I'm going to try and make this a quick entry since it is raining and the storm overhead is beginning to throw lightning around like Paul Stanley throws his guitar at the end of a concert...

I read an interesting collaboration suggestion today on the Artist Grove list and it has stuck with me for hours. S. suggested that several people take different titles of drawings from a book she has had from childhood - "Rainmakers", "Cloud Makers", "Snow Makers", and "Leaf Makers" - and write about them. Write about how they work in nature and then compare that to how you create your artwork. Rainmakers are the only ones left..which is o.k. since that is the one that inspired me anyway.

None of the Makers have such an important and precise job as the Rainmakers. Granted, they sometimes make mistakes - too much water and everything and everyone gets all sogged up and yucky while too little water makes for parched living. Many a time, though, they get just enough water to all the living things and life bursts forth and blooms with magnificient color...

This is how a creative life is. We are the creative Rainmakers and we try to make the flow of creativity behave in ways that it was never intended. We go on creative 'benders' and try to create a lifetime's (or perhaps just a month's or two) worth of work in days and get all sogged up and stuck in the mire. We may go for long stretches of time with no creative flow at all - in which we just struggle along, hoping that oasis is just over the next dune. When we are willing to listen and trust in our inherent knowledge that not only are we the Rainmakers but also the rain, we can 'get it right' and creativity blooms forth in awesome color.

Well...I'm going to have to stop there. It's still lightning pretty bad.