This course is about deepening your creativity so that your rugs become art. It is about creating a practice that lets you take time for your work. 

 It is all about time. The time we give ourselves , the time we devote to what we love. How we spend our time is a real indication of what we want out of our lives, of what we are passionate about. 

 Over the years I have developed a practice that is more than just hooking rugs. For me it looks like this: 

Prayer - ten minutes a day (this could be centering or meditation) 

Walking - 40 minutes a day 

Hooking- an hour a day…or longer 

Drawing- once a week…or sometimes less 

Writing or Journalling- ten minutes to an hour a day 

Reading- an hour a day 

 This is the routine that I aspire too. I do not beat myself about it if it does not happen for a day or two. However If I see myself slipping out of this routine though I do admonish myself a bit and remind myself of the importance of it. My routine, and my lifestyle of living well feed my creativity. Rug hooking or painting , and making most things is a very physical activity. Even though it seems sedentary, it requires lots of movement and stretching. If I hook for several hours I know that I did something. It requires me to be in good shape, to take care of my body, so I walk to stay in shape. The walking also feeds my eyes with beauty and gives my brain a rest and a chance to wander freely at the same time. 

I am flexible. Sometimes I hook for ten minutes a day and walk for sixty. And sometimes I draw everyday for a week and then do not draw for two weeks. I have a routine but it is not steadfast. I make room in it to feel free to make other choices. 

 For you it can look like any combination of these things, and other things that feed your creativity. For example yours might be: 

15 minute work out 

Cooking a good meal each night 

Ten minutes of deep reading in the morning 

 If you work full time you might have to build it around your work.For example you might draw for ten minutes at lunch time. If you are on the phone at work a lot you might keep a doodle pad by the phone. You can listen and dow at the same time. Can you walk at lunch, meditate for five minutes before you start work, or take the stairs to your office. The real question is what can you do to build things into your routine that fuel your creativity. 

There is no “right” routine. 

There is no magic recipe. 

 There is just self care. 

 Some people I know travel, others cook. Some might play a sport or an instrument. It is different for all of us. The important thing is to know what it is for you. What routine allows you time to make, to be creative, to find new ideas? Think about this and create the practice that works for you. 

There are things that feed your creativity. 

There are things that suck it dry. 

This month start watching your routines. Maybe even jot down the things you do regularly or consistently. Take note of your habits and think about how they make you feel. 

Journal Questions: 

When do you feel that your creative spirit is being fed? 

When do you feel that you are getting tapped dry? 

I can honestly say that certain activities wear me out. For example administrative meetings tire me. They are often scheduled and planned and interrupt my creativity and this just knocks me off my path. I also don’t enjoy highly structured events where I have to sit for long periods of time. I like to move. I know that these things drain my creativity more than add to it so I limit them in my life. 

Sometimes limiting them means that I do not please others. I am prepared to do that for my work. It means a lot to me.Obviously I am willing to compromise at times for people or projects I care deeply about, but generally, I do not set up meetings or attend structured events. When I do it is because it is very important to me or someone who matters to me.There is nothing wrong with choosing less of the things that quell your spirit and more of the things that ignite your spirit. It is what we must do. Don’t feel guilty. 

On the other hand I have got more good ideas walking or while taking a short trip than I can count. Physical exercise and being exposed to new things fires up my creative spirit. They make me want to get back to the studio. 

 Self understanding is at the root of creativity. It is at the essence of all good art. It is in fact both the purpose and the meaning of art. We need to know ourselves to put art and beauty forth into the world. 

 There is no need to be strict about your routines unless you know that you respond well to discipline. I am disciplined about working but I might prefer one activity over the other on a particular day. That works for me.And remember even a daily practice gets skipped sometimes. You just need to be regular with these things. You need to choose the things that feed you, make them a practice and add them into your life. Be as ritualistic about as you can be, but do not miss out on a moment of inspiration or beauty because it is time to meditate. Be in the moment as you develop a routine that feeds you. Being present is the point after all. 

Please find a journal for this class that you keep as you practice the lessons. Through out the course I will be asking reflective questions that I want you to think about. It may not seem like it but all of these things are related to the rugs that I hook. and they are all habits for me, some more habitual than others but they are things I go back to again and again. 

Creative Habits 

It is not hard to do all these things or any combination of them once you create a habit. It is believed that if you do something daily for thirty days you will create a habit. Twila Tharp, the dancer wrote a whole book called the Creative Habit about how building things into your routine will lead you to making art on a regular basis. It makes perfect sense. 

Journal Questions: 

What are the things that feed your creativity? 

How can you incorporate those things into your routine?

I came to the frame completely unaware of what I was going to make. I had not hooked people in years so they surprisedme when they appeared on the frame. As I hooked them thoughts arose. Stories emerged that I never expected. I started to see my process, the steps in it that I never noticed before. I love this going to the frame blank and seeing what emerges. It takes me back to the early days of my hooking.

