Alex Alvis Art

Monday, June 15th 2015

I do have a work related announcement.  One of my sculptures is in a show right now in downtown Loveland.  And go to this show and the Governor's Art Show too.  It's a great month for viewing art if you're going to be in the area.



WoW.  It's been awhile since I've posted, yes?  It happens.  Life.  The list of things to do gets so long that something falls off it...right off the edge.   ________________B
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See? 

So.  What's been going on?  Well.  Lets see. 

More ranch fencing, gardening projects, 3 colds, 1 round of anti-botics, a vacation, some family happenings, a couple of new calves, rain, rain, and more rain, home improvements, a new building for horses, ah.  Horseback riding lessons.  The highlight of every week.  I remembered something I had forgotten from when I was much younger.

I am completely happy when I am on the back of a horse.  Completely and totally. 

I am very happy in the presence of most any living being, really.  I love to sculpt them, true.  But that act is once removed from being with them, interacting with them.  I love when my cat is in my lap and she's purring and I can look at her fuzzy face and see each single hair on her nose.  It's a wonder.

In church on Sunday the sermon was about (among other things) presenting ourselves one way but behaving another.  The number of sermons we've had for these last months about drawing the circle wider have been many but as our guest pastor pointed out, then on Monday we tend to fall back into old ways of being divisionary, exclusionary, because we believe we know what is right and those who agree with us are wise and those who don't are fools...obviously.  That the opposite of Love is not Hate, it's Fear.

I think we listen to that fear through the voice in our heads.  Everyone has that voice inside their heads.  It's funny to me that when we're listening to it, or speaking from it we say, I say, "I'm just thinking."  This is the chattering voice.  It's shrill sometimes, it's self-righteous sometimes, or jealous, or well...it's giving voice to many variations of fear.  It really isn't thinking.  Bad enough it is when contained in our heads.  Much worse if words make it audible to others, if actions make it felt.

I'm not out among others very often.  I stay home and there's a lot to do at our little ranch even if I'm not sculpting.  But that voice, my own inside my head, causes a lot of trouble for me just in the company of myself.  Much of the time it's full of itself and thinks fame is "the ticket" to what will make it feel good.  I know that isn't true.  The wish for that comes from fear.  Fear of being unimportant.

Part of my (at least) one prayer to God every day is to make me the type of person he created me to be. 

Little's Voice says "What is it? I WANNA BE A BIG IMPORTANT ___________!!" (fill in the blank)...Little doesn't much care what goes in the blank...Little has Middle Child Syndrome...but not in a good way.

"Listen Little," (yes, I give this part of me a good talking to on a regular basis) I say, "I love you and you are an important part of me but Shut Up." and then I pray.  If Little chatters while I'm praying I'll never get to Amen...so hopefully Little does shut up.

"Lord Jesus, I want to do what you would have me do- what ever is my soul's work.  How can I learn what that is?  How do I know if I do that already?"  Mostly what I want to know is this.  Am I on the right track? 

When do I get in trouble?  When do I get off track?  When I don't listen to God and I listen to that trouble maker in my head.  It says things like "I don't deserve to be treated like that."  "I don't want to do that today."  "I want to do that." "I wish __________."  "I need _________."  "I hate it when ________."

Shut up. Shut UP. SHUT UP!!

"Make a list every day." 
"Give each your full attention."
"You will know what to do and when it is time to do it."
"That's it."

He never chatters.  I love that.

My wish for you today:
~Alex

Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt.5

While Baby Girl and Two Socks could hear How Many Dogs Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb? jokes for the rest of their lives...

Now the next factor, number four - is Confidence.

When you are in your space/time oasis, getting into the Open Mode - nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.

Now if you think about play, you'll see why. To play is to experiment - "What happens if I do this? What would happen if we did that? What if…?"

The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens, it's ok. So you cannot be playful if you're frightened that moving in some direction will be "wrong" -- something you "shouldn't have done."

Well, you're either free to play, or you're not.

As Alan Watts puts it, you can't be spontaneous within reason.

So you've got risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the break-through.

And now, the last factor.  The fifth - Humor.

Well, I happen to think the main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.

I think we all know that laughter brings relaxation, and that humor makes us playful, yet how many times have important discussions been held where really original and creative ideas were desperately needed to solve important problems?...but where humor was taboo because the subject being discussed was "so serious"?

This attitude seems to me to stem from a very basic misunderstanding of the difference between 'serious' and 'solemn'.

Now I suggest to you that a group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing matters that were extremely serious like the education of our children, or our marriages, or the meaning of life (and I'm not talking about the film), and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious.

Solemnity, on the other hand… I don't know what it's for. I mean, what is the point of it?

But solemnity? It serves pomposity, and the self-important always know at some level of their consciousness that their egotism is going to be punctured by humor -- that's why they see it as a threat. And so dishonestly pretend that their deficiency makes their views more substantial, when it only makes them feel bigger.

And there you go.  I - for one - am grateful that John Cleese created a world for us full of humor.  Maybe we'll watch some Monty Python this weekend...that would be fun!

On this Friday - I wish you some serious humor in your day and we'll have some more of the John Cleese talk tomorrow too. But no....


NO MORE dog light bulb jokes!

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex