Thursday, August 21, 2008

Too Much Thinking to be Productive!

Shelter has definitely been on my mind, too much. Houses stresses mostly consume my energy--our previous offer fell through because of financing difficulties, so I'm back to trying to keep the place spotless to sell--but I have been trying to distract myself with art. My biggest problem is that I don't know how to create without getting everything out. I need to be able to see, touch and play with everything. Any helpful suggestions for a clean house and art simultaneously would be great!

I have managed to pull out my sketchbook and do a little research. Types of shelter listed in Wikipedia included: protection from weather, place of refuge, war related and geological. The most common Google images were bus shelters. Not were I want to go. From the Internet I travelled to the Bible. One of my favorite "shelter" scriptures is Psalm 61:4, "I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings." I love the image of being wrapped in an embrace of safety. Last night as I was going to sleep, my thought was shelter pictured as a hug. We also went hiking last weekend, leading me to various trail names such as Boulder Shelter. And then there was the cave house we stayed in during our honeymoon on Santorini, Greece.

Which way to go? Hopefully I will move from words to visuals soon.

4 comments:

Gerrie said...

Ahhh! Niki — I love all of these images. Thank you for getting my mind wandering. I have been thinking about the kinds of shelter I saw in Israel and wondering if there is something I can use.

Kristin L said...

"Tax shelter" popped into my mind last night, though I am much more likely to go the direction of a sheltered cove, or the refuge of home and family. I completely feel your frustration with art making, and there's no easy formula. Can you block out a few days where you give yourself permission to be messy and then put it all away in time for the possibility of weekend house showings?

Terri Stegmiller said...

Ooooo I like that..."being wrapped in an embrace of safety" and picturing shelter as a hug.

Unknown said...

I woudl be intrigued so see how you visually represent a hug - although it reminds me of a soup advert here which ends in a chair morphing to embrace the woman in it who is cradleing a mug of steaming soup, the soup being a 'hug in a mug'.