Studio Diary: May 25, 2018

Some days things are just challenging and yesterday was one of those days. Everything just seemed to go off the rails! Lots of unexpected challenges reminded me that leaving space for the unexpected is wise. Now I just have to remember to do it!

On the BTS today, as I was talking about multiple project and problem wrangling, I came up with the image of corralling ducklings and this made me laugh. It’s amazing how the right metaphor can lighten everything up!

The best part of a really tough day was that Shibumi kept me company for the whole morning. This has never happened before. She slept on my desk most of the time.  I have a little pad to make it comfy for her. We played a little bit too. I put one of her balls underneath a hand drum and let her try to solve the conundrum. (Haha, I just noticed the wordplay there.)  And she curled up in the corner chair and enjoyed the sunshine. She was great company.

It’s funny that this bruiser of a cat has a gift for healing. When I imagine her in comic book form (which is incredibly easy to do), I visualize her rather ticked off that healing is her super power. “Why can’t it be combat?!!”

Dance: After a long and demanding day, I went to dance rehearsal. We’re one rehearsal away from reshuffling our spots and getting our final placements for the show. This felt like a particularly rotten time to have a bad day! I tried to relax and stay focused but still the moves were neither settling in or showing up for me. That’s okay. It’s just one rehearsal and there is still plenty of time for practice.

Before rehearsal, there’s time to go over the choreography and to enlist the help of the professional dancers. It’s amazing how each one of them brings out something fresh and different. Their unique perspective shines a light on something we hadn’t seen before.

When reviewing the choreography for one section, Jane Alison says to us with great directness, “Don’t hesitate! Change direction. Move forward. Show confidence!” Watching her dance, it’s clear this is a philosophy that informs her work. She seems to always be moving forward – no fear, no hesitation. It reads as not only as confident but also brave, maybe even reckless.

The Reno: We continue to go through our things as we prepare for the reno. This week Justin grabbed a bunch of my old English books and said, “Which of these do you want to keep?” My answer is always, “All of them.”

I can’t remember the last time I picked any of them up. Don’t we all go online when we have a question about a word or language? Still, I think someone might make better use of these than I am.

These book hold such memories for me. I remember the excitement of getting Fowler’s Modern English Usage, wanting to start understanding not only the how but also the why when it came to language. Or the Gage Canadian Dictionary, which my family often used when we played “The Dictionary Game” around the kitchen table. Someone would pick a word and we would all write creative definitions for it. Then one player would guess which was correct. Such a Ridler game to play!

Most recently the thesaurus was used not so much to expand our vocabulary or improve our writing but for coming up with great names for characters when we were online gaming. I loved playing a healer named Recovery. (Hmm… thinking about that, I might not be able to let that one go!)

I plan to only keep the Oxford, which I have had as long as I can remember. It was my companion through all my studies and I’d like to keep it with me.

Decision-Making

Yesterday we also had an important conversation with our contractor. We are deciding whether or not to go ahead with an extension on our house, which would give us a much better bathroom (much needed) and more space for the studio (much wanted!) It would open up our second floor and add a sense of “making it our own.” Justin designed the layout which even our architect thought was great. The thing is – it is out of our budget. So we are dancing with the possibilities and figuring out priorities.

Do we stretch and save and reach? This feels exciting if it works and terrifying if it doesn’t. Do we work within the given blueprint, using the resources we have and feeling secure but not dreamy? That seems safe and familiar.

This is a question that relates to so many situations.

Is it best to scale back and work within what’s smart, reasonable and comfortable?

Is it best to hold a bigger vision and trust yourself to grow into it?

Right now we’re working on a third option – trying to figure out how we can make the very most out of the resources that we have. I am a Maximizer after all (See Strengthsfinder 2.0!)

Studio Diary: May 23, 2018

Art: I have a class coming up that is a part of a great bundle. I’m doing some experimentation as try to find the just right way of creating the experience that I’m hoping for the students. I want them to have a visceral, intuitive experience, take away techniques they can continue to use and also have an artifact to remind them of both.

I know that something’s working because I’m getting swept up the in the process myself as I experiment with different approaches. I managed to sneak in an hour before rehearsal yesterday and some time in the early morning today. I could easily have spent all day playing with paints and pastels!

Dance: We are one month away from the show! It’s hard to believe and incredibly motivating.  Yesterday we learned the first dance of the performance. It’s lively and fun and the music sticks with you. I was tired tonight and things were slow to sink in – that’s happening more too as we are holding more choreography in our memories.

For the dance we are arranged in lines and recently we had the opportunity to choose our spot, the place we feel most comfortable.  Yesterday the rehearsal director told us that, for a variety of reasons, there will be adjustments and we’ll be experiencing a bit of a shuffle. She also asked us to be generous and adapt to these changes.

Another lesson from performance : Your commitment must not waver but your expectations must be flexible.

This is one of those moments when you remember that you are in a relationship – with the other dancers, with the work itself, with the creative directors and eventually with the audience itself.  You are a part of something and one of the things that means is showing up for the greatest good.

As we move along in rehearsals, I think often about one of the lessons I learned in theatre. Not only is it not your job to correct, direct or ask another actor to give you what you need, but it is exceedingly bad form.  I think about it every time someone raises their hand with what sounds like a question but is actually, well, usually calling others out: “Is this part supposed to be loud? (pause) I mean, it seems like there are a lot of people that are making a lot of noise.” For me, this reaffirms my commitment to staying in my own sandbox.

Often our desire to fix things, to make things better, to correct other people is our own worry that things are going to go horribly wrong and we will be uncomfortable and embarrassed. How often do we do this in life too? How often do we try to control other people’s behaviour based on how it impacts us?

Give up trying to control the circumstance. You can not control others in order to make yourself more comfortable. Bring your attention back to yourself and do your best  work.

