About those goals...

Well, it didn't take allllll this time to write my goals, but almost.
I finally just sat in my favorite chair with my Creativity journal and wrote. I asked myself, "what do I really want to get out of this wonderful 5 day experience?"
This retreat is all about tribe for me.
I remember the first year I was there I felt like I'd found my long lost sisters. Now there are new friends and old friends and we explore creative play together, laugh, eat , drink, walk, share, and laugh some more.
This is the group I'm so reluctant to write goals about? Whose voice is that in my head? Oh, yeah, mine....the critic, judge, and disapproving parent.
Once I lept over those voices and started writing, it was easy; make friends, draw (an on-going Zen I-Think-I-Can't practice for me), be interested more than interesting, explore changing the colors I wear, embroider, drink in the accessories Marcy is bringing from Paris and see what I can morph into my jewelry.
I forget that that disapproving voice in my head is mine and that I can move past it and play where I want. I am in the enviable place in my life where I am seldom judged harshly and I am free to play where the muse takes me.
I've been invited to bring art to a Hardware Store Show. Tim Flynn (timmyjflynn.com), a kinetic artist/wild guy is having a show to make real the hardware store he has always wanted to own. This store will be filled with hardware art.... I'm making squashed wire earrings, copper washer braceletes, snap ring necklaces (I've always loved snap rings....). I may make a mobile or two.....
Life is very good in art world!

For those of you who have found yourself here without knowing me, know that I am primarily a jeweler with a long past of other art passions.
I will use this blog to explore my creative process both in the studio and intellectually.
At the end of the month I am headed to Santa Barbara to attend my 10th Designing Outside of the Lines retreat (DOL), lead by Diane Ericson (dianeericson.com) and Marcy Tilton (marcytilton.com). It is designed as a wearable art retreat but really feeds any design passion. I started playing with them when I was making wearable art and have stayed as my interests and passions have shifted back to jewelry. It all still works for me!
I got a pre retreat letter with suggestions for things to think about, goals to write, etc. I have come to wonder why I bristle so at writing goals. Mostly I never do them ahead of time and wing it at the retreat when we are asked what our goals are. I usually make up something vague on the spot.
This year I am trying to carefully watch my process. What is it about these goals?
I have come to think that it is my fear that someone will be checking up on me and deeming my efforts unsatisfactory. If I never declare my goals, I can never, not meet them….
I pledge, right here in semi-public, to write some goals and intentions for this DOL, before I sit in the room in Santa Barbara!
I’ll let you know how it goes…..