"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” ~Saul Bellow

It took a writer who was inspired by this artist to inspire this artist to write...
The magic of the muse, it never ceases to amaze...
Mixed Media painting by Amy Sperry Faldet

Pillow Lands by Christopher Ryan and Amy Sperry Faldet

A poem for you, from us, as soft as rose petals, to bring you to your own Pillow Land.



Pillow Lands by Christopher Ryan and Amy Sperry Faldet

Of Camelot she dreams at night

Bestride a steed, her Valiant Knight

Hastens ‘cross the emerald vale

His song, the call of a Nightingale

Echoes from the make-believe,

Soft murmurs of a midsummer’s eve

Ignite the glow of a thousand faery lights

that shine upon the Pillow lands tonight

With blossoms turning to watch them meet, they are toe to toe, breathless, inspired over meadowsweet.  The twinkle of tiny orbs in the branches hover low as she lays her head upon the pillow.  The Pillow Lands, almost, as comforting as a caress from his hands

Verbs for creating my world...

If this is about enjoying the ride, understanding your self, reflecting on the lights, and the creation of a place that lets you be happy, healthy, and whole...

... I have.
Breathe in, Breathe out... dream, sigh, gather, stand, sit, light, touch, spill, try, make, play, press, sip, nibble, walk, find, seek, brush, reflect, smile... result, always is, and always will be, love from my life, from my heart, in my art.

Be a student... get messy.

I took a class this weekend.  The teacher becomes student and bliss is achieved.  I got messy. I made mistakes, as Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus always advised. 
Sabrina Ward Harrison does something called Spill.  It may not be new in concept to create modern art with spilled paint and messy media, but, what she helps the student do is to find your part in color.  It is essential to grow.  To have goals and work towards them makes us healthy. 
I wanted last year to use more color, to have a messier time.  I did.  This year, already, I am pushing further.  I want to experience the senses and live with out judging my art and my efforts as a teacher and person.  Take a class.  Be vulnerable. It will be good to grow out of your old shell and use all you know to help you understand all you don't. 

Look into the future...

When we know ourselves, we realize that giving ourselves permission to pursue are goals, is so very healthy.  I see those around me, (I have been there, myself) that beat themselves up about not achieving goals they set.  Here is what I have noticed about the future... it never comes.  Therefore, if you want something the time to do it is now.  In order to make that a reality, you must set the machinations in motion, now, not later, not when the kids are grown... now. 
Otherwise, you really don't want it or it is not a reality you are willing to create.
The future is not real.  Now is.
What we do with our now is what creates our experience.  I don't see it any other way anymore.
I have seen how not getting certain jobs or not achieving what I thought I should has led to the most amazing, better, opportunities, doing what I absolutely ADORE!
Why?
Because it is my now and it can be and is where I want to be.

The World of Kindness and Inner Health Walks Hand-in-Hand With The World of Creation

“The Universal view melts things into a blur.” ~Emile Cioran

When you are on the carnival ride of life and the view seems a blur and even scary, it is time to take a breath and look within for what you want to see.  Being kind to yourself is what gives you the power to create a kind world for those around you.  Give yourself that gift and blur the lines so that your fears disappear.

Art by Amy Sperry Faldet

Staying healthy by understanding what we manifest...

Art by Amy Sperry Faldet
What does that mean?
When I draw or paint it is expression.
I pick up a charcoal pencil and wonder.
There is wonder.
What do I want to express?
The days I do not find a means of expression, are part of me, as well.
We all have days that feel like we authentically participated, that feel like we have brought into the world a better way of looking, thinking.
The days that this doesn't happen, though, can accumulate.
What does that mean?
That is entirely up to me.
Because I teach and because I am a mother of four, as well as, being an artist, I can feel tapped out of energy to express myself. 
I sometimes have to remind myself in the depths of exhaustion to be articulate.  Yes, it can get that bad.
I can go a week without knowing what to say.  I can be so tired I worry I won't ever want to write or create or just be around other humans!
What I have to remember is that is ok.
I do not need to stress that I can't express myself, that I won't be heard.
Maybe sometimes it is exactly what I need. 
It is just that, a quiet stretch.  It is time to wonder. 
It is time to rest and form ideas and see joys.
We can manifest what things mean to us.
When we remember that we are strongest.

Love stories...

