So thrilled to be Celebrating Life & the Art of Gratitude with 8 other lovely artists.
I’ll be featuring an interview and info about each artist’s creative projects leading up to the start of the e-course on October 4th. Julia Alter is today’s featured artist and has the joy of offering the content and projects for the sixth week of the course.
Collage above created by fellow contributing artist, Julissie Saltzberg
Fellow contributing artist, Lara Cornell, set up the following interview questions and these are Julia’s replies.
Lara: What are you most grateful for?
Julia: I am grateful for ruby red lipstick. For the clink of a champagne glass and the bubbly sip that follows. I am grateful for having a life worth celebrating. I am grateful for my ability to cry. (like last night reading Charlotte’s Web—the penultimate chapter—and my daughter looking at me like I’m crazy…but wonderful.) I am grateful for being crazy but wonderful. Profoundly grateful for a marriage that is apparently built of steel and glass and kisses. 
The tall, profound miracles of my children who love questions and books and music. I am down on my knees grateful for music. Sting. Stevie. Diana Krall. Lauryn Hill. Michael McDonald. Etta James. Aretha. And Gregory Potter whose song grows from the stars themselves. And Paris. (bread, river, cathedral, red wine, stinky cheese…and the language like being wrapped in warm light, like being bathed in silkwater and jacaranda petals). I am grateful to whomever invented paint. Glue. To the old makers of paper. I bow down. And to the lineage of artists and writers who are my extended family, past and future. I am Grateful (full of great!!!) for the Great Creator. Maker of moon. Maker of breath. Maker of the heady, marvelous rose out in our courtyard, the crimson twirl of her flamenco skirt.
Lara: How do you prefer to show your gratitude? (do you have any traditions)
Julia: I would say that being an Ambassador of Kindness is one way that I practice giving thanks. Sometimes, I’ll hop on Facebook and just do a great ambush of Love toward my Friends. I can feel the positivity radiating out. It feels Good to lift people up, to paint a little corner of their sky…I also am working on living in an uplifted state so that more and more goodness and light find their way back to me. We ask our kids at the end of the day, “what was the best part of your day?” So they, too, are seeking out the Good in life.
Lara: What are your favorite fall season traditions?
Julia: Besides buying boots?? 😉 Oh, I DO love me some boots!…ummm….I’ve grown to really love Thanksgiving now that I actually feel like a little bit of a grown up (only took 40 years! Lol). My mom and I get creative about ways to not burn the turkey…we don’t recommend the “paper bag method”….we should have known that putting a paper bag in the oven might result in fire…what’s that Maya Angelou saying? “When you know better, you do better!” ha! So we go to my grandma’s for Thanksgiving. She’s 98 so it’s really fun to share these holidays with 4 generations. We make the same Fabulous Potatoes, which basically is a dish with as many calories as possible crammed into one casserole pan. I’m so hungry right now…omg….it’s worth every third helping you go for…really. Pie!! We always have pie…I’m so grateful for pie…even the year we bought a pecan pie from Costco and it was the size of the entire trunk….I ate pecan pie for breakfast for like 4 days. It was awesome. Highly grateful for pie and coffee…two of my favorite food groups. 😉 And the people around our Thanksgiving table…we all have our lovely bits of wacky and our big, fabulous hearts. Even my super tall, grumbly brother…he’s a love. A grumpy love. 🙂 Hanging with my fam is the best tradition I can think of. Even if we had to eat ramen. Or burned paper bag.
Lara: Do you have any favorite fall season art/crafts/etc…
Julia: When I teach my preschool art classes, I do my best to NOT make a turkey out of a hand-tracing…hee hee…we’ll do things like paint with feathers (makes such a lovely line—highly recommend!). One year we painted red leaves with glitter glue, which was SO pretty!! I just love doing art all the time, so other than maybe bringing some leaves into the mix, I don’t have any art particular to fall…partly because I live in Los Angeles and other than the names of the months and the day on the calendar that says, Autumn equinox (I love that phrase, don’t you??) we really don’t have a fall. You should see all of the eager scarves that are drooping their sad heads in my closet! They’ve totally forgotten my name! My kids LOVE decorating for Halloween…one year we got the decorations out early and had (fake) spider webs everywhere for wayyyyyyyyy too long. I love a pretty leaf bouquet but wow, the ghosts and spiders got old in about two days. (I know, wet blanket mama here!)
