‘pablo’s peaches’ ~ photo by madelyn mulvaney taken with a vintage sx70 polaroid camera
It is Sunday
I made cinnamon coffee in my moka pot and there is real Irish oatmeal with fresh organic cream, raspberries, hemp seeds and brown sugar (and a little drizzle of maple syrup)
the birds are singing and experimenting with interpretive dance steps outside my window
There is a record spinning on the turntable.
I read Lily’s (I call her Lily but she is actually Judy) interview curled up on the couch with said coffee listening to said record
and decided right then and there that Judy’s interview is a Sunday conversation
perhaps the only sunday conversation i will ever post because i am very territorial about sunday’s and would prefer to sing my own praises
but Judy’s interview helped herself to a cup of coffee and announced
‘I can’t help but think I am especially excellent Sunday material. Send me out there to wow your small but devoted audience.’
That question deserves a brilliant answer, but I can’t come up with one that sticks. As soon as I decide this is who I am, something shifts and I run into a new something about myself. There is always something else—something sad, something happy, something heartbreaking, something joyful—to experience. Maybe that’s why people tell me: “Judy, you’re something else.” Under my high school year book picture the phrase, “Never a Dull Moment” was used to describe me. I like that motto and that is how I intend to greet tomorrow and the rest of my life.
As an artist, what are your favorite ways to express yourself?
I adore painting, cutting and pasting and papier-mâché but I didn’t discover that artistic twist until I was in my sixties. I’ve lived a creative life, authored 12 books, counseled thousands of people, even been a guest on Oprah! Articles on my work have appeared in over 1,000 publications. It’s been wonderful. Now I’m stepping out again, having so much fun sharing my mixed-media collages and papier-mâché bracelets and bowls with others.
What is your creative process?
Writing is the most challenging for me because writing requires writing—whether I’m in the writing mood or not. I am more free-form than a disciplinarian so a schedule goes against my inklings. To keep the words flowing, however I know that not only do I need to write, I must rewrite and sometimes even delete my favorite sentences. I write first thing in the morning or last thing at night. There are days when thoughts do not cooperate. Forming ideas into words and sentences is difficult labor, like giving birth to a barbed wire fence. On those sweet occasions when the muse visits, when the words trickle down easily, when magically I’m transported to a creative zone, that’s a high to keep me writing year after year.
Cutting and pasting is a whole different expression, a meditation, a going inward, a resting in silence.
I lose myself cutting shapes and watching them merge into surprising designs. With cutting and pasting there is no intention and that’s’ precisely what makes it so refreshing for me. I have just completed my thirteenth manuscript and now I will reward myself by cutting up catalogues and magazines and shaping them into hanging or folding picture books.
What are you moved to express in your writing, art, photography the most?
Life is experienced moment by moment—from the whimsical to the heart-touching, from the lighthearted to the heart-moving, from the romantic to the silly, from sadness to joy and back again. I hope my art and writing conveys that quality of being alive with the juices flowing.
If there were absolutely no obstacles whatsoever what would you do tomorrow?
I like to think I would putter more. I love the idea of the puttering life—but that is not what life has presented so far. Life has it’s own agenda and my agenda has not always been in sync. Fortunately I’ve learned to be open to what life brings and that makes everything so much easier. Life has brought wonderful blessings, better than I could have designed myself. Of course sometimes I go kicking and screaming because I would prefer to be in charge. At the very least I can be in charge of my attitude and so I am committed to remaining a romantic optimist, full of joy and grief, a contradiction.
How do handle an interruption in the flow of imagination or writer’s block?
It’s the craziest thing—life interrupts my plans but never my imagination. That’s precisely why imagination and creativity are fundamental for not only surviving but for thriving. No matter what challenges we might face, we can get through by pouring disappointment and setbacks, sorrow and pain into creative expressions. Imagination and creativity transforms grief, that’s the silver lining.
I don’t succumb to writer’s block, in fact I wouldn’t use the phrase. As a creative person I know I need to allow myself down time. Wide-open space is as important to creativity as production. Imagination and creativity requires percolating time and wide-open space, that’s when my best fresh ideas come.
What brings you joy, contentment, happiness?
My daughter, the eagles nest outside my window, birds, sunrises, coffee shops, bus rides to town, paint brushes, a really good dinner, connected conversation, independent movies, documentaries, pop up books, sleeping outside on my outdoor bed, chimpanzees, elephants, chocolate, fresh air, willow trees, pussy willows, trees, sun flowers, tulips, hydrangeas, lilacs, wisteria, characters (as in people), studying what makes us tick, candles, my electric bicycle, hammocks, huge rings, huge bracelets, love in all it’s forms.
