creative endeavors Archives - Curiosity & Collectanea

Pottery as spiritual practice

If you follow this blog, you probably noticed that I made very few posts last year. What was I doing instead, you ask? Well, the truth is that I have become obsessed with pottery. Let me tell you about it… Preoccupied with pottery Last January when I told Craig that…

Try to remember

January 27, 2023 creative endeavors take a picture

For several years, I have been crafting digital collages as a way to curate my photographs and document events in my everyday life. A Postcard from Today It began like this. In August of 2016, I talked some girlfriends into joining me in a creative challenge: every day for six…

Work in progress

January 6, 2023 creative endeavors here in Alameda the eye of the beholder

Our friend Patrick Erwin is a retired electrician cum painter who began working seriously on his art in his later years. I met him in his studio for this interview… Wiry with white hair and twinkling hazel-green eyes, Patrick Erwin has an energy that belies his 78 years. (We sometimes…

Capturing nature on the page

August 2, 2021 creative endeavors the birds and the trees

Some months ago, a friend mentioned that she had taken an Audubon Society class on drawing birds, and that it was the best art class she had ever taken. Wow, I thought, I want to know about this! The instructor, I learned, was the aptly-named John Muir “Jack” Laws. He…

Bird by bird

February 7, 2020 a good book creative endeavors musings out and about the birds and the trees

I listen to a podcast on my morning walk, and I often let the length of the show dictate the length of the walk. On a recent morning the podcast was On Being; Krista Tippett was interviewing Brené Brown. I was engrossed — Brené (she seems like a first-name sort…

Curiosity and collectanea

June 1, 2018 creative endeavors life lessons

Just what is this blog about? Curiouser and curiouser What comes to mind when I think about curiosity? First, I think of the Zen Buddhist idea of the beginner’s mind: setting aside our assumptions and preconceptions and encountering the world as a child does, with a sense of wonder and…