Blog Archives

Me, Myself, & I: An Online Course

5/24/2014

FINALLY!!!

I've been beta testing this class for about 7 months and I finally feel ready to share it far and wide. This is not the first online class I've released, but it's the one that is most complete and ready for mass registration.

When I envisioned this class, it was really about the self and about creating a space where anyone, regardless of their skill level, could find something useful. I hope that is what I've done.

I call the class Me, Myself, and I: Creative Empowerment Through Art Journaling because I want participants to have permission to focus on themselves during this journey. So many times we create art that is either focused on others (like scrapbooking) or art that is about selling it to someone (like commissioned pieces or pieces for your online store), but I wanted us to get back to the heart of the matter, to self-exploration and discovery. I wanted us to reconnect to our deepest "stuff" in an effort to uncover and unwind and heal and breathe and create. I hope that is what we can do.

Get More Info About The Class

The class is designed around one major project -- creating 30 artistic cards and the container that will hold them. Each card is unique, but there are themes that tie a set of three cards together in each "quest".

The structure is loosely based on a vision quest (of sorts) where we are exploring a series of questions throughout our time together. We write, make art, and share (if we want). There are 40+ videos with almost 20 hours of content, 5 PDFs and more techniques and tips that you probably want :-).

So I'm hoping you will join me in this first version of the class. There's a lot more information and photos and a couple of videos over here. And of course, email me if you have questions or want more details about the class.

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Mothering My Way: The Complicated Mother's Day

5/11/2014

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NOTE: Just to be clear. This post is not about sadness. It's about empowerment and feeling honored to mother in multiple ways. I love my life and the choices I've made and I celebrate them daily!!!! I hope you are celebrating yourself today too. :-)

Yesterday I created the 10 on the 10th art journal spread for the month of May. During the recording, I decided to use a picture of my mother because the last two cards of my 10 said: "Add a photo" and "Add a quote."

My mother has more phrases and sayings that have stuck in my head than any one else. Things she has been saying to me all of my life. Words that have become a part of who I am and how I show up in the world. So the combination of those two cards really spoke to me and I created the page you see to the left. It was my way of honoring her for Mother's Day, even though that is not what I had set out to do. But the quote I used was really profound in conjunction with another quote that moved me this week. My mom's quote is "name it and claim it." She probably has said that to me 1000 times throughout my life.

And it was conjured when I read a post that one of my creative cohorts wrote on Facebook this past Friday. It read...

I feel sadness for all the women who have lost babies, for the women who desperately want to be mamas, and for the women who grieve their relationship with their mother. It can be a rather complicated day, can't it?

This post really hit home for me on so many levels and after I cried a little, I realized, YES!!! This day is a really complicated day for me (and for so many others). It's not something I talk about a great deal. As a matter of fact, this is the FIRST time I'm talking about it "in public" and so I'm probably going to keep it semi-short and sound really cryptic, but stick with me. :-)

When I was younger (12 to 29 or so) I was pretty adamant that I was NEVER having children. I grew up with a lot of younger cousins who were a handful (to put it nicely). My family, like so many other families, was a mess, and I loved them, but the chaos was the best kind of birth control a gal like me needed. I think I must have proclaimed, once a day, every day, that I would NEVER have children. It just seemed like too much work. The women in my family usually seemed tired and generally unhappy and the kids (us kids) were often disobedient and rebellious. Nothing about that appealed to me.

Then I turned 17, graduated high school, and three months later had the most amazing little human in my arms. It was my nephew, Treavor, and he changed my life. See, I was a bit of a mess too. I was rebellious, disobedient, chaotic, and had quite the sassy tongue. I was also extremely independent, responsible, strong-willed, smart and driven. Oh, and a little bit of a hard-ass. But that little boy made me melt.

His father (my brother) was not able to care for him and his mother had to return to work shortly after giving birth. My mother had been in a serious car accident and was in traction for the first 6 months of his life, so I became his primary caretaker (and hers). At 17.

I won't give you the long narrative version but let's just say this:
--He and I bonded like a mother a son would do in that first year of his life. I experienced all of the "joys" of motherhood that happen in year one:

1, 3, and 5AM feedings
Runny poop
Teething
First roll over
First crawl
First steps
First word

First everything. I was there.
And I continued to be there for the rest of his life. First haircut, first day of school, first bike, first tee-ball game, etc, etc., etc.
He was my kid.
But I still didn't want to have children. At the time, I didn't think of him as my kid. I was just being a good aunt.

