It’s Not Too Late…
There’s still time to make your nominations for Inspired By! The Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards ~
Make a nomination and be entered to win a free copy of Desire to Inspire!
The Story Starts With Me
A poem I created using snippets from a vintage teenage mystery book. This 51-line poem with title was assembled on 52 cards for the Desire to Inspire Inspiration Deck Card Swap organized by Jessica Brogan.
Recorded sounds are from visitors tossing coins into an offering area at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. Music is from the soundtrack to American Beauty.
{Thank you Jessica}
Bits + Baubles
{Photo taken in Big Sur earlier this month.}
Here’s all the news that’s fit to print ~
Robin was selected to offer her friend a signed copy of Desire to Inspire, courtesy of the lovely Laura Repp:
“When I started reading your book Christine, I immediately thought of my friend K. A stay-at-home mom who’s turned her immense creativity toward raising her two girls, one of whom has Down’s. She sometimes gets bogged down in the day-to-day struggles, and I would just like her to remind her what a great talent and inspiration she is. She is one of the many women you wrote this book for!” ~Robin, February 21, 2012
Thank you so much for all of the lovely comments and kind words of acknowledgement to such special souls! I will be emailing everyone who commented for a special surprise treat.
Brigitte is the winner of Traci Bautista’s Doodles Unleashed Collage Kit ~ WooHoo! Thank you to everyone for participating!
Who has inspired you to DREAM BIG? Who has inspired you to be a brave MOUNTAIN CLIMBER? We’re right in the middle of Inspired By! The Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards. If you make a nomination, you’ll be entered to win a free copy of Desire to Inspire, and the winner of each award will receive an original collage creation by yours truly.
Also at Create Mixed Media ~ my latest interview for Global Inspirations with the lovely and talented Leah Partridge, globe-trotting opera singer, and last week’s Character Study webinar, which you can still register for.
I’m thrilled to be featured in the Spring 2012 issue of Studios magazine, where you’ll not only get to see my creative space, but the Tilda Bear too.
This Week: FULL
{Photo taken in Big Sur earlier this month.}
February is shaping up to be the month of acknowledgement, and this week in particular is wonderfully, creatively FULL! Not only have we kicked off Inspired By! The Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards, but I’m also offering a very special Desire to Inspire Give Away today. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Actually, the lovely Laura Repp is the one offering a very special Desire to Inspire Give Away…
Way back in December, I offered a signed copy of Desire to Inspire along with an interview over at Stephanella Walsh’s inspiring online abode ~ The Creative Identity. The winner of that Give Away was Laura Repp, who, by the time she found out she was the winner, had already purchased two copies. Laura decided that instead of accepting this gift, she wanted to offer it to someone else, so we came up with a fun idea…
We decided to let you enter someone in your life in today’s Give Away. All you need to do is leave a comment telling us who you would like to offer the book to and why ~ just a brief snippet of why you think this person could use or appreciate Desire to Inspire. We’ll keep this running through 5:00pm this Friday, February 24th and we’ll announce the winner next Monday.
After you’ve entered your comment here, be sure to head over to the Inspired By! launch page, where you can nominate someone who has inspired you to DREAM BIG (and you’ll be entered for a Desire to Inspire Give Away for yourself over there, too!)
Eager for more fun?
Register for my FREE webinar right here, which is happening this Thursday, February 23rd at 1:00pm EST.
I had an interview with the lovely and amazing Kimberly Wilson last week, and it is now up on Tranquility du Jour, and…
There’s yet another super fun Give Away coming tomorrow from Traci Bautista!
Inspired By!
{Photo taken in Big Sur earlier this month.}
Today is the day we kick off Inspired By! The Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards.
From Create Mixed Media ~
In her book, Desire to Inspire, Christine Mason Miller spotlights a wide range of creative individuals, all with a common desire to make a positive impact. Now it’s your turn. This is your opportunity to acknowledge your mentors, friends, family members, colleagues or acquaintances who have inspired you to dream big, scale an impossible mountain, make a difference or simply become a force of good in the world.
Now through March 8 ~ starting today ~ each Thursday I will share with you details about the chapters in the book that inspired our four awards:
- The DREAM BIG Award (boldly making one’s dream a reality)
- The MOUNTAIN CLIMBER Award (overcoming great challenge with a positive perspective)
- The MAKE-A-DIFFERENCE Award (inspiring us to be of service to others)
- The LIVING IT FULLY Award (offering a beautiful example of being present in every moment)
At the end of each week’s post, you are free to nominate your special someone, by leaving a comment explaining who you wish to nominate and why. We would love it if you included a link to this person’s blog or website if they have one.
Each week, everyone who comments will be entered to win a copy of Desire to Inspire, and then on March 15, the winners of the four awards—who will be selected by a specially appointed panel from CreateMixedMedia—will be announced right here.