What holds you back?
Silly fears such as the delusion, “Something’s wrong with Judy.”
Who are your creative role models? What books, art, music inspire and ignite you?
The documentaries: Cats of Mirkitani
In the Realms of the Unreal
Young at Heart
The books: The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
The Holy Man by Susan Trott
Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory
The movie: Happy Go Lucky
Matilda
among hundreds of others.
Where has love taken you?
Everywhere. Love has turned me inside out. By that I mean that love rules me, has a hold on me, breaks my heart, inspires me and lifts me up. By the time I was thirty-four I’d had every marital status there was: single, married, widowed, single, married, divorced, single again. Then at age forty-nine I walked hand in hand with death again when my partner died following a year long illness. His last gift to me was a book on papier-mâché with his inscription, “To my beautiful papier-mâché artist” and that began my thirteen process of creating a papier-mâché bowl that I was happy with. Love introduces me to places inside myself that hadn’t known before. At the end life the only thing that matters is how well we have loved and I think it might be possible to love the whole world. My prayer is: Dear Heavenly One. Please help me accept Love as it is given even though it may not come in the package I requested.
Famous last words?
—after making a fool of herself on more than one occasion, she committed to never ever writing an email or answering the phone until she rode her bike and cried her eyes out—–
Judy Ford, a trained professional with heart, soul, and life experience, is also a best selling author, relationship coach, mother, role model. She has worked for nearly three decades with families in various settings–from gang turf in the inner city to crisis intervention in hospitals. Judy has dedicated her life to the study of love and relationships, family healing and wholeness. She is currently in private practice in Kirkland, WA. With compassion and candor, her work speaks to the heart, inspiring us to love life, to persevere through its challenges, and to share our gifts with others.
She has written 12 books including the best selling Wonderful Ways series:
❤ Wonderful Ways to Love A Child
❤ Wonderful Ways to Love a Teen: Even When It Seems Impossible
and the bestselling:
❤ Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent
Her newest book:
❤ Everyday Love: The Delicate Art of Caring for Each Other will be published September, 2010
morning poem ~ with open window polaroid taken with my vintage sx70 camera
My weekend has been most beautiful and funny thus far pebbled with fresh wishes and writings. An outing for vegetables and fruit, cheese and bread to the market, a patio with a hint of summer here, a starry evening stroll there and a bit further along a bottle of blue moon wine and veggie burgers.
Today I have records spinning, there will be vanilla pears and coffee and an afternoon at the theater with my best friend Catherine. Oh Sunday how I love you. I have slept in a bit today but when my head is a little less fuzzy I will be back with a Sunday song. Have a most gorgeous day:)
Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.
(e. e. Cummings)
Oh, today…I had so much to share with you ~ I was thinking those philosophically deep thoughts that can take hold of you even under a sky blue expanse of floating clouds and keep you in it’s pondering grip while you sort things out (although I don’t know why I just said that, for you never quite sort things out being as there really is no such thing as a permanent truth)
And anyway it doesn’t matter, although I seem to remember it had something to do with writing this book on the art of living cheerfully and how, really, it’s important to realize that this does not mean you FEEL cheerful every day but rather you CHOOSE to find the cheery things,loveliness and magic in the everyday because…there is an abundance of loveliness all around. Just thinking beautiful thoughts takes you by the hand and before you know you are feeling them as well.
It’s a perfectly gorgeous, hopeful week and I can feel spring blossoming early in my soul and it feels so wondersome…just like this actually.…I am reading this book filled with thickets of huckleberry bushes (because Debi said so ) and whenever she mentions a book, I realize that the book she is chatting about is the book I have been looking for all along) which will be followed by a round of tree climbing in the Redwood forest and some unabashed singing of tree songsjust because.
I am so moved reading this beautiful conversation with Shona Cole and just bursting at the seams with my lineup of artists that I will be sharing with you in this series. Oh! and today I found such truly gorgeous new japanese papers for my poem boxes as I am starting a new round of them for spring so I am hoping to pop by this week and let you have a peek. This week I begin teaching my photography course to grade seven’s and am all ready to go ~ the course culminates in an art walk featuring a gallery of the children’s work which I am hoping to make a little film of to celebrate the evening.
