a mix of things

hallo again! wow, another post from me!, so soon? :-)

well. imma gonna copy/ paste a few things over here that i posted somewhere else alreadies. seeing that not everyone here follows me everywhere else, ha ha.

so, a mix of things! number 1, big news; DYLAN CAN ROLL OVER! (yes, this IS a big deal!), see him in rolly over action here;




& this be a uber cute peekture of him (hat made by the awesome beverley);



this be a uber silly pic of me;



behind the cut are some questions i answered on formspring.me which i have enjoyed doing;



Was art something you have always done, or was there a pivotal moment when you realised you wanted to make art part of your life?

I've always been artistic. I did drama, music & art as part of my A-levels (high school) and loved art in junior school as well. Photography came into my life in my twenties. Art (specifically painting/ drawing) was always a part of my life, but has taken on more of a professional focus in the last 5-6 years or so. Before that, it was more of an intense hobby.

What is your view/belief/feeling on God? Does God have a place in your life?

I am not a religious person but a spiritual one. I don't believe in a God the way Christians or Muslims depict him. I believe God is all things and everyone. My spiritual views resonate most with Non-duality/ Zen & Buddhism. :)

Do you aim to follow any particular philosophy or parenting style for raising Dylan?

yes. andy and i live something called 'nonviolent communication' or 'compassionate communication' (by marshall rosenberg). it focuses on connecting authentically to human needs. it avoids moralistic judgements and punishment & rewards. as this is our life style, this will be how dylan is raised. :)

i've also noticed that some of my parenting approaches have elements of attachment parenting (such as; co-sleeping & feeding on demand/ request), but i don't actually do those things because of attachment parenting, it's just something that i naturally wanted to do. it feels 'right'.

the focus for us is on nvc and child-led parenting. :-)

How come you're so awesome?

ha ha! we all are! by default! we made it to this earth didn't we? that's pretty awesome to me : D

name please your 10 most favorite CDs ever

1. "Blue" Joni Mitchell
2. "Little Earthquakes" Tori Amos
3. "Rubber Soul" The Beatles
4. "Little Black Numbers" Kathryn Williams
5. "Ophelia" Natalie Merchant
6. "Almost Famous" Simon & Garfunkel
7. "Crime of the Century" Supertramp
8. "I Am Bird Now" Antony & the Johnsons
9. "Want Two" Rufus Wainwright
10. "Quelqu'un m'a dit" Carla Bruni

Are you happy with what you have done with your life, or would you change something?

i neglected the care of a white bunny when i was about 8 years old. it resulted in its death. i still feel utter guilt and sadness over this. i would've liked to have changed that. regarding major decisions in my life i am very contented and happy with what i've done with my life. :-)

Name five places you'd like to visit.

:-) visit again? or places i haven't been to yet?

ok, places i haven't been to yet;

1. new york (why? hey, it's new yoik! ;), the most amazing city evar no? ;)) it'd be like walking around in a movie though, so that'd be weird, but wouldn't deter me from going. :)

2. nepal (have always had an attraction to this country because of the colourful clothing people wear. should've visited it when i lived in sri lanka, but didn't have the chance, also, it's really roundabout to get from sl to nepal even though it's so nearby)

3. iceland, any place that produced sigur ros must be an amazing place. i have such a mystical, magical impression of the country.

4. sweden, or any other scandanavian country really. love the language, love the people, love the snowy weather.

5. australia, such amazing vastness, hilariously cool accent, awesome animals (kangaroo/ koala - is it a coincidence they both start with a 'k'?) and i have some great friends there.


There was a time in your life when you weren't sure about marriage and babies etc, why? And what changed?

i only ever wanted to bring a child into the world if i knew i was psychologically, emotionally and financially stable (or at least; stable-er, ha ha). before andy came into my life i had a lot of emotional and psycholgical challenges and could not imagine caring for a child if i wasn't able to care for myself! when i met andy, everything changed, i grew stronger on all levels and so marriage/ a child seemed to be a beautiful and logical consequence of it all.


Would you rather be a famous musician or a famous actor?

there was a time when i wanted to be both with equal ferocity for all the 'wrong' reasons. now, i enjoy doing music for a small audience. proper fame would absolutely do my head in.