Lara: Why did you decide to be part of this group of artists for this project?
Julia: Aside from the one milllllllllion dollars we all got for participating, 😉 I jumped at the chance to be part of this group! I loved how open the parameters were for our projects because I am passionately in love with all kinds of creativity and am really excited about introducing some poetry into the mix. I think our natural reverent language as awake human beings IS poetry. All that poetry is is being AWAKE to the world and noticing how things make you feel, how they affect you. I feel such delight when I actually look up from my canvas/iphone/coffee cup and look around. The sparrows are scavenging for scone crumbs again. The leaves have dipped their green bodies into a golden river and are changing color. I also have been envisioning teaching online for awhile now and to be able to jump in with a group of wonderful women artists really appealed to me! I am a believer in building community rather than resorting to competition. This course lets us support each other AND the lovely, yummy students that the Art of Gratitude attracts!! I love how diverse this group is, how we have our own artistic “voices,” yet we mesh in this brilliant intersection of Art and Gratitude. What POWER there is to be creating art with an undercurrent of gratitude. It’s like a double prayer.
Week 6 *A Bouquet of Wild Thanks with Julia Alter Nov. 8-14th
A Bouquet of Wild Thanks: A Mixed Media Field Trip of Paint, Paper & Poetry
Gather your favorite papers, scissors and paste! Your own stunning mixed media bouquet awaits you just at the end of this path!
First, we will paint a beautiful, intuitively-colored abstract background. Then we’ll layer and play as we assemble and arrange our paper stems and blooms. We’ll then glue it all together for a spectacular blooming art piece!
We’ll also dip our pretty toes into the clear stream of poetry this week with easy writing exercises that invite a sense of thankfulness and deep connectedness to your most awesome self. (You won’t believe the inner poet that’s been hiding from you!)
Your reward for embarking on this week’s art journey will be your rich, multi-layered paper bouquet and some fresh, poetic pieces of writing! Join us now
I’m so grateful to have ‘met’ Julia online and get to collaborate with her on this course! Her fun sense of humor and the way she paints a smile with words have been such a blessing while dealing with all the technical aspects of hosting a course like this! I wish we lived closer instead of on opposite ends of the country so that I could take her up on the massage she offered and a cup of coffee (or wine!). I’m delighted to have her sweet poetic way of romancing all of those around her lead us during her week of the course! 🙂 <3
Every one is invited and welcome to join us to creatively celebrate life through the art of gratitude! No prior art experience is necessary. The course content will be available for a full 6 months so plenty of time to play and explore all the great projects! Want to experience the fun and magic of creativity and the joy that an attitude of gratitude nurtures in your life?! Know someone that would appreciate the gift of gratitude and creativity? We’d be so very grateful to have you and your friends join us here. <3
* More About Julia Alter from Seize the Dazzle Arts *
I’m Julia Alter~half rose garden, half thorn. Half rust, half faceted ruby. I’ve been in love with words since I was a young girl writing potions against boys–lol. And I would wither without music; I lived life as a poet & jazz singer before I had my two children. I love the lilt and flow and expression of those old sappy songs as much as I love the smear of acrylic, the tear of vintage dictionary, the list of feelings and happy accidents that pour forth when playing with poetry. There’s an incredible force that takes over when a group meets to write and make art! I lead my art workshops with passion and love! My poetry book is called “Walking the Hot Coal of the Heart” and my business is called Seize the Dazzle so I can’t wait to meet you here in the dazzling realm of the heart, living our passions out on paper! It’s what I live for. It’s what I love! Maybe I’ll even sing for you.
Visit Julia:
Website * Facebook * Etsy * Instagram * Pinterest * Periscope: @SeizeTheDazzle
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