Heartfelt

The downside of caring deeply about something is that there are no guarantees it will last. It could be a month, or it could be thirty-seven years. It doesn’t matter how long, when it’s gone all the positive feelings you felt will spill down around you in a crippling darkness that only hope and faith can remove.

We’ve all been in the dumps over something so deeply that it’s stifling and all we feel is surrounded by our own negative thoughts. The key to growing out of that darkness and feeling warmth again is staying focused on positive things, reaching for lighter and brighter thoughts. It’s easier said than done, and sometimes we reach the bottom, before we can even see the light. Our heart, our spirit feels bound up. It’s complicated, but working off of those negative thoughts, we can dig ourselves out of the deepest depths and feel free and warm again.

My thoughts go out to anyone that’s reached that heart crippling and stifling bottom. I hope you can take all the negative thoughts you feel surrounded by, shed them, and grow towards a new and brighter heartfelt purpose.

Mixed Media Collage “Heartelt” by Janet Pahlau

Creative Impact on Equality

Today in the United States we recognized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is unquestionably one of the greatest individuals from our nation. He took a stand not only for what was right and just, but stood by his beliefs. As the pastor in my church touched upon this weekend, Dr. King was a man in his twenties when he started on his publicized path for equality. Surely there were men, other pastors with more experience in life, that could have taken a stand. But Dr. King's calling, what was in his heart perhaps from his relationship with God, was to be a leader in our nation promoting equality for all mankind.

Many artists to this day create art based on exposing inequality. I'm sure many of them, even in nations beyond ours, have Dr. King to thank for his inspiration and outspokenness towards social inequality. Dr. King's own words from his "I Have a Dream Speech" touch on his choice to creatively solve the issues we faced.

"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

I recently viewed a cable special on the original television show Star Trek, which made me understand Dr. King's connection to creativity to solve issues even more. The only television show Dr. King reportedly would let his young children watch was Star Trek. He shared an inspirational moment with one of the show's actresses Nichelle Nichols when he encouraged her to stay on the show for the positive role she was portraying of African Americans. A groundbreaking role in broadcasting at the time. I had admired Dr. King as a person who fought for the good of all, but now I see Dr. King’s embrace of creativity through his views of performance art.

Dr King's life was cut incredibly short. There is no telling what sort of creative resolutions he would have come up with or encouraged if he had more time. Society still faces some of the struggles Dr. King fought against, and we are facing new ones as well. Look at the Middle East and the people fighting for their social and political rights. At this new crossroads we are at, the world will need to look to and expand upon Dr. King's creative ways to fight against inequality. Artists will need to continue to expose all forms of inequality in their art whether it's visual, performance, multi-media or in literature. A past show at our local art museum, Pattern ID is a show that really impressed on me how artists are exploring the ever-changing face of our social equality status. Local station PBS Western Reserve had an excellent video with details on this show.

Creative influences will continue to expose more and more people to standing up for equality for all mankind. The beliefs of one incredible man who pursued and fought for equality, inspired by the American dream, can be spread beyond our nation creatively for all. And no matter what struggles we face here in the U.S. look to Dr. King’s words for encouragement and share in Dr. King's beliefs:

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

Photo collage by Janet Pahlau

Highlight 22

"Everywhere I look
a highlight in my view.
I always seem to see
the number 22."

For this week's Illustration Friday's topic, "Highlight" I chose to represent something that seems to be highlighted in my vision.

It's true, the number 22 seems to be highlighted wherever I look. I don't know what to make of this phenomena, but it helped to expand my collage projects.

*Art Work: Highlight 22 by Janet Pahlau

Round - Illustration Friday

For my second entry on Illustration Friday, I continued exploring words, in this case a literal musical narrative of a round. I am still playing with adding writing to collages, I want to hop into InDesign so badly and type this text on a spiral! But that would defeat my attempt at exploring and expanding, so this felt like a good exercise for me in practicing a collage/writing technique.

My Creative Muse Out of the Box

Most people have a passion in life, something that they react to or interact with exuberantly. Some may call it their calling, others their gift. My passion is creativity. It is my favorite activity or topic, and I find it in most parts of life. So, when this year's "Out of the Box" call for artists went out (a benefit for the Akron Area Arts Alliance,) I wanted my piece to be about my creative passion. Creativity for me is something that definitely cannot be boxed in, and because it is all around, my creative muse would definitely be bursting "out of the box."

Many visual artists go through phases in their careers as new inspirations or techniques are experienced and learned. The majority of my career has been as a graphic designer exploring and working in the fields of print and web design. In my daily work, creativity is what drives me, however process management and technical production often replace hands-on creativity. My goal to be working on a creative project helps me to stay focused on even the most mundane of tasks. I now feel the term graphic artist would fit me better. I've found a desire to add to my design skills interpreting emotions and concepts by incorporating photography and art and craft techniques into collage. After a few years producing a few collages, I am definitely still at the beginning stages of this phase.

All creative endeavors are fueled by a need or desire. Some call this their inspiration or their muse. For me, my muse is my faith. I feel people may be missing God’s point, the point to life and the wonder of the things in front of them. To me faith does not have to be shouted about from a megaphone nor hidden to promote a politically correct agenda. My faith is all encompassing, a part of everyday life, and is finding a voice through creativity. Concepts that are hard to put into words, I can envision and interpret as a collage. My piece titled My Creative Muse Out of the Box is an example of that interpretation.

