Welcome Creative Friends,
My name is Diana Meade. I am an artist, a writer, a wife and a daughter. I bring up the obvious daughter part because I live with my mother. (More about that later.) I also live with Rod Tanner (Mr. Man), my funny and talented writer-husband, author of the novel, Surge, and a bunch of cats who boss me around even more than my mom.
Dorothy is the family matriarch, an 80 year old dynamo who had a health scare about the time that Mr. Man and I lost our jobs in the big city. (We both worked for the same company that went out of business, our version of putting all your eggs into one basket.) Eventually we got rid of most of our possessions, said goodbye to friends, favorite bookstores, restaurants, and privacy and moved two cats and our toothbrushes into my childhood home behind the Pine Curtain, otherwise known as East Texas.
It took me two years to recover.
My mother recovered nicely, thanks for asking and can still work circles around both my husband and me. Mr. Man and I laugh and talk about the idle conversations we use to have about our retirement. He said he didn’t want to do yard work and I said I didn’t want to cook. In the city, that might have been possible. Here in the country, I cook more than I ever have and he knows which end of the weed-whacker to use.
I spend my days trying to stay sane and be creative but often I am neither.
My interests are art journaling, gelli mono printing, mixed media and digital collage. I also love altered books and Zentangle. I have faithfully attended the Houston International Quilt Festival for years which feeds my fantasy of some day actually making a quilt.
There is nothing more satisfying than playing with fabric; however I usually end up having an argument with the sewing machine so I am toying with the idea of free form sewing on paper so no one can tell what a unskilled seamstress I am.
I like to write about the creative process which you will see on this website. I write about it because I need to understand what makes me tick and how I can keep on doing the arty things I love to do in spite of an internal critic who has other plans for me.
As far as other writing goes, I have a bunch of characters stranded in a novel I have started who are desperately seeking a plot. I am currently taking a break from the book because it makes my head hurt and I keep getting paint on my keyboard.
Making this huge move forced me out of my creative comfort zone. This triggered my internal critic to begin a mean-spirited campaign to keep me from taking creative risks to figure out new routines, new work spaces, or new methods.
If you have ever wanted to follow a creative dream only to hear the voice inside your head tell you that you can't or you shouldn't, you know what I mean. This internal conflict created by my internal critic became so huge it threatened to paralyze me and keep me stuck in the past. From that point on I have been on a mission to create anyway.
We are natural creative beings and the world hungers for what our creativity can bring forth as much as it hungers for food. I want to allow myself to be the conduit for creativity that comes from a Source greater than me because that very act is what makes my life exhilarating, meaningful and unites me with who I really am.
I hope to meet and connect with other travelers on their creative journey because it is this connection that keeps my creative spark energized.
Please say hello. Tell me about you and your process and follow me on Facebook and Pinterest. If we all embrace our creativity easily without fear, doubt and reservation, what problems can we solve and what gifts of beauty and innovation can we bring to the world?
Cheering You Artfully On,
Diana