Then I went off to college, graduated, and moved 10 hours away from him. During those years, his life became the life of most of the kids in my family -- chaotic, rebellious, and a bit out-of-control. He was doing horribly in school and I was finding myself having to parent him from a distance. It was exhausting (to put it nicely).

I married my best friend of 17 years and we brought my nephew to live with us. He was 12 going on 13 and he was a handful, but the bond we had forged during the first year of his life was stronger than most biological mothers and sons, so he acclimated rather quickly to living with us and began to flourish almost immediately.

Four years later, he graduated high school and moved to Seattle, WA to attend college. He majored in theater and graduated from college in 2013. It had been a long ride. It had been the most intense ride and the most rewarding. I raised a man. An amazing, kind, intelligent, and independent man. We cried a lot along the way (he and I), but we also laughed a lot too.

During the time he lived with us, I learned that all of my proclamations about NEVER having kids had come true. I had named it and now had to claim the fact that it was going to be almost impossible to have a kid of my own unless I was willing to pay a lot of money for IVF treatments and a bunch of other science-laden options. Damon and I contemplated it, but ultimately opted against doing it for a variety of reasons that maybe I will share another time, but the thing that's important here is that it was complicated. Being a mother to my nephew was complicated. Being a mother who has never given birth IS complicated. Having other mothers tell me I'm not a "real" mother is complicated. Looking at my exquisite husband and knowing that I'll never bring forth life with him is complicated.

As a teacher, I've mentored so many amazing young ladies. Many of them are mothers who have given birth. A couple of them are like me, no birth kids, but they are raising the children of others. These women still send me text messages on this day thanking me for loving them like a mother, for raising them, for seeing the potential in them when no one else did. And this part, this part doesn't feel complicated. This part feels real. Feels empowering. Feels like what keeps me going from May of one year to May of the next. It's also the reason that I make art, that I create things with my hands and my mind and my heart.

Women are born creators. We are designed to bring forth things that did not once exist. Some of us do it by birthing children. Some of us publish literary journals, or write books of poems and stories. Some of us make amazing murals, sculptures, jewelry, and other works of art. There is power in this kind of creating. No, it's not the same as biologically birthing a child. No, it does not replace the loss of a child. And no, it doesn't mend the relationship you may have with your mother.

But making art is uncomplicated.

In my heart, it's one of the ways for me to feel the true presence of God. It's how I know I am still alive and kicking in this crazy, chaotic world. It's the thing that slows me down enough to enjoy this life. Making art gives me purpose, clarity, and ultimately allows me to live (and create) with intention. And all of these things...these are the ways that I am mothering on my terms and in my own way.

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Friday Favs, Fodder, and Follows

5/2/2014

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If you're thinking -- Kiala, where have you been? The answer is -- OMG blogging regularly is hard!!! Okay, maybe it's just hard for me, but I'm back and I'm trying to stay on track. Whew. Here we go, again!!

Favorite White Pens

Uni-Ball Signo White Pen

White Posca Pen

Sharpie White Poster Paint Pen

Sakura Gelly Roll White Pen

Elmers's White Painter's Pen

Fodder: Book Pages

Old textbooks (My husband, Damon, was a math teacher, so my favs to use are math books with graphs and crazy looking charts and graphics). A great place to get old textbooks is ABEbooks.com.
Musical scores [I get mine from the local Half-Priced Books (a used book store)].
Dictionary pages (I like to cut out individual words AND take photos of specific words for blog posts, etc.)
Magazine images ( I really love Juxtapoz Mag and National Geographic AND all of the Stampington Mags)
Travel guide books (The most beautiful images are in these guides. I get mine from the used book store.)

Follows: Podcasters I Love

Sean McCabe & Ben Toalson -- The SeanWes Podcast -- Great stuff for creative entrepreneurs. Check out my favorite episode.
John Dumas -- Entrepreneurs on Fire Podcast -- This guy is ON FIRE for real. His energy is off the charts.
The Accidental Creative -- Awesome content.
Srinivas & Greg -- The Unmistakable Creative Podcast -- I really like their branding, but the content is great too!! Seriously candid conversations.
John Jantsch -- The Duct Tape Marketing -- Yes!!! Exactly what you think that names means. Go check it out.

That's it for this week. Share your lists!!!

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hello friend...

I'm Kiala, a book binder, art journaler, fountain pen collector & mixed media junkie. I make things, paint things, and write things. I love teaching & empowering others to live with intention. So, grab a cup of hot tea, a fountain pen, and your favorite notebook. Let's play!

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