) The reason my blog hasn't been touched since last October (yikes) is that I am now a total Flickr addict - you can see my stuff here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/creatinginthedark/

The funniest thing about my word being picked is that I made the suggestion many, many moons ago as a reaction to receiving a rejection letter for a job I'd applied for back in February 2005 ... you can read my blog post on the topic here.

So anyway here's to pleasant surprises and breathing new life into old blogs :-) Have fun with this week's challenge and I can't wait to see how you creative bunch react to it ... hell I might even give it a go myself - only fair I suppose :-)

52 Figments - Betsy Beth

Lizbet ...
She brings sunshine to every season but blossoms on long, lazy summer days when her birkenstocks and jewel-painted toes leave a trail of sunbeams wherever she goes.
She lights up rooms like a million twinkling fairylights reflected in champagne bubbles and candle-lit crystal chandeliers.
She is brightly coloured beach huts, Mr Moos icecream, wet pebbles glistening like gemstones on the beach and a lighthouse guiding me home.
She is a knitting goddess playing on swings, walking the long way back and cycling through fields full of sunset and golden sunflowers.
She is cross-legged picnics with good wine, good friends, an endless supply of olives, ducks as office pets and laughter like Rowan Kid Classic.
She is a glittery collage bursting with colour, inspiration, easy beauty, bravery, truth, kind questions, passion and fun.
She is not perfection but she is perfect as she is. She lets me stand in the dark while holding out a hand of stars and moonlight and her hugs are like comfort blankets made of angels wings.
She walks softly and lovingly through my sometimes fragile thoughts: joy-bringing, soul-sharing and the very sweetest of friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update: here's what the lovely Lizbet said about me ... I can't read it without a few tears of joy welling up in my eyes :-)

Total Neat Freak ;-)

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Hay Rolls

Field and Forest

Big House in the Country

Life Echo 1

Life Echo 2

Sunshine in a Flower

Evening Sunflower

I took this on the way home from a lovely meal with friends ... they have three sunflowers welcoming you as you walk up the the garden path - I managed to resist photographing them on the way in but couldn't on the way out. It was just getting dark when I took this shot which is why it looks so dramatic I think.

This is what paradise looks like ...

New House, New Carpet

Yay, we moved to our lovely little bungalow a week ago :-D So far it is everything we were desperately hoping for ... peaceful, private, friendly ... our very own slice of the idyllic living ... no chavs (well okay maybe one or two, but not stood shouting abuse at us through the windows), no dog poo, no mean-faced neighbours (we've already met eight of our neighbours, our neighbourhood watch coordintor and the parish councillor!!). Needless to say we are very happy, relaxed and looking forward to many years kicking back in the 'burbs :-D

More soon I promise ... now off to do a supersized upload to Flickr ... how I've missed you sweet Flickr :o)

BTW the floral delight above is the carpet in our living room ... to be changed mighty soon methinks.

Moving Day Approaches

Wendel is Ready to Move


Angelica Hinders the Packing

So we are slowly becoming surrounded by taped up boxes, filled up suitcases and charity sacks full of clothes that should have been discarded prior to our last move! We are moving from a large 3-storey, 3-bedroom house to a 3-bedroom bungalow ... not sure if it will all fit in but we have a garage for any overflow. We get the keys on friday so we're going to kind of camp out with the bare minimum of stuff (i.e. cats, kettle, toaster, guitar, radio and mini-fridge) for a few nights until the full move takes place on tuesday (in a week's time .... aagh!). I am still worried that something will go wrong at the last minute but am trying not to fret too much.

Late Adopter

I have finally got round to becoming addicted to Flickr ... why didn't anyone tell me ;-)

The main reasons I've taken the plunge are:
a) to stop my blog from becoming overloaded with photos
b) to organise my photos/scans of artwork and make them available for me to gaze at/bore other people with when I'm out and about.

My main problem now is that I have ton of images I want to post but have to go through and think of titles and tags for them. The first batch are up now (with some tweaking still left to do) ... mainly photos from our trip yesterday to the Scar House Reservoir in the most gorgeous weather imaginable :o) ... feast your eyes here

Look to the Skies

Ballooooon

I just about managed to catch the hot air balloon before it hid behind the building. This photo was taken from the nicest (in my humble opinion) bit of the York city walls.