"The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers do not finally meet some where.  They are in each other's hearts all along." ~Rumi
I did this painting this week in the depths of a winter blues episode. 
It probably doesn't look blue, or full of despair.
That is the point.
What I must do when I feel unwell, physically, emotionally, wholly, is find, again, what I love.
Love doesn't necessarily have to be from someone else.  If you have love in your heart you see the world as a warm, fresh, spring day.
This is a moment of wellness.
My heart wells up with these colors, with the subject, the words,  just the word story, because of my love of books, is sometimes enough to get me through a very rough spot.
It is not perfect.
It is not fool proof.
But, I have this, I love...
I have a 100% track record, as the saying goes, of getting over this sadness.  That is good and it is enough.
So, tonight...
Fall in love with what you love, again.
I love sleep with good dreams.
I love coffee in the morning.
I love the sound of my children breathing softly at night, warm and sound.
I love chocolate on pretzels.
I love caprese salads.
I love the palette I tend to choose in my art.
I love blossoms and new grass and hope in a blue sky turning pink at sunset.

Looking inside means understanding dark corners...

It is the depth of winter.   I have just spent the last week tending to ill children while still trying to do all that must be done.  We all do this.  It is just how it is. 
I know that part of a balanced life is allowing for quiet.  Allowing for dark.  Allowing for cozy.
 It is just how it is.
I am not sure why I fight it each winter. 
I should know by now it is coming.
I think the world we have created does not allow for this darkness, this hibernation-state.
We are creators, teachers, care-givers.
The part of us inside that sparks this is never extinguished.
What we must remember, though, is that all flame requires fuel.
What we must remember, though, is that the best light from within shows when it is darkest around us.
Embrace what is.
This painting is something I challenged myself to do this New Year.
The Nature Spirit, here, is named Vrai.  This is the word for true in French. 

She has manifested in many ways throughout my life.

She is always there.

When I ignore my truth.

She shows up to remind me to be kinder to myself.

I am glad that she does.

"Her beauty shone in places bright or dark,

her voice made the very birds listen."

Go, allow yourself some quiet, some dark.

Embrace the corners that are deep and mysterious.

Bring light to them

with

a single

small flame.

There will be times when all that will fix it is a good book...

In my mind, there is nothing a good book can't heal for my emotional self.  I will ask of you, today, to create a list of books that give you visual escape.
If they have gorgeous covers, say yes!
If they have embossed letters, say yes!
If they have illustrations, say yes!
If they are the color of the sky at a gypsy picnic, say yes!
Now, picture what your book would look like if you were one.
I say this because you are the best book you've never read.
I want you to see what you would put in your table of contents!

I drew this table of contents long ago, because it was a faerytale-like book and faerytale-like table I had in my heart.
What I have come to realize is my art, like this drawing is part of my heart.  I have an intriguing, vast, table of contents in me.  I want to know that it is there when I feel I have lost my place. 
Sit quietly, maybe with yourself, maybe with a furry friend and tap into what is and what will be in your table of contents.

How you see is how you will be...

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes, the whole world around you.  Because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
~Roald Dahl
I feel the healthiest choice in creating balance, positivity, and creativity, in life is to recognize how we see the world and make a decision to be clear about our thoughts.
It can feel like one is walking in the dark, at times, in our day to day lives.  I know, though, there is always, an unexpected light in the night.  We know it is not gone, we just aren't seeing it.  For many, seeing is believing, but, as the old turn around goes, I often feel that believing is seeing.  We have to be careful what thoughts we believe.  Are they blocking our path to an answer we have been seeking?
Find your light, see your might, and yes, it will turn out right. 

There are things I do

to

remember how to see...

I question everything... even what I think is true.

I look at beauty.

I recognize other's efforts.

I count each day as one I have the opportunity to give to myself.

I remember who I am.

Be kind...

To be healthy, be kind.
To grow, be kind.
To watch others flourish, be kind.
It benefits you to be kind, if that is the motivation you need, 
but,
always be kind.
Art and words by Amy Sperry Faldet

"A tree...grows from a downy tip."

Poem by Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching.
A tree that can fill the space of a man's arms
Grows from a downy tip;
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from small loads of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one's feet.

