Trajectories and other Tories

I am an artist.

I've always been an artist. It has just taken me a very, very long time to say so. I'm also an activist for justice, peace, and the planet, and a writer and editor, and a lesbian, and a rescuer of Doberman Pinschers, and a traveler, and a gardener, a lover of nature, and a lover of my family and friends. But at my core is artist. I can't not create.

You'd think that someone as aware of the power of words as I am, and as committed to coming out as I am, would understand the consequences for her life of shying away from the word artist. You might think so, yet I'm just beginning to recognize them and now, joyfully, to see the consequences in my life of saying that awe-ful word out loud about me.

One of the reasons I'm doing this blog is the hope that if I'm transparent about this aspect of my Self, and share my artwork and my thinking about it, maybe others will find it just a little easier to claim the awesome power of that word for themselves. 

Descartes should have said, "I create. Therefore, I am." Imagine how very different we would be if this were one of the pillar thoughts of the Western world!  

Well, lacking the power to change the world, I must change myself.

I've just recently come to see, profoundly, that we are all powerfully creative beings. If you doubt it, and particularly if you have a hunch that you are but are afraid to put on the word artist, please drop everything right this minute and go see Tory Hughes.  I'll leave it to Tory to tell you who she is. For me, Tory is the guide and the healer who first helped me break free of my fear of my own creative power and then gave me the tools to free myself as fears beset me in my art--actually, in any sphere, really.

If it weren't for her achievements as an explorer, an artist, a healer, a coach, and a teacher, and the generosity of spirit that compels her to share what she's learned, a great many of us, all over the world, wouldn't be doing what we are meant to do.

I'll end this introductory post and paen to Tory with a word about the name of this blog. The quotation explains the relationship between the name and artmaking. It comes from George Nelson Preston's African Art Masterpieces (1991). The II in the title refers to a forerunner, a now-retired website called Handthoughts that I once did about beads and beadwork.

There are no coincidences. In the tangled way of  this life--and others, for all I know--I found African trade beads in the search for something striking to use to embellish the saguaro cactus-rib walking sticks I made then. One thing led over time, ineffably and inexorably, to another, artmaking to beads to polymer clay to Tory and home to me: artist. 

If you're here reading this, it's because I've invited you. I hope you'll enjoy it here, but just as much I hope you'll share your trajectories with me, too.