blog series

The sun is shining, I had great creative photography excursion yesterday and last week’s pause is at an end. I have a great view today, but it’s a changing view. I’ve come through the other side of my little break but not without making some important discoveries.

You see, there was more to the pause than my Mom visiting for a week. Underlying the feeling was a growing sense of dissatisfaction with some elements of my creative life. It was as if I was seeing through a dirty window but could sense something more on the other side. After journaling about it the last few days and making some mental shifts and decisions, I want to share them here.

For a little while now, I’ve felt as if I’m not using my creative time on what I want to be using it for. Here I’ve arranged my whole schedule, working part time at my corporate job and all, to give myself more creative time. And yet I’ve filled it with my “to do” list. Always more to do, isn’t there?

So I’ve taken a look at what I want to be doing with my time and what I have been doing with my time to see what is causing the tension. Based on that, I will be making some changes to create the space I feel I need to continue to grow.

What I want to be doing…

I want to continue to develop my art. I want to spend more time in developing my own aesthetic through study, creation of new work and exploration of print. How I do that is ever-changing and up in the air at the moment, but it requires time.

I want to be hiking in the forest regularly, for my mental and physical health. There is something about being among the trees that brings me peace and makes me feel alive. I want to do more of it, several mornings a week at least.

I want to continue to connect with other artists, both in person and online. The connection and inspiration I find through running my eCourses, my blog, Photo-Heart Connection, the Liberate Your Art postcard swap and interacting with local photography friends are all important and valuable to me, and I can see the value to others as well. I need time to develop these meaningful relationships.

What I have been doing…

I have been spending a lot of time with writing things that aren’t necessarily aligned with my personal goals listed above. Things like trying to blog daily, send a newsletter twice a month, and the Exploring with a Camera blog series. All are things that have been an important part of my creative journey in the past, but they don’t seem to fit the same way they once did.

My intention in the future is to blog when I have something meaningful to say, rather than as a daily routine or weekly/monthly schedule. I think the quality of what I share will improve, even if the frequency lessens. The one schedule thing that you can be sure of: Photo-Heart Connection will continue on the first of each month. Beyond that, I could be here 5 days a week or 1 day a week; we’ll just see what happens.

Exploring with a Camera is going on hiatus for a while. While I love this series and have never written one exploration I didn’t fully enjoy, as I look to the future I’m not sure I still have the inspiration to continue. At least, as I look at my personal schedule for the next few months, I feel overwhelmed when I think of this series rather than enthused. Beyond a few months, I’ll see how I feel. In addition to my own personal reservations for coming months, participation has been steadily declining over time, so I wonder if there is still interest out there. What I spend my time sharing needs to be valuable to both me and others, or there is no point in spending all of the time it takes to write if it’s not useful.

My newsletter will go to once a month for a while, too. I love being able to connect with more people through this method of communication, but it takes a lot more of my time than I’ve wanted to acknowledge. I also have to admit I’ve been overwhelmed by all that comes to my email inbox of late and I think about that for all of my subscribers too. I want any email I send you to be important and useful, not just because it’s on a twice-a-month schedule. Going down to once a month saves me the time of creating the newsletter and the burden on all of your email inboxes, while still keeping in touch in this great way.

I will also be changing my class schedule to give myself some more time off over the summer. Summer is gorgeous, but too short, in Oregon. I need to spend more time outside and less on the computer. It doesn’t affect any eCourses in progress or A Sense of Place (planned for April-May – registration opens VERY soon), but it will affect the schedule for the rest of 2013 beyond May. As I sort it out and finalize dates I will keep you informed through my blog, website and newsletter.

I feel good about these decisions and know they will allow me the time and the space for new things to grow. I’m seeing a little more clearly now, thanks to the pause and the needed introspection. I found out what was on the other side of that murky window I was looking through last week. It’s looking pretty interesting, too!

Admitting some of these feelings to myself and deciding to make these changes has been an internal struggle. Many of these decisions run counter-intuitive to the common wisdom of running an online business, much of which advises regular interaction on a high frequency through as many channels as possible. The changes also mean mixing up things that have clearly worked for me in the past, and that’s always uncomfortable.

My heart is telling me to throw that common wisdom out the window and that it’s time for a new way of doing things. If I’m not spending the time I need to grow myself creatively — in the direction my heart tells me — then I’m not going to add anything useful to the conversation. And more than anything, I want to add something useful to the conversation of art, creativity and photography. For myself and for all of you.

This image, shared last month, speaks to my heart and soul. I love the textures of the wall, and the complexity of what I see in the window: Outside, inside and the reflection. It represented what I was feeling at the time, a low point for me creatively, a winter reflected in an otherwise normal, but unique, exterior. But within that winter, hope could be found in the blue sky and the blooming flowers. While it may not be my top image of 2011, it is definitely my favorite for the last half, since moving home from Italy.

As I’ve come out of my low point in December, I’ve realized that one thing I am craving is connection. Connection, like this, of my heart to my images. Connection to other photographers who seek this same relationship in their photography. Looking back, it is not a surprise I felt this way, without a Find Your Eye course running in December. The connections I find with the participants seems to fill this need for me. I’ve described it as finding “kindred spirits.”

As I’ve thought about 2012 and what I want to do, this theme of connection keeps coming up. I want to extend the connection I find through Find Your Eye to everyone, so I’ve brainstormed this new idea for a monthly blog series: The Photo-Heart Connection.

The idea: At the end of each month, review the images you worked with in that month for the one that gives you the strongest connection to your heart and soul. Write about that connection to the image in a blog post or in a photo description on Flickr, then link into the monthly link up. You can get to know the other photographers seeking the same connection, by visiting the links and reading their experiences. We will find our kindred spirits.

The Guidelines:

This is a monthly link up, open from the 1st through the 7th of each month to post on your previous month’s photo-heart connection. In my Photo-Heart Connection post on the first of each month, I’ll share my image for the previous month as I did above, along with ideas on how to deepen your own photo-heart connections.
Pick one photo, with which you feel the strongest heart connection, to share. The photo shared can be any photo that you worked with in the last month, either newly captured or edited.
Write about your heart connection with that photo. Why does the photo speak to you? What do you feel?
Link your permalink into the Photo-Heart Connection link up.
Linked entries must include the Photo-Heart Connection button (available on the sidebar here). We want to share and build the sense of community of photographers seeking the photo-heart connection.
As you can, visit the links of fellow participants. Comment and discuss your experiences and build your connections.
The goal of this link up is connection – to your images and to other participants. As such, the focus is on quality over quantity. Links will be moderated to ensure they follow the guidelines, including both photo and writing about the photo-heart connection.
For reminders, be sure to sign up for the Kat Eye News. I will time the newsletter to arrive the last week of the month to remind you of the link up beginning on the first.

Participation is open to all! You don’t even have to link in if you are uncomfortable sharing. You can do this monthly exercise on your own to achieve an increased photo-heart connection. For those of you who have taken the Find Your Eye courses, participating will keep you moving on the journey you started in class. It will also be a great companion to any other photo project you might have going this year, such as a 365 or a 52-week project, deepening your experience.

I have a feeling that if we all do this monthly for the next year, we will see some incredible things happen in our photography. I also have a feeling that other companion ideas will come out of this, on the theme of connection. I hope you’ll join me to develop your Photo-Heart Connection this year. The first link up will be posted on February 1!

Develop a Photo-Heart Connection

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