I remember when my third child (a great lover of popcorn, by the way) realized what popcorn was.  We were at a carnival and he wanted a bag of popcorn for a treat.  He was quite small, maybe 5, at the most.  He bit into a kernel and it was one that had a seed in it.
He asked, "What is this, Mama?" I told him that all things begin small and popcorn is really a seed that has burst open after being fired.
He was really excited in the way preschoolers get.  "So, just like the trees have seeds that flutter down on us, so do popcorn plants?"  he asked.
I said, "Yes, my little one."
He talked about a lot of plants that day, apples and their seeds, dandelions and their seeds...
All I could do was look at him, so small, with new ideas bursting forth from little concepts.
He was so small.
We all were once.  It is important to remember it is good to be new, to be fresh, just a bud on a branch.  We have the potential in our minds and hearts to make so much of this world.  We started walking down the fairway, he held my hand, and I reflected upon everything I saw.  Everything there started in the imagination.  Everything you could play, every light, placed, every color chosen, every ride designed, even the fairway itself in its layout, had been in someone's mind, a thought, a seed.  The goal is to not remain a thought, a seed.  To grow and change and to create more potential, foster new ideas, sow more seeds, are the goals. 
A seed is all about the future.  We have hope.  It is like when we buy the ticket to the ride.  The person hands us the ticket, but, that is not the product.  We bought what will be, what will happen, what we hope for.  We have bought an experience.
I see in each person, potential; it has gotten me in quite the dilemmas, at times.  I say this because, I give to some who are not ready to grow.  But, I tell them, those who ask me, "Why do you even try with some students, people, etc.?"
I just smile and think to myself,
"I am planting a seed.  I do not need to see the mature tree to do so." ~ Amy Sperry Faldet

If life is a circus...

In Entertaining the Elephant, by William McBride, Mr. Reaf, expresses great despair...
On page 54, he cries, "Don't you see?  If I change, it means I'm admitting I've been wrong.  If I change, it means that for fifteen years I've been wasting kids' lives.  And I didn't want to do that." 
The dilemma Mr. Reaf has put himself in is that he is in a state of conviction.  Convictions can become cages.  Would he continue to create pain, dis-ease, inefficiency, and despair to maintain his lie to self?  Letting go is the wisdom we all seek when we resist white-knuckled the ride of life.  Our "circus" can be filled with open-hearted innocence, fun, health, creativity, and kindness or it can be about deception, control, mistrust, and ego. 
Burn-out can be called many things.  It is a deadening of the senses, spirit struggling in the ashes and waste.  The scene from Disney's Fantasia 2 where sweet, green, innocent, growth is seemingly burnt-out in the finale is how any who have felt depression or burn-out or despair picture themselves. 
The belief that there is too much to fear, to fight, to strive for, is the only thing keeping the ashes that smother.  Letting go, sometimes with a tear drop, opens up wide great possibility. 
Burn-out is a result of teaching, living, seeing, from a place of ego.  We all have gone to that place where it becomes about our perception of ourselves and our corresponding definition of success.
It is not a pretty place.  Those around us can tell when we are working form the "me, me, me," mindset.  If life becomes a circus, which, it inevitably does, our choice each moment is to decide what sort of participant we will be in that experience.  Are we looking at everything on the fairway of this carnival of life like a vulture?  Are we eyeing it all with a greedy motive?  If your words in your mind sound like this, "What can I get from all these people so that I come out on top?  How will they make me look more successful?"  or "If I can't control them, then, I am a failure." then, the positive results in your life, in every aspect of your life, health, creativity, and inspiration will be lacking. 
Burn-out is a direct result of setting an ego-based definition of success for one's self and holding onto that definition too tightly. 
If quotes like these from Entertaining the Elephant, are haunting your fairway, your heart, your mind, it is a result of fear-based thinking.  If you take Mr. Reaf's words here and think of things that creep into your own mind, it takes one aback.
"Do you know what it's like to teach kids that don't care?" or to be surrounded by those that don't care?
"It took me years and years to work out this system.  But, every year now, with only a few minor adjustments, because of holidays and assemblies, I know exactly what I'll be teaching on each and everyday."  or if I am sure of everything, I feel in control.
"I developed a new persona.  I deadened myself to this job so it wouldn't kill me.  I created a teaching system so I could expend my energy on keeping control and surviving from day to day." 
The fear comes from a few places.  There is a tendency to go to routine or to stay with what is "known" when fear is a root in the mind.  Mr. Reaf speaks of his worry about being "killed" emotionally and even, physically.  People that live in fear will begin a dormant, survival, mode.
Letting go of the ego-based definition would (and does) help him realize he doesn't have to "manage" or control the students, he just needs to leap out of survival mode and into learning mode, for both, himself and for his students. 

Each day we learn we recognize we have much more to learn.  When that concept is embraced, ego has no part in our circus. 
The shady wants of creepy vendors disappear.  There is no one out to "take" you or make you out for naïve.  There is no one manipulating animals or others by threat or "breaking of the spirit."
These concepts don't belong in your open-hearted circus. 
Live by example the experience you want to feel, to create, to teach, and then, the only events allowed in your light-filled circus are ones with people with great and varied talents and experiences and strengths.  All that will be in your circus, will be the thrilling ride of letting go, putting your hands up and trusting the bumps, curves, highs and lows and sways of the ride.  Don't let the goal to be to never attend your own circus or worse, yet, blind yourself to the marvels around you by focusing on your role as master with chair and whip in hand.