Word-Less Wednesday
Learning to say "Look what I made!"
Issue #6/ Welcome to Creative Possibilities, a new section of my Good and Beautiful Things newsletter.
Creative Possibilities will include my Word-less Wednesday posts, stories from my creative journey and inspiration for yours as well.
Note- Due to frustrating technical issues I wasn’t able to send this out yesterday, which is why you are getting my Word-less Wednesday post on Thursday.
Once I sat with a group of adults at a painting studio. This was as close to a paint-by-number, low pressure experience as you could get and yet we adults worked slowly, fingers and imaginations stiff with fear.
In contrast, my (then) seven-year-old, the one child present that day, exclaimed boldly to everyone present,
“I’m a great artist, Mommy!”
The creative energy of the child in the room compared to the table full of adults has remained with me. It spurred me on to learn how to hold a paintbrush with the freedom of a child instead of the fear of an adult. I’ve spent the last decade running, sometimes limping, toward that freedom.
I don’t have it all figured out but I’m thankful for the creative life that has opened up for me in the last decade or so. I’m heading straight toward my late forties but now when I make something with my hands (either with words or paint) I often feel like a kid ready to hold up my artwork proudly and say, “Look what I made!”.
Not because I think so highly of my work but because the process of working with my hands, of moving through fear instead of stalling out, brings me such delight.
Without further ado, here’s what I made this week: my first ‘zine!
If you aren’t familiar, a ‘zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine.1
What I loved most about this project was capturing the joy of my bike rides from this past summer. Who knows if next summer will hold the same space (or the same willing body) for something that I enjoyed so much and now I have a record of it.
When I finished making the copies and then folded them into little books, I did indeed have that urge well up inside of me to turn to others and say, “Look what I made!”
You can see the step-by-step process here.
Blessings from the Guest Nest
-Aimee
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from Wikipedia
You've truly captured the essence of JOY - too would be saying this if I made!! I find myself saying it often because I'm genuinely so pleased I did make something with my hands ☺️
I love this so much “It spurred me on to learn how to hold a paintbrush with the freedom of a child instead of the fear of an adult. I’ve spent the last decade running, sometimes limping, toward that freedom” 💛💛💛