HUM 6930 – The Art of Self Care

The beautiful papers are from paper I hand painted and had stored with my collage materials. When I found the barn image,
I was inspired to used these as they perfectly complemented the image. The little flower was also among my materials
and reminded me of many adventures and collecting flowers for my grandmothers.

Me at my great grandpa's farm.

Week 2

Malchiodi (1998) in her book points out that all children, unless severely handicapped, are prone to create a series of lines from approximately 18 months and that they generally go through six different phases of development. From my personal experience, it seems that we are naturally disposed to be creative. Every child I have ever been around creates art, music and stories from early on in their life. It is not until they reach the teen years, a time Malchiodi (1998) calls the period of decision, that this creative imagination begins to fade. Some will continue their creative endeavors while others for whatever reason will stop, yet all will still appreciate the creative work of others throughout their life.

We were also asked to continue to work on our Wheel of Wellness by first looking at it as a whole, then pulling out a section and defining what goes into that section. Because we have been working diligently to create a home environment that we are happy with, I selected environment for this week.

We recently added a third bedroom, which is now my studio, because we had tried to sell our home and could not due to it being only two bedrooms. I moved out of my studio in a warehouse repurposed for artists studios and still have so much that needs to be dealt with taking up space in our garage. Being a mixed media artist, I have collected far too many things that "could become art". I worked on getting the things closest to the entry into our home sorted out and placed away from the door to make our coming and going more safe.

When grocery shopping this week I was attracted to the beautiful display of fresh cut flowers. Normally, I would say how pretty but pass up as it is not a necessary expense. This week I said, "Why not? Don't you deserve something beautiful to look at?" and proceeded to pick out some very lovely flowers for our dining room table. It is so nice to look there and see this splash of color and the natural world in my home that I think I will splurge a little more often.

That got me to thinking about my front entry which had giant flower pots sitting empty because winter had destroyed what was there previously. So off I went to Lowe's to pick out something more hardy to plant there. I must say it is a welcome improvement and it looks like someone lives here now. It was very satisfying to look at my work when finished and I am inspired to try some other gardening around the home.

 

Of course the weekend means housekeeping time and this weekend was no exception. With 3 dogs there is constant clean up! This weekend, all 3 received baths and all their bedding was washed. It certainly made the house smell better. 

We bought light bulbs and additional lamps for both indoors and out, too. A pretty lamp for our foyer and some spotlights to put out in the yard so I can see where the dogs go at night when I let them out to do their business. Hoping that will also deter the cats from entering the yard because it drives the dogs crazy and I can not get them to come back inside if they get a whiff of cat scent in the yard.

 And last, but not least, we created an environment for relaxation this weekend by filling the crockpot for meals without lots of work, ordered movies and sat back with a glass of wine and enjoyed just being together. We always try to make sure we have dedicated us time each week because we are both very busy. This weekend we were able to download our luggage tags for our upcoming cruise, which always gets us excited because we will get to shut off the computers and phones and really be focused on our relationship without the distractions of work and life.


Dissanayake, E. (1990). What is Art For? University of Washington Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=9hcvuQYWQ5UC

Malchiodi, C. A. (1998). Understanding children's drawings. Guilford Press.

Morriss-Kay, G. M. (2010). The evolution of human artistic creativity. Journal of Anatomy, 216(2), 158–176. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7580.2009.01160.x