Orange Love

Yesterday I went to Judi's studio for my weekly Sunday session. Ellen picked me up and we shared some horrific stories and laughed like hell out of the ridiculous situations we are sometimes presented with in life. We met Nancy in the parking lot and we all trudged up the stairs of the Macaroni Factory to Judi's live/work space.

We all know that we are there to work. It is a serious business doing artwork and every week I am reminded of how blessed I am to have this opportunity to share this creative space with such wonderful women. We shared some stories of the week and then got down to the business of making art. The creative wheels were lubricated by strong black coffee, ginger snaps and homemade croutons to snack on.

I am continuing on something that I have started in my Artistic Identity class. Robbyn had us sculpt our family of origins in clay. It was a powerful and emotionally charged exercise for most of us. It is great that our class is small, which allows us time to explore and go deep with each critique. After the initial sculpture we were to take that idea home and create a family of origins piece of artwork that represented what our family would look like if it were healed of all the dysfunction that we grew up with. I did my healed family of origin out of cloth and stuffed small shapeless figures to represent different family members. I was struck with how difficult it was to imagine my family in a healed state. It bothered me how much resistance I had about it. What is that about???? I've had over twenty years of therapy (seriously, I have), shouldn't I be farther along than that????? I was bothered by my resistance and the lack of direction that I felt in making the finished piece. But I was also curious about my blocks around it. In fact, it was kind of fascinating to me, like discovering this new aspect of myself that I didn't know about.

So, it was with all this in mind that I decided to work with the piece in Judi's class. I at least needed to have some sense of completion with this piece even if it were to be something that I came back and work with again. I wanted to stay working with fabric and I had lots of 'fat quarters' at home to use. I also found a pattern on the internet that I wanted to work with for these cute stuffed birds. The birds would represent myself and my family members and they would be somehow placed in a 'tree' which would be made out of dried branches.

This is the point I was at when I stopped to talk to Judi. I had brought in some branches and was showing them to her with the birds. After talking to her for a few minutes I realized that I had neglected to tell her all the background information!! So, I told her about the assignment and all my feelings about it. It was kinds amazing to share that kind of personal information with another human being. It was like reaching deep into myself, pulling up a glob of emotion and then talking about it. I turned it over for us to see all the different aspects and sides. I didn't hide anything. Afterwards Judi was better informed and she could help me with forming a direction to go in since I felt like I was completely out of my element with no road map and just putting one foot in front of the other. I also felt very vulnerable having just gone through this process of deeply digging around in my psyche and then sharing it with another human being and also acknowledging it to myself. As I turned back to work Judi asked the room if anyone wanted toast with jam. I piped up that I would have some. I looked over a few minutes later and she was making the toast and buttering some of it. I was waiting for the 'it's ready!' call. Instead, I turned around and she was standing there before me holding a plate of toasted french bread thickly layered with apricot jam. She stood there looking down at the plate telling me how the jam was from Italy and really good and that it didn't have any added sugar. To be honest, I was completely stunned by this small gesture of being delivered this plate of orange love. I am always the one who is nurturing others and delivering savory tidbits to people to please and soothe them. It was an amazing gift to be on the receiving end of this small token of nurturance. She gave me the gift of receiving my story and my process and then she gave me orange love.