We all need real life, sit and have tea kind of communities. It is important to reach out to real people, spend time with them and be inspired by them. These are real conversations, informal shared experiences, the kind of company I need to keep to sustain and invigorate my creativity. These people have inspired me in some way.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

This book is one of the first books I remember reading that spoke to the artist in me. 

I was in my twenties. I had no idea that I was an artist. I just had this compounding desire to make rugs. Every time I made one, I wanted to make another. As I was making one, I was thinking about the next one. 

 I know you understand this. This love of making. 

 This tiny book had a profound impact on my work. 

 I was just starting out and I was sending pictures of my work off to galleries for feedback. I was looking outward for someone to tell me I was really an artist. I was so unsure of my work. 

Everywhere he spoke of writing, I just substituted making rugs in my mind. 

 When I read this book that was written so long ago it made me realize that whenever you start to make art, no matter what your age, the same questions come up. We are all uncertain but we have to go forward and carry those doubts with us. 

 I never related a lot not Rilke’s poetry, which he was famous for, but I loved the honesty and openness in these letters. They seemed so raw and personal and I felt as they were speaking right to me. I have read it several times since, given it for gifts and really cherish my original copy with notes in the margins. Every time I open it and go over those notes, I feel the same certainty about the advice and lessons that I got in the beginning. 

 Here are sixteen lessons I found in the letters: 

1. The purpose of art is to clarify the beliefs you hold dear. 

2. Rather than look for criticism develop your own sense of judgement. 

3. To make art you must go inward, into yourself, into the source of your being. 

4. Nature is an important place to find inspiration for your art.

5. You can use themes from everyday life. If you do not think that your everyday life has anything worth expressing than                     change that. 

6. Love books, and you will be repaid over and over. 

7. Take time to let ideas grow in you.” Everything is gestation and bringing forth.” 

8. Love the questions, live the questions, more than seeking the answers. 

9. Love your solitude and savour it. It is a home for you. 

10. As you grow appreciate where others are in their growth, don’t look down upon them, know you were there once. 

11. “There is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere.” See what is around you. 

12. Observe things as a child does. 

13. Really loving another human being is one of our most difficult tasks, the task which everything else we do is in preparation          for. 

14. Difficulties and sadness pass, and when they do something new enters us and we become changed because of them. Do                not be afraid of them. 

15. We are not alone in our sadness. Even those who comfort us have experienced the same. 

16. Art is a way of living. 

Who was Rilke? 

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was born in Prague, which is located in what is now the Czech Republic, He had an unhappy childhood and was sent to military school in the hopes that he would become an officer. At a young age it was clear that he would pursue a literary career and by twenty he had published his first book of poetry.He travelled and lived and worked throughout Europe, mostly in poverty. Paris was his main home base. There he met and married a student of Rodin’s . For a time he worked as a secretary for Rodin. In a later collection, “Letters to a Young Painter” he speaks about his admiration for Rodin. 

This book, Letters to a Young Poet, that I love so much and influenced me so greatly was published in 1929 after Rilke’s death by Franz Kappus, a minor writer who had written to Rilke while he was a student at the same military academy where Rilke had gone. Kappus was holding Rilke’s collection of poetry when a former teacher of Rilke told him that the poet had been a student of his. Perhaps this connected them. 

The letters were written between 1902 and 1908 with the young Kappus asking for advice on his work. Rilke refused to give him any amount of criticism, except telling him that he lacked individual style and instead of focusing on the young mans work, he gave him advice on how to be an artist, how he should think, feel, and love the world around him. Kappus, himself never gained any fame for his writing. He mostly pursued his military career but to his credit continued to write and later in life as a newspaper editor. He never achieved any lasting fame but to me that is unimportant because he did continue to write books and screenplays with his last novel being published in 1949. One assumes that he carried the effect of these letters with him all his life, and his publishing of them has effected so many more artists. 

Portrait of Rilke by Paula Modersohn Becker 

You can read the book online here: https://epdf.pub/letters-to-a-young-poet.html 

If you would like to listen to more about the book try this podcast: On Books Podcast 

https://onbooks.libsyn.com

I think of all the words I have written over the years and they are like navigating the waters of my life. Sometimes when I reread the work it feels just like I feel now and sometimes it feels like I used to feel. I am sometimes surprised by a beautiful sentence or thought. I am so happy to have this record of my life. Whether it was in a published book or a journal I am glad to have these words to come back to. 

It is time to take the plunge. I have done these kinds of activities for many years. I find that I do some of the same ones over again years later and find different answers. It is my belief that we make fundamental changes in ourselves about every ten years. Self understanding is one of the keys to self expression. One enhances and buoys the other. 

This virtual Community is a place to share your rugs, your questions with other people who have committed to their creativity this year with you. It is a place for you to communicate with each other, express your ideas and experiences with the activities in the Harbour Class.