Week Seven: Guides

I'm going to Santa Fe on Thursday to wander around in the Georgia O'Keeffe museum for a couple of days. I love the sensuality and colour of her work. She is one of the ones I keep in mind as a source of inspiration, and as a model. There is a whole gang of people like her in my mind. I carry these people, my friends, family, and people I've only known through books and art as essential parts of my life. Here are some you may know - Natalie Goldberg, Sue Bender, Georgia O'Keeffe, John O'Donohue, Brenda Ueland, Andrea Scher, Emily Carr, Arnold Mindell, Joan Halifax, Patty Wipfler. One interesting thing I learned through making this list is how important writers are to me, amongst those who I feel support me. It made me think again about Gail McMeekin's claim that we may ignore that which is closest to us in terms of art-making. Books and writing are so close to me, and always have been, that I don't even think about them. Making this list made me pause, though, and look again at writing. I have had some of the most powerful creative experiences I've ever had with writing. Yet I keep thinking I'll find creative nirvana elsewhere. I do want to explore many creative outlets, but I've claimed writing as my own more powerfully through this.