Cassie Tedder

 

"Recovering an artist....is a tricky, messy, exciting, liberating, scary and frustrating job.  I never realized this until I actually began thinking of what it would be like to really become an artist. I could hardly believe how many emotions went in to actually making the decision to do it. Fortunately, I've found great consolation, instruction and help from the book, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron-"A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self". I am only on week 5 of the 12 week study, but it has already altered my life in a very positive way.

I now know why it is so hard for me (and many others) to actually fulfill a passion or dream. So many obstacles lie in the way. Well, I have been realizing my greatest obstacle- it's not a traumatizing experience or horrible memory (which I'm very thankful for) ......its me. I am my greatest critique, antagonist, doubter, procrastinator...you name it. 

In The Artist's Way, Julia guides the artist through a process of recovering themselves- recognizing and dealing with our struggles (outside and internal), our self-sabotage, our dreams, and our true potential.  Today's topic caught me off-guard...although I am not surprised by that. 

Here is powerful quote from the lesson. "If we learn to think of receiving God's good as being an act of worship-cooperating with God's plan to manifest goodness in our lives- we can begin to let go of having to sabotage ourselves." 

Wham! I felt like, yet again, she hit it on the head. I definitely am really working through and towards truly believing that God intends for my greatest good. in addition, being able to accept the full meaning of His grace, receiving His overwhelming love, unmerited....that is indeed a life-long journey. Especially when I was beginning to really think about being an artist, I really struggled to accept that God could be honored by my being an artist. I had to let go of the concept that God wants me to do something really meaningful, hard, and completely self-sacrificing...and that definitely could not be art! But upon hearing again and again that this is a great gift from God, I couldn't help but give into the fact that this could really be what God made me for.

Well for those reading, I highly recommend The Artist's Way...as we are all creative beings, all have dreams and things getting in the way. Some of our obstacles can't be removed, but I have experienced so much more freedom not only as an artist, but as a wife, daughter, sister and friend.  I can't say that I agree with everything she says, but for the most part, it I think it is a very helpful and powerful wealth of information.

As always, here are some of the things I've been doing this week. I am continuing to play with overlaying photographs and just letting the editing process go in all kinds of interesting directions. Unfortunately, my hard drive broke this week, and most of my recent edits are on there  :  (
But there will be many more of these to come as soon as I can retrieve those pictures.