Mindy, Body, Art...

First off, I am an incubus of contagion.  Suffice it to say, there's a lot of phlegm and a lot of moaning.  Not a totally fantastic way to start off 2009 and I hope it's not indicative of the kind of year I'm going to have...

On the upside, after a lovely visit with my in-laws for the holidays, I've spent the last week at Canyon Ranch, a health and wellness resort (ironic that I got sick, eh?).  Along with the expected exercise classes and lectures on nutrition, Canyon Ranch offers some basic art classes.  Love that.  I took a beading class, a collage class, and a portrait drawing class. 

The beading class was very simple.  We all made bracelets and "learned" how to use crimps.  For those of you who may not know, the basis of all strung jewelry is crimps.  Follow this link to a great video that clearly shows the technique.

The collage class was very free form.  Basically, we ripped images from magazines and then sat down to glue them onto pasteboard.  The instructor asked us to focus on capturing a memory from our stay at Canyon Ranch.  This is my Mom's collage:

I love how she really captured the feeling of the visit, with the little building nestled in the wilderness, and all that snow!  And here's mine:

Finally, my husband and I took the portrait drawing class together.  I loved the theory that the instructor kept coming  back to - everything we see and "recognize" is a construct that we all agree to.  Here is an image of three lines and two balls:

 

The instructor informed us that he could transform these unrelated shapes into something immediately recognizable by adding one line...

 

It's a cheap trick, but I love the message.  Our brain makes those leaps because it wants to connect the dots.  All we need is quick clue to help us out.  For inatnsce, did you konw taht you can raed scmlaberd txet as lnog as the frsit and lsat ltteers are ceocrrt?

As it applies to art, I was looking at this painting by Manet:

And here's a copy someone did of it:

 

The original is so much better, largely because Manet allows the viewer to "connect the dots."  The copy has hard, directed lines and suffers because of it.

Canyon Ranch offers these classes because exploring your creativity is an integral part of being a healthy person.  I'll say that again.  Health is not just about what you eat and how much you exercise.  It's also about your spiritual and mental well being and creativity is an important component of that. 

My resolution for 2009 is to be a healthier person.  I plan to make time for exercise, meditation, eating well, and creativity.  I'm thinking of it as a kind-of Project Fifty-Two for my whole self.  Just one little something every week in each of those four categories.  Ali Edwards likes to choose a word for each year of her life.  I like the idea of a simple unified mantra for the year.  I suppose my word for 2009 would be "health."  I place that word in conjunction with this quote: "Small changes make big differences."

I'm looking forward to a happy and healthy 2009.  Hope you are too!

PS: Some people have asked if they've "missed" the first week of Project Fifty-Two.  Not by my clock.  I'm running the weeks Thu-Wed, since January 1 was a Thursday.

Thanks for stopping by!