connecting :: hands, head, and heart

last winter, i was working on craft project for a photography class i was taking.  i had punched out little circles of scrapbook paper and was sewing them together to make a bunting to use in my setup.

please….i know….don’t say it.

anyway, as i was putting my blog post together, i stumbled across this quote:

he who works with his hands is a laborer. he who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. he who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. ~ st. francis of assisi

it was a real ‘a-ha’ moment for me.  plus after talking such a big game about {A}rt a few months prior, it felt like a nice little footnote to that series.  a confirmation of everything i believed about art and creativity.

well so fast forward a few months…

…and all of the sudden it seemed as i had forgotten not only this quote, but everything i had learned in five years of blogging.

moving my girl out stung….so much worse than i could have ever anticipated.  for three summers, i looked forward to her coming home from college. singing along in the passenger seat of my car, watching reruns on netflix, golden hour photo walks, …she was my constant companion and for three summers i enjoyed every minute of it.  and last summer i was missing that something fierce.

but rather than acknowledge uncomfortable feelings – especially any sort of raw, melancholy, empty-nesty stuff – my go to is along the lines of cher from moonstruck – ‘snap out of it!’  my heart might be saying, ‘i’m sad.  i miss my girl.  i feel a little lost.’ but in my head it’s like a drill sergeant, ‘what’s wrong with you? quit whining. there are a lot of people out there with way worse problems. get over yourself.’  and so what usually happens in this scenario is to get “busy”…and summer is ripe with every opportunity to stay distracted and to avoid acknowledging heartache.

if i’ve learned anything in 47 years it is that, sooner or later, i’m gonna feel what i don’t want to feel.  and once i finally gave myself permission to acknowledge my heartache, i was  able to move on and get back on track.

it’s taken me a while to sort this out.  a little time and perspective has allowed me to observe how this very familiar pattern in my life has, yet again, played out.  and i see what happened – my heart was hurting but my head didn’t want to deal with it.  so i got busy.  i got disconnected.

in terms of my life, this kind of disconnectedness means going through the motions.  doing the things that need to be done with no real mindfulness or sense of gratitude.  and in this headspace, there is little joy, wonder, or magic to be found.

when it comes to my art, disconnecting means taking my heart out of the process of creating and instead letting my head take the wheel.  and there is no joy to be found here either… because whenever my head is driving, comparison is riding shotgun and perfectionism is the backseat driver.

that’s why this year’s word was a no-brainer for me.as i look forward into 2016 i want to approach my life and art with connection, mindfulness, intention.  but sometimes those words feel a little abstract and esoteric to me so i’ve been pondering what this might actually look like.  and so my basic approach is going to be a checklist – what am i doing?  why am i doing it?  where is my heart in it?

hands, head, heart…it always comes back to this for me. and in the coming year i hope to strengthen my connection to all three.  because when they are connected, i feel alive, inspired, and creative.

thank you, as always, for letting me share it with you.

love, kelly