As a performer and a person, you are responsible for you. Yes, you can give help when asked but trust other people to be responsible for themselves. Trust the leaders too.

In the Garden:  I couldn’t love springtime in the garden more. This past week the birds have been singing joyously and I have loved listening to them. I’ve been dancing outside too. Since our performance will be outdoors, I thought it would be good to get used to the elements. Of course, I also bring my camera because the garden changes so subtly and often that I don’t want to miss a moment.

This year the daffodils have been a highlight for me. I haven’t had much success with them in earlier years, which made me sad because I planted them in honour of my Mom. When I was a girl in Montreal, we had a wonderful backyard. Half of it was covered with tall thin trees and beneath each one Mom planted yellow daffodils. They delighted me every spring. I felt like I was walking through a forest, finding beauty along the way.

Right now the garden is filled with potential – which was my Mom’s favourite word. Everything seems to just be about to happen.

Including the sturdy Cranesbill Geranium which came from Justin’s mom’s garden. This beauty will grow just about anywhere! I’ve managed to tuck it into corners where dirt gathers and it has taken hold!

The peonies are coming, and the ants are helping them along. I still haven’t managed to get a white peony in the garden! Perhaps after the renovation, when I’m rebuilding what inevitably be broken down, I’ll be sure to do that!

The tree peony looks like it will have several blooms this year. They bloom only briefly but they are spectacular. This was the first plant that I was really excited to put in the garden. I just happened to see it as I passed by a Loblaws one day and I brought it home. The first year it gave one singular but spectacular bloom. All these years later it is stronger, the blooms are bigger and more abundant. This tree peony must finally feel more at home.

I love watching the hosta unfurl. It’s shapes are so dramatic. Looking back over these photos it’s amazing to see the different light there is in the garden at the same time of day.

But even as most of the garden is coming to life, some plants are also fading . The De Caen poppy is a wonderful early bloomer. When everything else was still battling the elements, she was coming to life. Even the end of her flowers are spectacular!

Now that everything’s growing well, it’s time to do some tending! With things so busy my much-loved garden often goes untended.  I am so grateful that despite the overgrowth, the beauty remains. Thank you, little Vinca, for the reminder.

 

Studio Diary: May 21, 2018

Dance: I feel like I haven’t written at all about the amazing experience that I am having with Le Grand Continental in Toronto. I’m now in rehearsals 3 days a week as we move towards performing at Luminato. (The video is from Portland but I wanted to share it because it includes our choreographer, Sylvain Émard.)  I am so glad that I braved auditioning.

I do feel like we’re moving into that “this is getting real” stage when all the inner demons come out to play.  We start with the discomfort of the unknown countered with the excitement of possibility and new beginnings.

Then we get a little more comfortable and excited about learning something new and being a part of something amazing. At this stage, every success and challenge holds great weight. Our inner voice yells, “Look, I can still dance. i’m doing it!!” and “Omg, I’m messing up everything. What was I thinking? I’ll never remember all of this.” At this point, we dive in deeper or start to detach. Perhaps the direction we choose depends on which voice we believe the most.

For those of us who dove in deeper, we started working harder, building our strength, renewing our confidence or we decided to remember that we’re doing this for fun and stopped taking it so dang seriously.

Now we enter the stage when we really start to understand there will be an audience. The training wheels are coming off. The rehearsal director us giving us less clues and we must start to find our own way and recover from our missteps. The show must go on.

Last rehearsal I found myself fraught with emotions. I have no idea why. I just felt sensitive about everything.  Once again I realized the gift that meditation has given me.  For the first time, I aware of experiencing myself as separate from those emotions. I chose to acknowledge and honour them while bringing my focus onto the choreography  – just like watching my thoughts and coming back to my breathing. Afterwards I took it to my journal, giving myself time to experience and process all that had been stirred up by that day of dance.

Collage: The Collage Techniques of Anne Marie Grgich has wrapped up but I am still working on my two collages – the red and the yellow. I have loved learning from Anne. She is generous with her teaching, sharing the processes she has honed over years.  I haven’t come close to experimenting with all of the materials that she used but have gained so much by seeing the possibilities. i feel like I have stepped through a door into a much bigger room of what collage can be.

And that is perhaps why I am so frustrated that my pieces are still sitting on the kitchen table waiting for attention. They’ll need to move forward and/or be put away by next weekend as the seasonal Studio Yearbook packaging party begins! I have a demanding week so I’m not sure that I’ll get any time for them, though maybe on this holiday Monday I will sneak some in.

I’m also not sure whether the red piece is ready for completion. I love it as it is right now, so that’s an argument for “yes” but I also know that as a creative I have a tendency to stop when I “get it”, which isn’t necessarily the same place that is required to transmit the message to the viewer. I’ve asked for feedback in the class.

The Studio Yearbook & Ephemera: This week was the big launch of the summer Studio Yearbook. Now we move into production mode, including having a wonderful time gathering some ephemera for the First 100. On Friday, Shannon, Suzie and I went to Value Village to look for some treasures and spent the evening watching Netflix together and cutting up pages to find little bits of delight to share.  This is something I could do all day!

The Studio Kittens: After a spell of throwing up and a trip to the vet, Escher seems to be doing better. We tried several things and are not 100% sure which it was that tipped the balance but we are delighted that his tummy has settled. We’re also thankful that we were able to make this vet trip his yearly medical because picking him up and getting him into a carrier is quite a challenge!

Shibumi also ended up at the vet this week after getting some irritation in her eye. We have drops but thankfully it seems to have settled on its own.  We are glad that we had the chance to turn the outing into her regular check-up. Other than being a bit… well… shall we say, “sturdy,” and the issue with the eye, she’s doing great.  She’s bit of a bruiser this one.