My Next Online Art and Creativity Class Goes LIVE Soon!

I am pleased to gently remind you that my next online class, once again in collaboration with the Jeanne Oliver Creative Network is still open for registration, and will go live on August 19!

If you are on my mailing list, you’ve already received an email announcement. If you aren’t on my mailing list, just shoot me a quick email with your email address, and I will consider that as my permission to add you. I will be working hard in the months ahead to bring my email list the very best in soul-nourishing spiritual and creative encouragement - beyond even what you’ll find here on the blog. So thank you for signing up.

Here is a description of this upcoming class, titled “Middle Makers - A Blueprint For Late Bloomers”

"The Middle" is less an age-range, and more a state of being.  The "middle" can feel like simply being scattered;  you experience the pull, in all different directions, of this relatively new digital lifestyle.  The middle can manifest as an unsettled feeling, a vague sense of dissatisfaction.  There is often a degree of emotional pain, such as depression or anxiety.  The result of these stresses common to midlife can be a whopping case of creative inertia.

The act of making physical things in the physical world is a powerful tool in your toolbox, for the care and maintenance of your midlife soul.  After all, when your soul is well tended, you are better able to tend souls well.  This world desperately needs women (and men!) in the middle, showing up in their full creative form, wielding their energy, sharing their wisdom, and revealing who they are and how they have been gifted.

We need you, as you, and with a flourishing soul!

Whatever your age, if you've encountered a little bit of "stuck-ness" in your middle, this course is for you.  Through a series of spacious story-telling and doable art-making, Middle Makers will unfold a blueprint for blooming.  This class is for the women who, for whatever the reason, may have put their creative lives on hold.

Until now.

Sheila Atchley is one who has known many of the deep challenges related to midlife.  After a 20 year career in church ministry, home making, and education, she picked up a paintbrush for the very first time as a means of processing transition.  The results have been breathtaking, in terms of the life and health that sprang up in her own soul.  Her art is now found in every state in the United States, and most of the countries of the world!  Teaching art has also carried her far and wide - as far away as Italy, and as wide as the coasts of the US.

She has had to overcome overwhelming inertia to be sharing her stories, and more than that, imparting a sense of luminous possibility to the other artists and creatives she encounters.  Sheila is a firm believer in the fact that midlife women, after going through a seemingly isolated season of transition, can emerge as new, more creative than ever "Middle Makers"...

...and then we all somehow find one another.

So whether you are a stark beginner or a seasoned maker, this course, with its encouraging and informative writing, as well as the art techniques taught in it, can be a powerful blueprint for your blossoming as a creative "difference maker" in midlife.

One last time, here is the link:

https://jeanneoliver.com/middle-makers-with-sheila-atchley-registration-open/

I cannot wait to see YOU in class!

just a silly selfie - hoping to show you how delighted I’d be to connect with you, and coach you a little bit, in YOUR middle…

Assembling My Cute Little Amazon Store

You’ve seen a lot of blog posts titled “My Favorite Things”. Those types of posts are among my very favorite things to read or to talk about. I guess you could say that one of my favorite things is to talk about your favorite things and my favorite things.

Why not make a few dollars or cents from sharing my favorite things with you?

Because I hope I’ve built a certain level of trust, here in these interwebs. I’m sure I have. I have been blogging since ‘08 (click here to go down the rabbit hole of archives of my old blogspot blog…you’re welcome.) and have been making and selling art for about 7 years by now. I have taught art both in person and online from Tennessee to Alabama to Vermont to Italy and back. I get almost daily private messages and emails with questions about my hair, products I use in my health, my current reading list, etc.

While I am not one to bandwagon, typically, I have been watching the trend of social media influencers opening Amazon affiliate pages, and decided…

…what a great idea!

So. So, I’m hard at work assembling my own Amazon store. I plan on populating it with the things I reach for first, in home, health and beauty, business, art, and hospitality.

I hope you love it, and know that anything I share is something that hasn’t just “worked” for me . The litmus test has to be “I Reach For This First.”

Here is a test run.

How many of you are already playing Christmas music? For those of you who are NOT, but still want all those fuzzy, nostalgic feels without straight-up hours of Christmas jam, “I Reach For This First”:

The very last two tunes are Christmas. The first tunes are various vintage Vince Guaraldi - and it all feels so nostalgic and so festive without being saccharine sweet, over-the-dang-top, “Christmas too soon”.

Every year, come late October, early November, “I Reach For This First”.

I can’t wait to share with you some other really useful, beautiful things. Hope you stay tuned and hope you enjoy this feature! It will soon have a page all its own.