So let’s get to it! First up: The DREAM BIG Award. Be sure to stop back by each Thursday for more on the other awards and more inspiration!
PLEASE NOTE: All of this is happening over at Create Mixed Media…that is where you will nominate your peeps and be entered for a copy of Desire to Inspire. So bookmark this page for the next four weeks and join in the fun!
P.S. Pass it along!
Heaps of Goodness
{Photo taken at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur earlier this month.}
Bit by bit I have been crossing items off of my ongoing To Do list. I shipped a package last week to Italy that had been tucked in a cozy, hidden spot in our home since, um, last October. You never saw a more triumphant human being walk out of the post office that day. My studio is uber-tidy and organized, ready for a new desk that will be delivered next week, and I even managed to clear out a long list of bookmarked websites from my web browser. Were those lists really interfering with my daily life? Of course not. But knowing that tiny area of virtual space has been emptied still feels gratifying.
There are some exciting treats in the weeks ahead. Here’s the scoop on all the fun & frolic ~
* This Thursday, February 16th a project I am very excited about kicks off over at Create Mixed Media. We’re launching Inspired By! The Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards, which is a four-week series of awards that we’ve created from chapters in Desire to Inspire. This event is an opportunity for you to recognize, acknowledge and celebrate those who have inspired, supported, and encouraged you. Click here for all the details.
* I’m being interviewed by the uber-inspiring Kimberly Wilson this week, and our conversation will air on Tranquility du Jour this Sunday, February 19th.
* Next Monday, February 20th is the last day to sign up for the Desire to Inspire Inspiration Deck Card Swap. The lovely Jessica Brogan is organizing everything, and all the details about this project are right here.
* Next Thursday, February 23rd I’ll be leading a FREE webinar over at Create Mixed Media. I’ve created an exercise called Character Study, which will give everyone an opportunity to learn more about their most important values and dreams through the exploration and examination of their favorite characters in fiction, whether books or films. This is going to be fun! Register here.
* In the meantime, my latest interview for Global Inspirations is up. Reporting from Haiti, the lovely Sharon Virtue shares the story of her involvement with an amazing art therapy project organized by Save the Children.
* I am thrilled to announce that the winner of last week’s 21 Secrets Give Away is Cristi Clothier. Many thanks to everyone who participated. If you would like to sign up for 21 Secrets, all the juicy details are right here.
Meanderings + A Give Away
A couple of quick updates and announcements from the Swirly Studio ~
Registration is still ongoing for 21 Secrets: An Art Journal Online Playground. I’ll be contributing a tutorial on incorporating text into your mixed media creations, and Dirty Footprints Studio has generously offered one Give Away for every instructor. Today is the day for mine! Enter a comment between now and midnight this Friday, February 10th for a FREE spot in 21 Secrets and I will announce the winner Monday.
Have you signed up for the Desire to Inspire Inspiration Deck Card Swap? It is being organized by Jessica Brogan, and she has quite an inspiring crowd of participants!
Swap-O-Rama
{Photo taken at CHA yesterday, where I basked in the company of some amazing women ~ more on that later.}
Years ago I created a 52-Card Inspiration Deck. This was a project I did with a group of girlfriends who I gathered with every other week for art nights, and I still have this deck sitting in a prominent place in my studio. When I was pulling together materials for Desire to Inspire, I knew I had to include an exercise for readers to make their own decks, and I’m happy it made it through all of the editing stages.
The lovely and divine Jessica Brogan created her own deck and shared her experience about it right here. (Be sure to read the entire entry, as there is a beautiful little twist at the end!) She has since decided to embark upon an adventurous endeavor, which is to manage an Inspiration Deck Card Swap. Tonia Davenport, who I have worked closely with on Desire to Inspire from Day One, has just written about this project over at Create Mixed Media, and even shares photos of her already-finished deck! I hope you’re up for some Inspiration Deck fun ~ I’ll be participating, and am thrilled (and grateful) that Jessica offered to be our fearless leader. Here’s all the news that’s fit to print on the Desire to Inspire Inspiration Deck Card Swap:
Jessica needs to know if you want to participate by February 20th.
Cards will need to land her in mailbox by March 1st.
Tonia’s entry on Create Mixed Media is right here.
Jessica’s entry with all the juicy details is right here.
P.S. Tonia and I are also putting the final touches on another oh-so inspiring project that will kick off on February 16th. All I can say is that we’ll be offering everyone an opportunity to acknowledge those that inspire them most. Stay tuned for a venture I am especially excited about.
Five + One
Five:
1. A lovely review of Jonatha Brooke’s extraordinary Lincoln Center performance this week.
2. …and her latest offering on iTunes is a dreamy rendition of This Land is Your Land.