Since I have great plans to be out and about this weekend I am wishing everyone a beautiful Sunday early, and if you love smoothies I made a delicious one this week with lots of fresh ginger, carrot juice and apples. Yum!
update: just blogging about my smoothie sent me down to the kitchen to mix one up ~ this combination is even more delicious…blackberries, plain yogurt, large chunk of fresh ginger, soy milk and a banana
The past few days have been imbued with little scoops of wonderfulness. Nothing went to plan and yet I rose to the challenge with inspired improvisation, luring me down pleasing paths. I saw a most beautiful film, (unexpectedly so, which is always the best kind of beautiful) discovered I quite love singing this song in the shower (exactly the way Zooey sings it I might add because I think she is perfectly marvelous) and decided to launch my new children’s e~course because kids sure do delight me.
I am feeling a happy inner summoning which propels me towards heavenly bursts of creativity which is never a bad thing, and oh! I took some rather lovely photo’s of hands this week which I am hoping to post to flickr tomorrow. I have a serious obsession with hands if you didn’t know already. Speaking of flickr….I am thinking this is a great proclamation to add as a resolution for the new year, yes?
I am also preparing ‘conversations‘ interviews which are flowing in…and would love some inspiration…if you can think of any fabulous questions I might add to my list please feel free to leave them in the comments. I would greatly appreciate any fresh curiosities.
And…because it is SO worth repeating every week…It is Sunday.
my pink cardigan hanging on the banister in the livingroom…somehow everything seems to end up here, scarves, sweaters and my coats when I walk in the door ~ even the occasional sock which is quite bewildering to me but by no means unwelcome
Oh, for the love of a most perfect Sunday. A cozy day which began with warm apple oatmeal muffins from the cafe around the corner alongside mint and honey tea. Listening to, oh, I would guess at least 7 marvelous records (singing along quite happily) while I cleaned up the house and put my favorite vintage tablecloth on the kitchen table. My beautiful friend Catherine popped by for tea with her sweetheart Chris, and we enthusiastically planned the photography exhibit of my class at the fine arts school while Chris promised to replace the hideous lighting in my kitchen in exchange for a homemade indian dinner. Easy peasy. Happily poured over interviews for the new conversations segment of my website while shimmering sunbeams danced through the windows. Hard not to fall in love with that:) Tonight I am making a curried tofu with peppers, curling up with a good book and feeling so hopeful in this fresh new year. This week perhaps a visit here ~ shall have to make some new mixtapes for the drive imbued with a bouncy nature. Happy Sunday!
a few colorful lines from pablo (neruda)
In Chile now, cherries are dancing,
the dark, secretive girls are singing,
and in guitars, water is shining….
this is how I read instruction manuals ~ in this case for my new (vintage) 8 mm brownie camera and projector i received as a wonderful and unexpected gift this christmas
The sky is tinted a bluish grey pigment this morning with a hint of violet that is so pretty and the air is soft and misty as I enjoy a blackcherry smoothie. Christmas has been crackling fires and records spinning with long evening walks on the beach, and gatherings of friends getting tipsy sipping apple cider with butter ripple schnapps ~ oh! and a spontaneous decision to go caroling in Crescent Beach on Christmas Eve which was immeasurably comforting to an ache in my heart which the smallness of words cannot explain.
I am happily busy preparing my project for the Wishstudio Art retreat, popping new prints into my shop, and preparing a new series for my website and ‘Yes!’ course called ‘conversations ~ splendid interviews with enlivening creative women’ which I shall be unveiling to celebrate the brand new year. In February Darlene and Duke are coming to stay with me and there are plans for a creative retreat in my home in the spring gathering ten lovely women to share walks on the beach, wine, art, music and photography and lots of chatter naturally.
Oh I cannot tell you how beautiful the light is today which is perfect as I am having a friend over to handpaint photographs with me and chatter over a homemade chai ~ my lovely friend Preet gave me all the spices including whole cardamon pods in lovely little jars as a gift for Christmas as she knows my favorite tea is masala chai hands down. This evening there will be skating outside the art gallery followed by hot chocolate and pastry so my cup runneth over. (how do you spell ‘runneth?’)
Sunday….realizing I am exactly where I am supposed to be …(becoming…it just takes time) and contemplating a little snail ballet
Saturday afternoon I lit a fire in the stone fireplace, made a cup of green tea to go with my lemon squares and worked away on my poem boxes while listening to benny goodman records. These little poem boxes are matchboxes covered in various japanese hand made papers and I am so utterly pleased with them. Along with my five (seven, nine) word poems I am giving tiny prints (3 x 3) of my photo’s as gifts this christmas as well. Each little poem was written for a particular friend in mind and bloomed in quite a beautiful way in the end, thank goodness. I seriously cannot WAIT to deliver these this year!
