Everything Else

Oct 30 2013

Daily Pages or You Can Say That Again!

By melissasasichambers Everything Else

I have kept a journal in one form or another for over 35 years, and I still have every one of them. For now, I keep them in the studio where I play with all things paper. The spiral bound ones are filled with my “Daily Pages.”

I started doing the Daily Pages or “Morning Pages,” as a lot of people call them, when I discovered and followed the ARTIST’S WAY in 1996. That is a seriously long time to have been starting my day in the same way. SIRIUS-LY. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. For those of you who have not met this handsome guy — meet Sirius, my anything BUT serious Chiweenie. He keeps me company every morning while I write my Daily Pages, with my felted bunny pen.)

This morning when I was flailing about trying to figure out what to post I started reading through old journal entries, and as always happens every decade or so when I hit a wall and decide to go back and see if I can figure out just what it was I was thinking, I discover… I was thinking the same thing I’m thinking now. That list of unfinished home improvements? Same list. The pre-holiday To-Do list? Same list. The flatten my abs, get new jeans, why does my hairdresser never understand what I’m aiming for list? Oh yeah, exactly the same list.

But then if I keep digging, the moments of brilliant insanity come shining through. I have two gems to share with you. The first is from 11/3/99. I was desperate for separate studio space. So much so I even had planned dealing with potential “bad smells” arising from seasonally switching from trailer to trailer. I’m sorry to say I never did get to try out my plan and those trailers are gone now, replaced by new, fresh smelling condominiums.

And then there’s my favorite, this little wonder from 11/4/76…

By the way, “Mike” is my Mike. He may think I’m insane, but we’re still together 37 years later. And he still likes my tail.

Oct 25 2013

Arty Friday

By melissasasichambers Everything Else

I’m one of the lucky ones because my mom is an artist too. She’s the one on the left. She has given me space, both figurative and literal, my whole life to make art. For the past 12 years or so we’ve been meeting at her studio, on Fridays, to make art. Hence the clever name for not only this post but for the actual “event”.

Other artists join us. Marilyn, in the middle, and Terry, on the right, joined us today. Rory was there too, but she kept threatening to do a striptease and I’d like to keep this blog family friendly so “Bad Rory!”, no picture of you today!

We haul over our sketch books, our paints, our beads, our pom-pom makers, our glitter, whatever we need for whatever project we are working on that we can actually haul to mom’s studio and we engage in a little parallel play for a couple of hours. Sometimes we discuss art. Sometimes we discuss kids, or men, or politics, or chickens. We talked about Marilyn’s duck today. She’s pretty fond of that duck!

Here’s a picture of me at an Arty Friday from maybe 10 years ago. Can you tell in that picture I am GROWING OUT MY HAIR! It’s true. See that book title pointed right at my sorry little bozo ear muffs? People, that says it all. Hairstory repeats itself.

Oct 22 2013

Welcome to my blog!

By melissasasichambers Everything Else

I admit I slept a little late this morning. However, I have had my morning tea, written my daily pages, made my bed, cleaned house, done the laundry, shopped for groceries, perused countless examples of wonderful blogs which launched long before mine, had lunch, even got my hair cut — and I am actually getting on my own nerves, coming up with excuses for not just starting this ding-dang thang….

So, here goes…. WELCOME TO MY BLOG!

In it I plan to share with you my home: