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Gratitude Friday is a weekly ritual I started in order to focus on all the small and big positive things that happened during my week. I invite you to join me, you’ll see how much being thankful can change your life. If you want to know more about it, read my introduction post.

Hello !

I know I did not published a Gratitude Friday in what seems like FOREVAAAAAAAAAA but I will try to get back to it from now on.

Despite the huge amount of stress I still feel today, it’s important for me to thank for all the blessings I receive. Even the tiniest ones.

This week, I am thankful for:

• This new home we just moved in. I can’t believe how perfect it is for us, and it is OURS (well… it will be in 20-ish years, for now it’s to the bank lol).
• My husband, he is the bestest and I could never have dreamt of a better match for me.
• I am one of the artist interviewed for Cindy Jones Lantier’s project called Mixed Media May (or M3), you can read my interview just right here.
• Speaking of projects, I love being part of the project 101010 (you can see daily blogposts of the others participants answers).
• I’ve finally started to paint the walls of my future creative studio. It will be a beautiful teal. I am thankful for this opportunity to finally have my space to create and work.
• Thank you to my friends. They are dear to my heart.
• The good nights of sleep. I’m beginning to be okay with being exhausted, I still have good nights of sleep again and I love that.
• I love finding inspiration in the most surprising places. Like a restaurant washroom wall.
• Starting to take care of my health again. Exercising. Better eating. I want to be back to the Nolwenn I know I should be. And I KNOW I can do it.

If you wrote your Gratitude Friday on your blog, don’t forget to enter your NAME and URL below so I’m notified and can come to read you (you can also join by commenting this post):
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Stamping letter by letter has something kinda meditative.

I needed to calm my mind so it was the perfect technique yesterday, after what was maybe one of the mat stressful day of our life.

This is a question that comes a lot to me lately. It has always popped now and then but it’s been in the back of my mind for a while now so I guess it’s time for me to acknowledge it and dig (I usually proceed this way ;)).

Am I what I paint ?
Am I what I create?
Am I what I think?
Am I what I feel ?

I don’t think I hold the answer yet because sometimes it bends toward a “of course I am what I create” and others I absolutely want the answer to be a “no”.

There is a part of me in every single thing that comes from me, and this is obvious. I used to be a very pessimistic teen/young adult; always seeing what could go wrong first and focusing on that instead of trying to shift it. It is who I was and I don’t deny it. It occasionally still shows through my art in my journals.

My universe is filled with strange creatures and characters having a life of their own. Tim Burton captures very well what it looks like in my mind most of the time. But my Universe is also filled with colors and shapes and symbols that are way brighter.
Paradoxical ? Of course. I guess it’s not a coincidence I was born under the astral sign of the Virgo, which is a very double-sided sign.

Sometimes, I am doing something and suddenly I feel like I have just been punched in the stomach and can’t breathe anymore, and all the negativity I felt in my past comes back in, in a rush. And it hurts like Hell. All the fears and worries I constantly push away decide to hit me in the face. Journaling and painting helps me to make it go away.
I used to fight this darker side of me until I realized it was totally vain and that the best solution was to accept it (yes, it all goes back to acceptance again). Creativity is the only way I found to be helpful, even on the long term.

This blogpost makes no sense and I apologize for this. I guess I just have to work this through and thought sharing it with you might help. Please, feel free to tell me what you think.

Are you totally dettached from what you create ? Do you think you are what you paint and you paint what you are ?

In 2011, I decided to completly accept that I am an artist and once this was triggered in my heart, there was no way back possible.

I am not an artiste because I opened an Etsy shop to try to sell some of my work, but because I knew I simply was a creator.

Creative when I cook for me and my family.
Creative when I write just not to forget. just to get it OUT.
Creative when I let go all of my fears in the pages of my art journals.
Creative when I put paint on canvas/wood/whatever and see a face appear, and hear the Nixie telling me her story, her message.
…

What is being an artist, really ? What does it mean for you ? I am pretty sure we all have different visions of it. And this is something I love because it is so personal and yet so universal at the same time.

When I look at my daughters (currently 5 and 6½) drawing, doodling, scribbling, dancing, singing, inventing poems and songs about their daily life and their «right now», I am purely in awe. It comes naturally, they never second-guess themselves. They just are creative, because we all are until we let doubt and comparison and self-destructive thoughts take over it. I wish for them to last forever and ever.

Every single day, I commit to creativity. In any form.
Painting makes me happy. Keeps me sane. And makes me kinda go out of my body for a while. So I just keep doing it, day after day.
Cooking is also central in my life.

No matter how in pain my body is, how tired I feel, how loud my mind screams not to do anything, I have to listen to my Inner Voice and make something. Just a little thing sometimes. It is enough.

There are phases when I don’t wanna do anything, it happens and I go with it. Trying not to make it last too long though because once I let it go, it is harder to come back to it. And I have to come back to it, to listen to the calling.

I don’t blog as much as I would like to, because I prefer now to be in my «real life», but I try to share a lot via flickR and facebook. So head over there to keep in touch, I would love to learn to know you 🙂

Sneak peak at my three latest Nixies. I will soon share their stories:

You all know I have stress management issues.
And right now, I’m going through major anxiety and stress. We are becoming homeowners for the first time, moving about 30km from where we currently live which means changing school for girls etc.
Moving has always been more or less emotional for me. I did a lot of digging and found out two years ago (when we last moved) what the trigger was. But it does not make it easier today. It simply doesn’t change anything for me to know the “why-s”.

I refuse to ruminate all the negative thoughts and fears that come through my mind about packing and starting some place else. It wouldn’t do any good.

So instead, I art journal 🙂 and make pretty pages with ugly thoughts buried under.

Here is what I’m currently playing with: