News & Blog

I feel like lately Tracy Verdugo has become the patron artist of this Facebook page. I just love everything she makes…

By the way, she's teaching an e-course in painting soon, if anyone wants to sign up!

https://tracyverdugo.com/about-the-ecourse/

I'm thinking of taking the course myself — both because it could be fun, and because I think it might help me with my writing. Einstein believed in something called "Combinatory Play" — the idea that, by expressing creativity in one realm, you could get inspiration for another. This is why, whenever he was blocked, he would spend some time with his violin. By playing music, some channel opened up in his mind, and he could solve whatever mathematical problem had been dogging him.

Whatever it takes to get the inspiration flowing, get it flowing, my friends!

All love,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

Dear Ones –

Somebody shared this with me the other day and I dig it — except that I probably wouldn't put "Party Like You're 20" on my life's list.

But that's only because I never again want to wake up sick and dizzy with a hangover, ears ringing from too-loud music, wearing my roommate's pants, wondering exactly who I'd been making out with the night before…

I would say, "Party like you're 60; Care like you're 20."

Because one thing I remember about being 20 is that I cared deeply about social issues, about books, about life, about everything…

BUT the rest of this list is cool!

What do you all think?

How would your lists go?

ONWARD,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

A friend of this page named Diane Mina Weltman shared these photos today of Christmas tree ornaments she made for her book club — of all the books they read in 2014.

What a cool idea!

I'm very honored to be hanging on the tree in such good company.

Thanks, Diane!

Hope you all had a beautiful holiday, and that you're all gorging yourselves on leftovers, as am I…

🙂
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

A FUN PROJECT FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T DRAW!

Dear Ones –

Every year around this time, I sit down with a bunch of magazines, some paste, and an hour of free time, and I start cutting things out with scissors.

Then I make a collage, about what I would like the next year of my life to feel like.

This isn't exactly a vision board (although I do think vision boards are a useful exercise.) It's a lot more random than that. It's not about calling in things or goals or dreams. It's more about how I want to FEEL, than about what I want to ACHIEVE. Mostly, it's just about colors and images that appeal to me for reasons that I do not overthink. I just start cutting and then I start gluing, and I trust the process.

When it's over, I have my visual/emotional wish for the New Year.

I love collage. Collage is the gift that God gave to those of us who cannot draw. You can make a pretty thing without, you know, actually having the ability to make a pretty thing.

I make a lot of collages in my life. I do one before every new project, and another at the end of every project. I do one for every big move, and every new chapter in my life. I do them when I'm sad and can't figure out why, and when I'm so happy that my emotions spill over and it all needs to be Modge-Podged in order to feel real.

These are not masterworks that I make. I don't need them to be GOOD. They are just a visual/emotional thumbprint of a moment in time. They always surprise me, and they always inform me. I keep them in a notebook that is something like a non-wordy diary. For somebody who is so verbal, it's restful for me to just play around with color and shape and image, and to see what that all has to teach me about where I am, and what I want.

Apparently, for 2015, I want to feel an explosion of color, some sense of lazy repose, some magic carpet-action, and the thrill of a whole lot of symbolic circus pony dancing.

Bring it on!

If you like this idea, don't hesitate to borrow it!

At some point this week, take an hour for yourself, grab some magazines, some glue, and some scissors —and see for yourself how you want your 2015 to feel.

It's fun and it's easy and it costs basically zero.

(And if anyone makes a 2015 collage today, and you're not too shy to share it, feel free to post a photo below!)

ONWARD!

LG

ps – Some of these images came from an art magazine, and the real artists sampled here (the ones who CAN make original art) are Janet Hill (https://ift.tt/1f76v96) and Jennifer Orkin Lewis (https://ift.tt/1EpzbvL)

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

MERRY CHRISTMAS, DEAR ONES!!!

Since today is not only Christmas, but a Throwback Thursday, here's a photo from 1972, of me absolutely freaking out on Christmas because we got ice cream — a rare treat.

It's not just the facial expression of insane joy that gets me, but the hands clutching the table as if I am afraid of falling off the earth…I was going bananas!

This is the girl who would grow up to become a woman who went to Rome to eat gelato for breakfast, as a means of self-healing.

It all adds up.

I send you all joy and love and heartfelt good wishes today. God bless you all! May you have ice cream and may you know peace.

Heart,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall