"Red Enso" collage by Donna Watson
Announcement of 2 March workshops:
March 5-6: WABI SABI AND THE SPIRIT OF COLLAGE: Portland OR at the
Sheraton Airport Hotel. For more information on workshop, location, supply list,
cost, and registration go to www.artandsoulretreat.com
March 19-20: ZEN MEMORY BOOK (will make a folded accordion book on any theme
such as memories, family, garden, pets, travel etc). Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano
Island, WA. Cost will include lunch. For more information on location, cost, workshop,
and registration contact Karla Matzke, 360-387-2759, matzke@camano.net, website:
Folded book on Zen Gardens by Donna Watson
A NEW YEAR... Time to take stock of the past year and move forward... begin a new chapter...
be open to new possibilities... start over... learn from the past year and move on...
self portrait, journal page, by Donna Watson
Every January, I write down my goals for the new year. I look at my list from last year and see what goals I met, and what goals I need to extend or continue to work on. I am always a little disappointed in myself when I see what I accomplished and what I did not finish... and the list of what I did not finish always seems to be the longer list.
photo image by Donna Watson
And every year I go through the same goal setting list... making a new list... often with the same goals written down that were on last year's list. And every year I am disappointed in myself. So, this year,
I decided NOT to write another list of goals.
hand made scrolls by Donna Watson
Instead, I decided to make a different sort of list. Not of goals to be met... or not met. But to go inside myself more... more introspective and not set myself up for another year of disappointment when I do not meet all my goals....
photo image by Donna Watson
So here is my first one: TO BECOME MORE MINDFUL. To appreciate the small things around me, and to be more aware of moments -- live in the present moments.
photo image by Donna Watson
Here is another one: GRACE... to respond with more grace when I am disappointed or when a situation or person confronts me with a challenge.
And to be more POSITIVE... I am often accused of seeing "the glass half empty".
Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
Where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.
What locks itself in sameness has congealed,
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and it easily shattered.
Pour yourself like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and with ending, begins.
..... Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII
photo image of rabbit temple in Kyoto Japan, by Donna Watson
