Hello. It’s a simple one from me today. How can I help? My business friend Naomi and I are thinking deeply about ways to combine my business with offering things that people might find useful, encouraging, inspiring and community-minded. I’m more than willing to share what I know from 20 years in art, social enterprise, community co-creation and personal creative journeying, and we are thinking of how we create our online community around that. So this is just me being curious. What kind of support community sounds amazing right now? What kind of problems are you trying to solve in your personal creative practice? What things would you love one to one help with? Who are your people? This is a very open question, I know, but you’ll be helping shape what happens next here, so there are no wrong answers. I’ve just reached a stage where I want my waking hours to be spent as meaningfully as possible, and this community has been amazing to me so it seems time to make a more reciprocal pocket of the internet for encouraging meaningful exchanges.
I'm reminded of an old Zen wisdom tale I used to share as a storyteller. A student approached a master to express the difficulty of observing so many people in despair and pain and begged to know how to help. The master replied, "By not helping." I frequently think of this story because I increasingly feel despair about the magnitude of the suffering and injustice so many experience, as well as our battered planet and current hate-filled, violent political and social situation. Like you, I ask myself what I can do. What should I do? How can I even begin to make a difference? What do I do with my own fears and suffering? The only answer I can give to myself and you is to be. It feels like nothing, I know. But this question helps. Answers to the question, whatever they are, help. Who we are helps. The fact that we lie awake and hurt for others, for the world, helps. The ability to feel compassion and pain helps. Connecting this way, each in front of our own screens, typing, helps. Our being, the talents and strengths and knowledge we share, help. Laughing with children as I taught swim lessons last evening helps. Taking care of myself helps. Picking up trash as I walk to work helps. Loving my friends helps. Assisting a disabled person in the pool for rehab helps. Thanking the cashier at the grocery store with a smile helps.
You, Gillian, with your amazing, luminescent, gorgeous art, help. You help me. I'm sure you help others. Your expression, your talent, your love, your concern, your empathy and compassion as you love and express yourself and share that expression -- nobody but you could give that to us, and to the world. Your art makes me smile, makes me cry, makes me feel wonder and gratitude for you as an individual and all artists everywhere who remind us how extraordinarily beautiful humans can be.
The answer to your question is you do help. You are helping. You are useful, encouraging, inspiring, and community-minded. You share yourself with us; nothing could be a greater gift. Every single time we create from the heart, we're helping. I write this to myself as much as I do to you. Nobody but us can smile our smile, extend our uniquely shaped and scarred hand, and create our art.
Thank you for helping me this day, this morning, with this question.
Hi Gillian! Honestly, I love that you are sharing your journey — it’s fun seeing what you are doing with your Bobble Hat group, I find it inspiring and it makes me miss teaching very much — I loved when I could incorporate writing into my school library programme.
I think what I most need right now is mentorship. My head is so full of ideas and hopes and dreams, but I need an honest conversation about how to move forward. I keep generating Art for the joy of creating…but what can I DO with it now? Am I ready to illustrate a picture book? I enjoy writing them, but maybe someone else would do it better. Big as it is, that’s the pull at the heart now. Thank you ❤️❤️❤️
I'm reminded of an old Zen wisdom tale I used to share as a storyteller. A student approached a master to express the difficulty of observing so many people in despair and pain and begged to know how to help. The master replied, "By not helping." I frequently think of this story because I increasingly feel despair about the magnitude of the suffering and injustice so many experience, as well as our battered planet and current hate-filled, violent political and social situation. Like you, I ask myself what I can do. What should I do? How can I even begin to make a difference? What do I do with my own fears and suffering? The only answer I can give to myself and you is to be. It feels like nothing, I know. But this question helps. Answers to the question, whatever they are, help. Who we are helps. The fact that we lie awake and hurt for others, for the world, helps. The ability to feel compassion and pain helps. Connecting this way, each in front of our own screens, typing, helps. Our being, the talents and strengths and knowledge we share, help. Laughing with children as I taught swim lessons last evening helps. Taking care of myself helps. Picking up trash as I walk to work helps. Loving my friends helps. Assisting a disabled person in the pool for rehab helps. Thanking the cashier at the grocery store with a smile helps.
You, Gillian, with your amazing, luminescent, gorgeous art, help. You help me. I'm sure you help others. Your expression, your talent, your love, your concern, your empathy and compassion as you love and express yourself and share that expression -- nobody but you could give that to us, and to the world. Your art makes me smile, makes me cry, makes me feel wonder and gratitude for you as an individual and all artists everywhere who remind us how extraordinarily beautiful humans can be.
The answer to your question is you do help. You are helping. You are useful, encouraging, inspiring, and community-minded. You share yourself with us; nothing could be a greater gift. Every single time we create from the heart, we're helping. I write this to myself as much as I do to you. Nobody but us can smile our smile, extend our uniquely shaped and scarred hand, and create our art.
Thank you for helping me this day, this morning, with this question.
Art for social change and art activism ❤️🥰
I’d love to be part of a really connected and helpful art community. Often being an artist can be a lonely journey
This might seem too basic, but how is your art so damned luminescent?
Tips for achieving similar i.pact would be much appreciated.
Hi Gillian! Honestly, I love that you are sharing your journey — it’s fun seeing what you are doing with your Bobble Hat group, I find it inspiring and it makes me miss teaching very much — I loved when I could incorporate writing into my school library programme.
I think what I most need right now is mentorship. My head is so full of ideas and hopes and dreams, but I need an honest conversation about how to move forward. I keep generating Art for the joy of creating…but what can I DO with it now? Am I ready to illustrate a picture book? I enjoy writing them, but maybe someone else would do it better. Big as it is, that’s the pull at the heart now. Thank you ❤️❤️❤️