My reoccurring theme for personal growth and happiness lies in the practice of simplicity…dare I call it my current “issue”..no…how about growth opportunity….as the decades unfold there has become a poignancy…almost an urgency…to live life fully….to the edges and depths…to peal away the superfluous…to get to the heart of the matter…in love, in communication, in right livelihood and right relationships…I remember a cosmic moment around my 40th birthday. I wrote on my studio wall, “what is beyond this disorganization,” and I knew in that moment those words were a key to happiness and personal and professional success. More than a decade and a half later I am getting to the place where disorganization screams louder, demanding vigilance for it to be overcome or at least tamed (not an easy task for a wild woman).

I recently took Kelly Rae’s class, Flying Lessons: Tips & Tricks to Help Your Creative Business Soar. The class is” creative buz thriving fuel on steroids” and totally exploded my mind and continues to push me into all new places…Kelly is generous beyond belief…a brilliant and beautiful woman sharing her wisdom and gifts. I wish I’d “met” Kelly when I was a fledgling business woman and yet there were still volumes to learn from her richly designed course. What I have learned is helping me so much to prioritize my creative business and stay true to my creative spirit.

The day Kelly’s class finished, on a whim I signed up for Home with Claudine Hellmuth. Claudine is sweet, angelic and all around precious. The introduction of her cat, Stanley, won me over. I didn’t look at the curriculum before I signed up…the decision was intuition lead….as was Kelly’s class now that I think about it. If I had read the curriculum what I’m learning wouldn’t have been listed in the syllabus. In addition to the great techniques presented, I am learning simplicity from Claudine. She operates joyfully and efficiently in one small room. She has her modest collection of scrapbook papers zip-locked bagged and arranged by color. Claudine buys books of scrapbook paper one reason being they are cheaper than individual sheets. She says maybe they aren’t the prettiest…but they work. I thirst for this simplicity. In sprawling spaces I have a tendency to collect and collect. I think many of us artists are actually junk collectors and hoarder…lol… (come on…admit not wanting to use that last piece of your favorite scrapbook paper). My homework from Claudine’s class is to use what I have…to remember that more is MORE…more to spend money on, more to organize, more to confuse my mind and give me so many creative choices I design a million lines of product and only produce seven…o.k….I need to go back to Kelly’s class and remember to rejoice in what is already accomplished and take time to smell the roses.