3. The beautiful Jessica Brogan recently created her own inspiration deck ~ a la Desire to Inspire ~ and wrote a very moving blog entry about it right here. Thank you Jessica for sharing this extraordinary story.
4. Maya Stein’s latest creation is now available right here. Lost Highways & Living Rooms is a collection of writings from her 2010 Tour De Word journey, and I am honored to share that I wrote the foreword.
5. Cool stuff is to be found at Areaware, a company I discovered while browsing at the MoMA Design Store this week.
+ One:
Rumor has it that I was the first person to place an order for Jen Lee’s Telling Your Story, and even though I am only just now beginning to dive into the work of it, I already consider it a close companion for a writing project that is very dear to my heart and therefore feels incredibly daunting. This is the first in what will be an ongoing series of reviews for Telling Your Story, which is really just my way of wanting to share the journey I am now beginning with Jen’s extraordinary, soulful support. More to come, but in the meantime, head straight to Jen Lee’s site and behold the wonder of her work, her stories, and her passion.
Where I’m Headed
{Photo taken in Santa Monica, California last month.}
News Ticker ~ My latest interview for Global Inspirations is now up on CreateMixedMedia, and I am thrilled to have a great review of Desire to Inspire in the current issue of Inspirational Woman Magazine. See what else people are saying right here.
~
There has been an idea floating around my head for more than a year now, which is to write a book about my family. Less a memoir and more a testament to the best that we are capable of as humans (lofty, I know), my vision is that the stories would be so compelling and meaningful that the name of the author ~ Christine Mason Miller ~ becomes irrelevant. In other words, I’m not particularly interested in “sharing my life story” so all kinds of attention can be turned towards me. I am interested in giving the world a glimpse of what my family and I have created and nurtured and worked for, because I believe our stories are powerful beyond words. And I think the world needs more examples of blended families that not only work, but soar.
This idea exists in a fairly crowded space, where I have already pitched two more book ideas to my publisher, have visions of two major art shows, and am about to work some mixed media magic on a piano (more on that later.) It would therefore be woefully easy to decide, “I don’t have the time, so that is that,” not only because that statement would be true, but also ~ and more importantly ~ because I really don’t know what this book would look like, how I would write it, and whether or not I would even be able to pull it off. How on earth can I write a compelling narrative about the journey I have taken towards and with my family that doesn’t spill too many personal details about those I value more than any other on earth? It would be a tricky exercise in balance, restraint, discernment, and language, one that requires focus, commitment, and time. That feels like a pretty tall order when I look at my laundry pile every week.
To get my creative mojo going for this at least a little bit, I ordered Jen Lee’s Telling Your Story at the end of last year, and just started diving into it. And I am thinking about a story I once heard that swooped into my ears and nestled itself in my consciousness like the aroma of woodsy smoke that lingers in my hair after a campfire. I don’t know who told me this story, or when I heard it, but it speaks to this very dilemma I keep thinking I have. I’m not sure I have the details of the story quite right, but here goes…
A man walks into a small shop and sees a painting of a rooster on the wall. He asks the shop owner who created it, and the shop owner replies, “I did.” The customer, thinking he is just a simple shopkeeper, doubts his claim, so the shop owner pulls out a new sheet of paper, and proceeds to paint another one, even more beautiful than what was on the wall. “How on earth did you do that so quickly?” asks the customer. The shopkeeper takes him behind the counter, and then back behind a curtain to another room, where dozens and dozens of paintings and drawings of roosters were posted all over the walls, and the shopkeeper says, “Practice,” and proceeds to explain that he has been doing one drawing or painting of a rooster every day for the past year. Just one a day, every day.
I love this story for its very simple yet potent message ~ that if anything is to be done well, or done at all for that matter, all it takes is a willingness to do the work, which can be done a little or a lot at a time. It doesn’t matter that I’m unable to devote eight hours a day to a book about my family, what matters is that I make a commitment to do something. Now. Because if I let 2012 slide by saying, “Later, later…” then all I will have done is lost another year when I could have at least given this a go.
I have written about this before, and have, in fact, done some writing and brainstorming and note-taking for this project. I am not starting from nothing. But with Faryn now in our midst, I feel even more inspired to get these stories on paper, especially considering the profound impact she is already having on all of us. And maybe that is the nudge I needed to release all the excuses I’ve conjured up to keep me at arm’s length from this idea ~ someone who has been with us for just a few days, who I already love beyond words, who deserves to know the legacy her extraordinary family is creating for her. Funny how such tiny beings can exert such a powerful influence ~ one day I was sailing along with a gentle wind at my back, and then a new light poured in, and suddenly I saw the possibility that had been hidden beyond the horizon.
Slight change of course, full steam ahead.