It is Sunday and it couldn’t be a more perfect day to announce that I am so thrilled to be a part of Mindy’s Wishful virtual art retreat where I will be teaching a course called ‘Three Wishes.’ Pop on over for early registration and see the brilliant group of effervescent instructors she has lined up. I am truly honored to have been invited to be a part of this delicious weekend and am completely in awe of Mindy’s passionate energy and deeply generous center.
This week…I am planning a christmas party at my home on Friday night where I will be getting everyone tipsy on Darlene’s homemade eggnog, contemplating the beauty of a life filled with a series of thousands and thousands of tiny miracles and loving dylan’s unique take on a vintage christmas tune. It is Sunday and there is a dance of snowflakes outside my window I think I shall take my camera out for a snowy walk. Oh, and happy Sunday everyone!
a little wirebrush tree from my collection that sits on my windowsill overlooking the lane which meanders to the beach
This week has been so full…brimming with a strange mix of seasonal emotions which I have transcribed into seven word poems, black and white photography (exploring the shadows of love and life) and my beautiful home. Yesterday there was an outing to the flea market where I found a beautiful little pocket book of Longfellow’s poems and another of British butterflies, oh! and a puppet named Monk! I especially have been enjoying the little butterfly book with such poetic descriptions of butterflies…
‘the egg is described as pale blue~green in colour, small and round in shape, and covered with a beautifully reticulated network pattern like white frosted glass.
unphotographable ~ the other evening deep in the night, I awoke to to this effervescent light beaming down onto my face through the window and as I sleepily opened my eyes I stared straight up into the wide open face of the pearly full moon ~ pure magic:)..and then I found this….
My home is settling so beautifully from my move, and truly has become a space filled with the language of music, art photography, poetry…and those glorious beamed ceilings which provide soaring space for creative thought, color and a chaotic joy. Every little thing that graces my home (found objects, gifts from the sea, books, art, flotsam and jetsam) have a personal narrative story behind them which I find utterly pleasing. In the end however ‘the few profound things in life that really matter, remain silent’ as Lukas Feireiss said so wonderfully.
It is Sunday! James Brown, Otis Redding and Tracy Chapman have been spinning away this morning and my day began with a little Jacques Tati:) Today I think I shall borrow some wisdom from Longfellow and spend the day not to be doing, but to be:)…and I am rather fond of my new studio
This morning after a blustery and perfectly pleasing walk in my neighborhood I returned home windswept in the here and now and drank an entire french press filled with organic mexican coffee. Which went brilliantly well with my homemade edamame hummus and feta on toast. I love my home so immensely. It seems to move through the rolling seawaves of the landscape rather than turning inward upon itself, which lends an exquisite feeling of danger to being here ~ almost as if the house might surrender one day to the sea and disappear with the tide. But it is the tone of the house I love the best. So strangely designed there is an acoustic wonderment to it ~ a surroundsound of wind and train whistles and speaking of tongues from the nearby abodes of worship, which swoop through the asymmetrical beamed ceilings like wild birds, searching and beautiful.
It’s not just me that feels this irreplaceable magic and grace to my home and neighborhood that has such scope for imagination. My friends feel it too, and keep coming up with excuses to drop by uninvited for coffee and wine (bearing gifts of dark chocolate and lemon tarts from Fieldstone bakery so I cannot complain) If my house has a smell, it is the scent of gold, tangerine and currants with a whisper of patchouli.
I am so content working on an article celebrating my obsession with hands which gives me an excuse to approach strangers for photo’s. As I work it occurs to me that my art and way of self expression is ultimately fueled by my intimate relationships and this makes me feel so happy. I am trading this sublime piece of art for some of my photo’s, loving these books …curious about this film ~ and still buzzing from my talk the other evening with my friend Darlene. ( Who is coming to stay in my home with her sweet husband in February ~ yay!)
The other day I was listening to music…a delicate composition by Satie whom I adore, when I was surprised to find burning tears rolling down my cheeks. The language of music is so mysterious, how it illuminates the congruences between our external lives and our emotional inner world. I have no idea why I cried which is the most surprising thing…perhaps that is the greatest beauty of art, music, dance…the true meaning often remains unknowable (perhaps even to the artist as well, sometimes)
Today I am exploring an insistent feeling of resistance so I am pondering these words from the Art of War…
“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance the good new is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The opposite of love isn’t hate: it’s indifference. The more resistance you experience the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you ~ and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.
Well said, Steven. Now I know and can forge ahead with a sense of relief. And, oh! It is Sunday. A perfectly pleasing Sunday.