Using mixed media, My Creative Muse Out of the Box's goal is to be both visually engaging and to read like a story with a focus on spreading creativity. The symbolism of the dove on the soapbox is like the Holy Spirit, my faith inspiring me to spread creativity. The soapbox itself is a symbol, as I often get “on my soap box” about the importance of creativity. The word “create” bursts out of the box wrapped in an ethereal haze. The escape button is what creativity is to me, an escape. The largest focus on the collage is the angel praying with her gaze pointed upward. This image, taken at a local cemetery is visually interesting and peaceful to me.

This collage reads like a story, my creativity story. I hope whoever ends up winning the piece at auction, finds within this piece their own Muse story.

*Photograph: My Creative Muse Out of the Box by Janet Pahlau

Apple - the spirit of Design

As a person who's intrigued by the "Occupy" protests, I was surprised by how much the passing of Steve Jobs saddened me. Why don't I lump Apple into one of those corporations extracting too much from the public and giving little back?

As a graphic artist and fine art enthusiast, Apple embodies the spirit of design in every aspect of its products and promotions. Beautiful lines, simplistic design and functionality, and above all white space! The shell of every Apple product is a designer's dream. But not simply judging a book by its cover; every product also functions with such ease, the way a design tool should. I work on PC's, as I tell people "begrudgingly." Working on a Mac prior to every touching a PC, leads to many frustrations for me. Quick keys that are all but non existent on a PC, poor ability to properly name files, and functions that assume what you intend to do, only to be wrong. These errors in PC judgement cause the operator to go back and correct what the computer decided to do. Those list just the start of the annoying functions on a PC. The simplicity of Apple's beautiful visuals in conjunction with needed functionality is the true definition of a good design. While Apple's one button mouse is elegant, it's not always needed with all the command keys that are consistent from operating system to software speeding up your work with simply a keyboard and giving you two options to work as best suited to you. Apple does not think for me, it allows me to determine what I want to name a file, what text I want to select, and where I want to store things.

Learning of Steve Job's education and decisions about starting the Apple business, made me appreciate him as an artist over computer tech or CEO even more. Computer and software engineers may never have embraced the artistry of fonts, if it weren't for his insistence to incorporate them into his computer after his experience in calligraphy classes and appreciation for fonts. There are technical people perfect at figuring out code and networks and there are creative people finding ever-increasing ways to make our multi-media experience pleasing to the senses. Normally I would state my case on how these two kinds of jobs should be separated, and there would be more jobs in these fields for everyone. But Steve Jobs was uniquely a tech person concerned with design. It is rare, and with his success, understandable why so much focus has remained on him after his death.

The future of design has hints of thumbs-up like comments overwhelming any true content or pleasing presentation, stuffed into a pre-formatted template design automatically run by content management systems. Apple has kept that future only a threat. I hope Wall Street doesn't swallow up Apple and demand it to perform to market margins instead of design standards. I hope that Apple sticks to the foundations it's established, and that we have not witnessed the end of beauty in design and function in our techie lives. I hope Steve Job's spirit will live on and give technological design an unending life.

Working Through

Creativity and Inspiration in Good Times and Bad

During a recent afternoon drive radio show; the hosts discussed their most annoying phrases possibly inspired by a past list presented by Oxford University. Trendy phrases such as "At the end of the day," "It's not rocket science," and "F.Y.I." were all considered overused and without meaning by the hosts and call in guests alike. As a fan of creativity and innovation I have also cringed at hearing these sayings plagiarized and repeated sometimes in place of original thought.

A few other phrases came up that bother me in a deeper sense: "It is what it is" and "All things happen for a reason." To me these sayings touch on a lack of faith and creativity, and their overuse by a large segment of society is simply a sad statement of our times.

Whether you believe in a higher power or simply in the good will of mankind, do you really want to believe that all of nature and man made decisions are predestined? There is no such thing as creativity or originality if things were all meant to be. How uncreative and boring is that concept! While I have faith there is, at times, unseen intervention in our lives, I believe nature and man function on free will and the science of their makeup. Did the devastation of a tsunami happen because of shifts in nature or a plan to teach a lesson through disaster? Did parents suffer the loss of their child because of a genetic malfunction or because God wanted to teach them strength through loss?

To use the thoughts that things are what they are or that they happen for a reason seems more like a crutch that holds people back, causing them to be dispassionate and deny responsibility towards creating a new path or idea for their situation. Having faith and creativity through the unexpected events of life can be the catalyst for a new purpose in your goals and daily choices. As a creative person, I identify more with a local priest and motivational speaker Fr. Norm Douglas when he says "That God works through all things." So in using my creativity I can positively improve the path of my life and those around me, whether it was through divine intervention or my own spark of ingenuity, I'd rather stay guessing. I'll continue to be inspired by nature and humanity around me and "at the end of the day," those creative thoughts are "not rocket science," but something better.

*Photograph: Drowning in What's Meant to Be; figures from the Fountain of Eternal Life by Janet Pahlau