What was your favorite book as a child?

i read a lot more as a child than i do now, sadly. a few of my favs were; 'the secret garden', 'mio my mio' and 'the brother's lionheart'.


feel free to ask me any questions if you like too, over here. i enjoy doing them! :D

3 more days until my next course starts! :-) if you want to experience it from the beginning, make sure to register before monday! (find out more here)

i'm making more little clay houses! it is very relaxing to do, very enjoyable process! :) i sold 3 of them already! :)

**

feeling a bit better emotionally. still completely freaked out by all the horror haiti stories (6 year old boy lies under rubble for 5 days, then gets saved, what must've gone on in that poor little mind for 5 days?! - father writes goodbye notes to little sons with own blood etc), but somehow coping better with this sort of information. byron katie helps me process and 'being here-now-ness' helps.

i've also started exercising on an exercise bike! yahah, we bought one for only £35 at Asda's and it's going pretty well so far!

i do 20mins a day while watching 1 episode of friends (or scrubs) in the morning while andy looks after dylan, it's quite nice, because this way i don't have to go to a gym or run outside, i can just wake up and step on this bike and get a tiny bit of cardio going (i still stop quite a bit but at least i'm doing something, trying to lose some of the pregnancy weight and whatever weight there was before the pregnancy too, ha ha!).

so, i'm more up at the moment. which makes me :0)

hope everyone is well.

hugga bugga. x

little houses of love.

these little adorable housies are now for sale in my etsy shop!


hullo the world.

i think i am going to have to resign to the fact that updating blogs is no longer something i can do as frequently as i'd like! when i look back over my journal, there was a point where i updated 4-5 times a day at times (2004). now, i'm lucky if i get to update 4-5 times a month. there are two reasons for this;

1. dylbee, of course, the little angel sort of lives ON me for about 75% of the day. i am an 'attachement' or 'baby-led' parent, meaning; i respond to his needs where/ when needed; his needs are prioritised over mine (within reason, of course). babies this age need a lot of physical hugs, holding and contact, hence, he lives on me for a substantial part of the day, and blog writing isn't so easy with one hand. :)

2. twitter. now that i can update to twitter in short sentences and share videos and photos within a matter of seconds, i somehow feel i am connected and share what i normally share in longer versions over here and on blogspot. twitter is miniature blogging and it fulfills many of my blogging needs, ha ha. so, because of twitter i don't feel totally deprived from the blogging world and therefore don't go through great lengths to get a blog post out.

but, yes, i do do do do miss this. i miss spilling over and spilling out all my inner feelings, thoughts and stufffff.

i enjoy writing more lengthy posts, and i like really digging deeper into my emotional, psychological states, or merely writing poetically about my day/ life etc.

so, dylan fell asleep about 20 mins ago and i have some time to write! yahoo! :D i can feel you all jumping up and down with excitement. ;)

now then, here follows an account of what's been happening with me, lately;

the two most important people in my life

♥ dylan remains an amazing marvel of a human being, he grows stronger and bigger every day and he is this constant source of love and amusement. also a source of sleep deprivation, although he's sleeping for much longer chunks at night more or less all time now. on jan 17th he'll be 5 months old! wowsa.



♥ andy remains this beautiful, compassionate, amazing person who has infinite amounts of patience, love and care for me and our child. my text message to him earlier today says it all;



here is a little video of the both of them, done today;





polymer clay

i've always wanted to make things with my hands out of clay, but always thought i need a big fuck off kiln for that, so never went down that road. then, i discovered polymer clay which hardens in a normal home based oven. imagine my joy! so, i've been sculpting, baking, painting and varnishing polymer clay lately (something that can more easily be done with a sleeping baby on your lap) and am LOVING it, see pics above of the little clay houses. and another example;





(also for sale in my etsy shop)


it's wonderfully therapeutic to make these. gonna do much more of it if i can.

emotional state

i don't know if it's hormones from baby things or the new rheumatism meds i'm taking, but i am still incredibly 'tuned in' or 'affected by' other people's suffering. to the point where it's really making me depressed, sad, scared and fearful.

take the haiti disaster, or the man who was executed in china. when i hear these things, i imagine it happen to myself or a loved one and can't stop crying. i know, rationally, that this is in no way helpful or achieving anything, the whole thing is completely pointless, but i can't seem to stop myself from doing it. we did a search online and looked up depression as a side effect to my meds and some people did mention depression but apparently it's rare.

i have moments where i can be more 'zen' about other people's suffering, but i often slip back into feeling terribly upset by it all, to a much greater extent than from before i had dylan. at times i'm a bit at a loss as to what to do about it, byron katie's approach seems to work best, but it's as if a part of my brain keeps overriding any strategy i have to not get affected (or just less hysterically affected!), so it's wearing me down a little bit.

the new house

we still haven't completely unpacked! one of the rooms has got a pile of unpacked boxes and bags in it, but other things keep taking priority! like work and dylan and watching tv for instance, ha ha. ;)

but anyway, here is a little tour of our house!





art courses & ning

my new art course, fabulous faces, will begin on 25th of Jan, i'm working hard on getting most of the videos and pdfs ready before i even start so that during the course it won't be possible to run out of time all of a sudden. smart thinking eh. it's really wonderful to be back teaching, i do enjoy editing the videos together and really making the lessons as easy and accessible as possible. editing the videos is actually doable with dylan on me as i mostly need one hand only for it! registration for this course is still open, if you're interested you can sign up HERE.

my ning site has reached its 1000th member this week! in honour of this i'm holding a give away with several prizes over HERE.

