Leanne Shawler, Artist

The first habit Ed Bacon talks about in The Eight Habits of Love is generosity. What I did not expect was how closely gratitude is linked to generosity. I am not a morning person. Motivation to get out of bed is hard to find, I always want a few more minutes of sleep or dozing or even lying there cozy under the blankets. Ugh, getting up. After reading the chapter on generosity, I woke to my usual grumbling internal monologue and thought, no, wait a minute, and mentally listed several several things to be grateful for, very basic things like a roof over my head, hot water for a shower... The grumbles were gone and I was out of bed and headed into my day with extra energy. Ann Voskamp  also links generosity and gratitude. Ann has been writing about gratitude for a long time, writing down list upon list of things to be grateful. Her book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are was transformative for me. I followed her example and wrote gift...

I checked my email this morning to find the weekly letter from Still Forming had a very appealing announcement. I wrote the following on Facebook: Friends, there have been discussion and posts on my Facebook feed on the refugee crisis and what should or shouldn't be done. Early this week, I wanted to escape the polarization that's occurring and offer a series of reflections this Advent on love but I haven't been exactly successful in escaping the creation of more polarization on my Facebook feed. Christianne Squires (Still Forming) is offering a series of meditations on Jan Richardson's blessings ( beautiful example here ). Her e's what she says about them: "Jan's blessings are most poignant for the ways they meet us in the cracks and crevices of life, helping us find or notice the light in dark places. During a time when the world feels full of darkness, and in a season — Advent — when we are watching and waiting for the light to come, I cannot i...

Since the attacks in Paris, I've been contemplating how to respond. I've reacted aplenty: with horror and sorrow, with concern for backlash at refugees, immigrants and Muslims. I've traded comments on Facebook, shared news stories, prayers and commentary like this one: "ISIL is Weak" by Wahleed Aly (The Project, a news/comedy show in Australia). I kept getting the nudge that there was more that I could do than this, more that I could bring to heal the hurt, anger and fear. "Hope for Peace" is the beginning of that. It's closely based on a LifeBook 2015 lesson by Andrea Gomoll some weeks ago that I never got around to doing.  Glass bead gel is awesome although you can't see the shimmer really in this photo. This art journal page expresses simply my heart in that moment: to hope for peace, to bring light and joy and transformation ... Advent is almost upon us (it starts on the 30th). It is traditionally a time of expect...

#1. Watch a Sondheim musical on the plane. In my case Into The Woods . Earworms stay in your head for days. "Agony". "Hello Little Girl".  "It Takes Two of Us". Ahhh ah-a-ahh a-ahhh.... You're welcome. #2. Don't take charge of your space. Like when the clanging water pipes continue to clang and you realize your neighbor is not taking an epic shower and the noise is there to stay. Don't wait until 1:00am the night before your flight to complain to the hotel's front desk. #3. Pay attention to your husband. When you wake up and he complains he can't sleep, don't give into empathy and sit up with him, no matter how much you love him. You're in business class, you can lie flat, for Pete's sake. #4. Take epic walks before your flight. So epic that the first walk has you limping and it makes you limp on day two because it feels like walking on knives. (Bonus if you can do this and not have plantar fasciitis.) Then dela...

I am experimenting with watermarks on the images in this post. Mainly because I don't want them passed off as somebody else's work. So, the lesson last week in LifeBook was called "Finding Strength", presented by Donna Downey, and named after the stencil of hers that she used in the class. I was tempted to follow Tam's additional sketching instructions to create something similar, but in the end went in a completely different direction. I thought to myself, what does "finding strength" mean to me... It started with this sketch of a sweet face. And then I thought I would put in shadows and a bit of color and saw what I did, freaked out and gessoed over it. (I should have taken a picture of it in all its hideousness.) And sketched the face in again, a little bit different (the mouth is a little off-center I just noticed). Also, in my art room I have a bit of an ant problem. Well, we're having a problem in the whole house, and larg...

Today I have mopped the kitchen and dining room floors including under the fridge because our dog recently died of kidney failure -- imagine oceans of pee. I am incredibly grateful to him that when he couldn't wait for us to get home from work, he went on the tile. So yes, I'm mourning my 16 year old dog, who we had for about 10 years of his life. Adopted as an adult with his brother who died last year ... This also might be a Sarah Bessey fan-post, because I have a large number of links from her blog. She writes really really good stuff, folks, if you don't follow her yet. It's probably way past time for me to buy her book... Who are your Somewheres ? The people you can say anything to. (Sarah Bessey) What is your motivation? (Sarah Bessey) I used to think God wanted a lot from me. (Sarah Bessey) . Oh, yeah, this one really resonated. To the young women reading "Jesus Feminist" (Sarah Bessey) Phew. Here are some other great blogs I've ...

I am going to start out by saying, I could do with a serious purge of stuff. That said, I have so much because I've flitted from scrapbooking to 3D creations (birdhouses) to fabric creations to painting on canvas to art journaling. It shows. On the other hand, I've gone from working part-time to not working to working full-time, so I know there are projects I really want to get to. (Like the Madonna art display quilt from a swap I was in several years ago.) I've taken a break from this blog party for the last couple of years, but if you want to see how my creative space has changed and developed (just in case you haven't seen enough creative spaces for one day!), you can see: in 2009 in its barest of bones (I didn't participate in the blog party, but wanted to show in 2010 how my room, which is a small third bedroom, had looked before.) in 2010 which is like a complete reveal with an additional post on my homemade hanky curtains in 2011 after an overha...