Glass Painting Workshop in Tantallon, Nova Scotia



I'll be running a workshop at the Creation Station in Tantallon, NS on glass painting. Depending upon enrollment of course!  In this evening workshop (four weeks, two hour evening classes) participants will learn how to prepare a piece of glass or mirror for a glass painting.
How to put in a skeletal drawing using liquid leading strips and/or paint, and also planning out the colour scheme so that the finished product is pleasing to the eye...

The class dates and times are Thursdays evenings from 6:30 pm till 8:30 pm.

Dec.5th & 12th
Jan. 9th & 16th.

Class price is $99 + HST.

The website to sign up for the class is the following:
http://creationstationnetwork.ca/index.shtml





 

Trying to reprogram negative thought trains

Enjoy Yourself by Teresa Young.

I've noticed myself getting more negative over the last couple of years. Which is a serious issue, because I start to feel like I'm pushing against a wall whenever I try to get something done!
I think this is pretty common for most of us as we get older, but I've got an opinion (when do I not!) that artists are more susceptible to loss of faith in themselves due to our sensitive natures. 
That sounds pretty bad, but I think it's a side effect of what artist's do how they are wired.
Maybe we're like racehorses? So skittish and high strung because we are overly aware of everything!



Path of Intuition by Teresa Young.

In view of that gibber jabber I just went through above, I decided to take a workshop course on how to change my attitude to life! It's called Blast Off! and it's run by Alyson Stanfield, who runs a site called Art Biz Coach. I've never done anything like this before, so it's an experiment that should be interesting to say the least!
Literally, she has us trying to derail our negative thought trains by working against them with our own 'affirmations' or 'intentions'. We have to create these and repeat them to ourselves daily in order to create the habit of thinking in new ways.
It really does make sense, think about how much time we spend thinking negatively, out of fear of things like disappointment, humiliation, pain and so on... A short time over the course of a day to try to counter that just makes so much sense!
Maybe we all need to just stop and take a breath once in a while and pat ourselves on the back, and affirm that we like and appreciate ourselves. It's not a bad idea!

Ramblings From a Late Blooming Boomer or Can I Change My Life Now?



Dance of Transitions

I've recently changed my life. Like a lot of baby boomers, I grew dissatified with the structure I had built for myself and woke up one day wondering "What am I doing?"

It starts out pretty innocently, you need to survive, you need a roof over your head, economic realities drive you down a road that leads somewhere you didn't dream about pursuing... In a lot of cases, careers and jobs that didn't even exist when we were teenagers become our day to day existence.

As the years go by, we grow up, and we move further and further away from who we might have been when we had less variety of choice... What we are doing day to day contributes to the mix, possibly we find we are doing the things we have passion for less and less often...




The Wheels Are Turning by Teresa Young

Because whatever we truly loved is fun, it seemed like play and therefore, not to be taken seriously as a possible career choice! Or at least for me, with a scientific bent to my personality, I think I felt I had to pick a side, play or survive. This was thirty years ago, things were more black and white then;-)

But life marches onwards, and you can often come full circle as you travel down life's path... Often the person you found within yourself when you tackled the "what is the meaning of life?" question in your teens, is YOU...



Facial Fancy by Teresa Young

It's the less tarnished and clearer version of your personality that existed before life muddied the mix...

For some of us, as we start heading over the peak of life's hill we start to think, "When is it my turn?"

Probably some dramatic life changes outside of our control start the wheels turning under the surface of consciousness, and we're not necessarily even aware of it...

It makes me wonder, is middle age a gift we are given to grasp in our personal development?



Under the Surface by Teresa Young

Some sort of karmic crossroads where we can reach out and change our direction in a meaningful way? Maybe put ourselves back on a road to some sort of personal destiny that we might have been born for?

 

It would be hilarious to consider that the middle aged man with the little red sports car was right on some level!

I might be perceived as being somewhat pompous with that last dramatic paragraph, but really, if we don't even think about it, aren't we copping out of living life in an intimate fashion? Where intimate means that you communicate with your inner dreams and underlying thoughts, and connect with yourself and live life more fully.

Figure Frog by Teresa Young

On a more personal note, I remember being convinced at six years old that I wanted to be an artist!

It's a common story, you draw and draw and draw... People ooh and awe...

and somewhere along the way, you think you might be Picasso, Leonardo or Dali!

But sooner or later, we start to lose the dream...

We find out that only a small percentage of people can make a living at that chosen passion...

So we're let down, disappointed... But we pull up our socks and take a sober second look at our options, and compromise.

So we've been forced by life to make the first step over that line to settle for less than we really want out of ourselves, and it just keeps on snowballing it's way out to undiscovered territory.

So, I ask myself... Can I change my life now?

Images by Teresa Young:

1. Dance of Transitions - June 2004, 2. The Wheels are Turning - March 2009, 3. Facial Fancy - October 1998, 4. Under the Surface - June 2009, 5. Figure Frog - August 1998.