The Art of Self Acceptance - Book Project - i'm hoping to publish a book and so i've started this book project about art & self-love/ self acceptance! i'm looking for contributing artists! if you're interested in contributing, have a read about the details here; http://www.willowing.org/2010/01/art-of-self-acceptance-book-project.html

i would love it if some of my lj buddies would take part!



NVC - nonviolent communication

i've started a weekly tele practise group with Jim & Jori Manske via the NVC Academy. jim & jori were trainers on the intensive nvc training i went to in albuquerque in 2007 and i thoroughly enjoyed learning from them and being around them. it is wonderful reconnecting with them.

i had my first session last night (i missed last week's duh!) and some interesting exercises on 'presence' were shared. i would've enjoyed more one on one listening or interaction, but there were approx 25 people taking part so that wasn't really possible. nevertheless, it was great having 2 hours in which i could preoccupy my mind with presence-nvc work (and some painting too) while andy looked after dylan. i recommend nvc academy for people who want to learn more about nvc.

other random
snow. i love snow, but it's really been limiting my mobility lately, so, if it's ok with the snow, pls go away now. ;)

other emotional
i just really want to be able to be more grounded and a little more at peace in my head.

so, to help with that, here are some helpful zen/ byron katie/ buddhistie quotes;

~ ByronKatie - "Until you experience death as a gift, your Work’s not done. So if you’re afraid of it, that shows you what to question next." (a gift huh? ... sigh, oh well .. )

"Focusing on what we think we need keeps us from being present to what's already right here. "~Cheri Huber

"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." ~Winnie the Pooh (I LOVE this one!)

"The primary cause of unhappiness is not the situation, but your thoughts about it." ~ Eckhart Tolle (sooo true!)

"Stop looking for something out there and begin looking within." ~Rumi

"It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful." ~ #ACIM (i sooo want to see that, but find it so difficult!)

***

and with that, i bid thee adieu and goodnight lovely reader.

♥



ps.
i'm here on twitter
i'm here on fb
xx

the art of self acceptance book project

if you'd like to contribute, pls join my ning site: www.willowing.ning.com and then this group: collab art.

The Art of Self Acceptance - Book Project

One of THE biggest challenges you will face in life is; loving yourself. Sadly, we are conditioned, raised to think of ourselves as less than others, a lucky of few of us had awesome parents who showered us with unconditional love, but they are few and far in between! So for many it is a struggle to love, hey, even simply like ourselves at times!

I personally think that a lack of self acceptance lies at the core of a lot of our personal and global problems. I think that a world with people who truly fully and totally unconditionally accept themselves is a utopic one and would sort out a whole load of the problems we currently have in the world!

So, why not make a book about it? I hope that this book full of your work and explorations around self acceptance will work as healing to all of us somehow! :)

Ok, so what to contribute?

I imagine each artist to get a max of 2 page spread. You can fill this spread with anything you want as long as it relates to art and self acceptance/ love/ kindness towards the self.

Examples of what you might do:

1. Submit an art journal entry which has a self love theme. With this you can write a little story about how art journaling helps you be kinder towards yourself.

2. Do you take photographs? Perhaps you take self portraits and jazz them up in photoshop? Do these projects help you with your self acceptance? Explore, describe, submit!

3. Do you write poetry? Oscar Wilde once wrote that we would all have the wildest (;) love afair with ourselves, what do you think? Submit your self love, or struggle with self love poetry to the book!

4. It doesn't have to be solely about how art helps you with your self acceptance, perhaps, you have a really really hard time loving yourself, darker entries around how it's all just not working out is also ok, perhaps submitting that dark piece of art will actually help you with your self love growth?

5. Do you sculpt, make puppets, carve wood? Do your creations helps you somehow, some way towards a happier you? Pls submit photos of your creations and share with us how and why your creations or your creative processes help you!

6. Do you make junk art? Bags? Scanner art? Knit, crochet, sew? Use polymer clay? Do any of these activities make you happier and/or help you get in touch with your you-ness and make you feel happy? Share it with the world in this book!! :-)

Ok, I am going to set a draft deadline for 20th February 2010! That gives you a month and a half to produce some ideas/ drafts!

When you submit work, try to scan it at high quality pixels (tiff format would be best, but high pixel jpeg is fine too). If you can only photographs your work, pls try to take high quality, high pixelation picture with nice lighting (best would be in natural sunlight).

