I Can't Write Today

“I can’t write my newsletter today” I tell a friend as we walk in the frigid early morning.

“I can’t write about art and optimism. I can’t encourage people to come paint/write/throw-pottery with us when there is so much melancholy. All I’m thinking about, a decade after the fact, is how families in the town next to my CT hometown should have 16 year olds learning to drive but instead a whole class of 6 year-olds were gone in a morning. There is war, hunger, grief- the world’s problems are too big today.”

“What?! Of course you can. Isn’t so much art inspired by pain, melancholy? “

Maybe, maybe.

This time of year an unsettled melancholy is all around us, tucked into the spaces between jingle bells and holiday parties. It’s a stirring with no outlet, and dissatisfaction that is only slightly eased with social outings and or tears- pick your fancy. Most of us just hold onto the hope of making it through. I suspect it’s the combination of the pressures of families and, despite our efforts otherwise, the pull of consumerism, making magic, keeping the magic, finding joy. There is so much pressure for happiness and magic, it makes me want to hide under a fluffy comforter until February. So much of it is so great, and so much of it makes me ache a little inside.

For me, I suspect it is in part the push to “buy things” when all I want is to “do things.” The empty experience of purchasing gifts is no match to my activity or trip planning excitement. The act of doing, making things and living life, is where my joy emerges. I’m here for the magic, but not the rest of it.

On a uniquely empty and cold Sunday afternoon with little magic in sight, two of my kids asked if I wanted to draw with them as they made cute little holiday images for their walls. I sat on the couch, pulled out some pastels and a sketchpad, and drew images with no goal, little meaning, and cliché holiday color. Christmas trees and stockings colored rich and thick in gaudy seasonal shades. A page full of mini holiday décor. For no reason, no purpose. It was simply nice to sit and color in company with my kids. My tension lightened.

So I color with my kids, buy presents because the letters to Santa are way to irresistible and I hope they never stop. The elf is moved most nights, often by my teenager who is now in on the magic-making for the littles.

THAT, that is where I find the magic and ease the melancholy. Not the insipid shopping, but in watching magic makers, magic lovers grow. Not in the endless logistics, but in the wonder and joy of artwork on walls and shared moments.

We all have our own versions of magic, of sorrow, of joy. We know that melancholy usually passes (at least it lightens) and it often inspires us to look for the magic, wherever it may show up.

Clearly, I managed to write this newsletter to you all, to share the little ways art can bring us back into joy, back into appreciation. Perhaps an art practice can help us process, move through challenging times. If we’re lucky, an art practice will even bring us some joy.

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‘Tis the Season!

Ornament Making, Saturday December 17. All ages welcome!

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January 2023 Classes

Saturdays

Youth/Tween Ceramics, ages 9 - 13

Mondays

Youth Ceramics, ages 5 - 9

Adult Ceramics

Tuesdays

3D Print Your World, ages 8 - 11