Pls also submit:

1. a photograph of yourself that you love!!! ♥ (high quality again if possible)
2. any website links/ urls you'd like to have printed by your section
3. a little blurb/ story on your self love journey (no more than approx 500 words if it's accompanying a/ some pieces of art), if what you want to submit is prose then it can be larger!!

Ok, hope that gives you some great ideas you guys! Can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

Please send your submissions to: willowing [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you have any other great ideas to contribute, pls let us know in the comment section! x

Big hugs
Tam x

---

extra info:

Oooh, I'm so excited by all your responses! This book is going to be great! I can feel it in my bonessss! :)

Ok, so I'm just going to respond to some of your questions/ queries in this section here so that everyone can read it.

@rhomany; blurb is a self publish site like lulu and everyone will be able to buy their own copy!

@ingrid; Hi ingrid! I hope for this book to explore how art and self acceptance go together or not and for people to contribute art in any form (so could be paintings/ photography/ poetry or a simple piece of prose or ancedote about your own journey into self love/ acceptance). I would LOVE IT if you could contribute something! :) x

@heather: hi heather! it's ok to submit a photo, although it'd be important to take a high quality photo of it so that it would print properly! so excited that you're interested to contribute, yay! x

@julia; i love your idea about an art conversation! how do you envision that, pls tell me more!

Ok, so a bit more detail about what I have in mind, and let's think of a first draft deadline! The other thing I'm looking for is one or two co-editors! Anyone interested in that role?



Posted on Dec 23rd 2009:
Hi Guys!

So, I've been brooding on this idea for a while now! In the new year, I want to publish a book via blurb about Art & Self Acceptance, possible title; (The Art of Self-Love or The Art of Self-Acceptance).

I envision a book with art from all of you guys that is themed, or explores the idea of self love/ acceptance/ kindness towards the self.

The art could be in all forms; paintings/ mandalas/ photography/ 3d/ poetry/ story writing.

I am thinking of hoping to find about 30 or so contributing artists/ writers/ photographers, each gets a two page spread or less if they want to contribute less. Photos of the arists and their own journey/ stories of self acceptance in relation to art will be added and links to your websites too!

I'm hoping to produce a book that people can relate to, feel inspired by and may even find some healing through. (Perhaps a little like the post secret books although more involved with more variety and styles and different stories/ contributions).

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comment section! And let me know if you're interested in being one of the contributing arists! :)

Thanks !
Tam x

Fabulous Faces - Registration now Open!

Registration for Fabulous Faces is NOW OPEN!

Learn how to create your own pretty portraits!

Download the Course Outline & Supply List HERE.

How to sign up and what happens:

1. Pay your course fee (£45 GBP) by clicking on the 'buy now' button - but make sure to write in the email address you want to sign up with (or have already signed up with):

£45 (GBP)

Enter Your Email Address:

Or by sending £45 (GBP) to my paypal account: tamara[dot]laporte[at]gmail[dot]com, making sure to let me know in the comment section which email you'd like to sign up with!

Pls note: if you don't have a paypal account but you do have standard credit cards like mastecard/ visa card/ swift etc, you can still pay via paypal as a guest, you too should click on the 'buy now' button. If you don't want/ can't pay via paypal and don't have any major creditcards, pls private msg me so we can work something out!

2. I will send you 2 emails, one is an invitation to the workshop, the second is an email with a welcome pack pdf.

3. You need to accept my invitation to the group (follow the
links in the email).

4. Voila! You are a member!

If things are confusing and you can't figure things out, pls email me on tam[at]willowing[dot]org. Or check out the FAQ page over here: FAQ

Workshop 5 - Fabulous Faces - Course Leader: Tam (Willowing)

This course will run for 6 weeks with a full length video & pdf file per week!

Course skill level: beginner & intermediate
Course fee: £45 GBP

Course outline

week 1	25.01.2010	Drawing & shading a front facing portrait in graphite - basics.
week 2	01.02.2010	Shading a front facing portrait in colour - various materials.
week 3	08.02.2010	Drawing/ shading a 3 quarter portrait in colour.
week 4	15.02.2010	Drawing/ shading a profile portrait in colour.
week 5	22.02.2010	Adding items/ objects etc to your portrait piece + looking at different mixed media styles to create your portrait (such as drawing a portrait on top of bookpages or music scores, as an example).
week 6	01.03.2010	Integrating your portrait into a mixed media background - going over some layering styles too.

Videos can be downloaded throughout the 6 weeks, don't worry if you're not available on Monday''s; all videos remain online for the duration of the course.

Your pdfs will contain technical guidance on the techniques covered in the videos.

Note: once you have paid and signed up for the course, you will be sent an in depth welcome pack which lists materials and other details of the course.

SIGN UP NOW! £45 (GBP)

Enter Your Email Address: