My Creativity Class, FINALLY Hosted Right Here
Join “Middle Makers” here
A few of you may remember that I launched a class on the Jeanne Oliver Creative Network called “Middle Makers”. I am delighted to let you know that - now and going forward - my own site will be the only place you will be able to receive my newest offerings, whether that be new creative classes/master classes/ courses/mini classes/ or what will soon become my signature “QuickClasses”.
Shew.
Friends, I did the work.
I did ALL the work. As in, nobody else. As in, no assistant, paid or free help. As in: just me.
(side note: consequently, please shoot me an email if you find any broken links or grammar-related errors. I need many eyes on my work. Thank you.)
I know how to build out a website and a course, from concept to upload, and all on my own site. As of now, you’ll be able to send your friends here to buy this beautiful class for an unheard of price. There will never be another class of mine (unless it is a QuickClass or a mini) at this price.
Here’s a little bit about Middle Makers:
“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.
Sheila 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. She 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 each other.
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.
Techniques Taught in this Course
How to break out of making the “same old art, in the same old way”
Expressive figure drawing techniques
Sketch the female figure in an innovative way
How to choose “surprise” in your studio practice
Heirloom-type handmade journals
Work with dry pigment in new ways
How to conceptualize a piece of assemblage art
How to construct a piece of assemblage art
Integrate fragrance into your art pieces
How to create and use a “Commonplace Book”
Journal making techniques
Incorporate leather into your book-making
Create your own signature fragrance, using top, middle, and base notes
New ways of making mixed-media art
Explore water mixable oils
Add bits of your own story to your art
Discover powerful symbols for midlife, and how to incorporate them
Incorporate 3-dimensional story telling onto canvas
Learn to elevate your own “maker’s story”
Make beautiful gifts for meaningful giving
Here’s a few words of commendation about “Middle Makers”:
“Best class ever!” ~B.Andersen
“This relaunch has blown me away…all the goodness you added is WELL worth the re-purchase (since I had already taken this class elsewhere)…those devotional meditations are pure living gold and the surprise bonus and your commentary were the perfect chef’s kiss to it all. I felt so seen and nurtured and honestly…I felt mothered through it. Beautiful, deeply sacred work.” H. McFarland
“I would recommend this class to anyone and everyone, whether they consider themselves makers or not.” K. Adams
One more time, here is your link:
June’s Singular Spectacular Light
The June night was bracing-cool. Like October, but without the promise of painted leaves. Here in the Smokies of east Tennessee, June’s muse and beauty is the firefly's staccato glow. That's what we turned aside to see, my Preacher and me; bushes burning with gentle, tempered specks of flame.
We were together in the wilderness of our national park, glad to be where neon is not normal, and all around was unopposed, purple dusk.
I felt staggered by the glory of those million fireflies, each one lit from within by some kind of genius that is wholly something otherworldly. The tall grasses, the fence line, the trees, the entire horizon glittered and blinked. As far as we were concerned, the whole earth was filled with darting gleam and moving shimmer. Well, it was “the whole earth” where we were. And can anyone be any place but where she is, beholding?
It wasn't impressive, like a fiery transcendent sunset. It was important, which is impressive’s more mature essence. No one else drove hours to be in this spot to acknowledge this scene. After all, it wasn’t splendor, like the aurora borealis. It was sparkle, which is splendor's lingering train. Sparkle is like the backside of a beauty so bright, we best only focus on the leftover glow. Sometimes, sparkle is what you get to experience, when you say to God, "Show me Your glory!”
See, this is something I know, now that I’m a grandmother: when your heart is tuned and trained to detect it, sparkle is as soul-nourishing and as powerful as splendor. Like a lover, capturing the attention of the beloved, one glittering glance can speak volumes into the soul of the relationship.
That night, I looked and looked in front of me for a long time - and then I looked up.
Unhindered starlight! Never had I ever seen a night sky like this! Remember I said that the night was bracing-cool? There wan't even a smidge of humidity to un-crisp this sight. I looked and looked up for a long time - and then I crouched low to lay right down on the concrete of that deserted road. The Preacher, who is an avid night-sky-shooter, put away his Nikon to join me. He was able to tell…we were going to be there for awhile. He was able to see that what I really wanted, was to look all night.
Prone on the sun-warmed slab, bad back be hanged, silver hair bathed in silver moonlight, I star gazed. For hours. Every now and then I thought I saw a shooting star, but it was actually a firefly high in the sky. The thought occurred to me that this was the first time since I was a little girl that I simply and singularly enjoyed the stars. As a teenager, I was too busy trying to be a star, to fling myself down to see the stars. As a mother, I star gazed with my children, and loved every moment, but was too busy teaching about stars. I was preoccupied with making sure my little ones saw the stars.
Not this night. This night, there was finally a singular, full-on wonder. This night, there was flat-out, flat-on-my-back fascination. The Preacher was so relaxed by this time, his eyes had fallen closed, and his breathing had deepened into that place of even sleep. So, very quickly and shyly, I blew my Heavenly Father a kiss. Silently, I asked Him for His kiss in return. It was exactly then that I really did see a shooting star. It was like all heaven was high-fiving the revelation that worship is wonder, plain and simple.
I laughed out loud, and blurted, “You’re crazy, God!” It just came out. The Preacher startled, and looked at me quizzically. For a split second, I wondered if I’d been too intimate and casual with those blurted words.
But no. I sensed the Lord smiling up His sleeve. I knew He’d received that flat-out-prone, astonished blurt as worship.
When surrounded by sparkle, the only appropriate response is to worship. For future reference, when you find yourself looking at left-over splendor, placed around you to be seen and savored, face-up prone is greater than face-down prostrate. And blurts are completely acceptable, and all is still worshipful astonishment. I ran in the strength of those prone moments for many days. In some ways, I am still running in the strength of them. Such is the comealongside role of beauty in the ordinary. It gladdens the heart, and whatever gladdens the heart strengthens the life. Where there is so much as just a sparkle of beauty, there is a place for the soul to mightily, deeply rest.
There’s charm in romancing the sparkle instead of waiting for days of splendor. I believe those who can turn aside for flecks of flame in small bushes are the very ones the Lord can trust with large lands, flowing with milk and honey.
Of course, I’m home now. I’m not still out in the national park, writing this with paper, ink, and a feather quill, surrounded by mountain views and mountain laurel. I wish I was, in one way. But in another way, I know that “important is greater than impressive”, and it is very important for this grandmother to step outside my urban front door to go chase the beauty.
So as I head outside tonight, it is years later and smack-dab in the city. My home is two blocks away from a pawn shop and my front porch can sometimes vibrate with the sound of motorcycles and mariachi music from down the street.
No matter. I have many times, and will still this very evening, crouch low and go prone on the sun-warmed slab of our cul-de-sac. I have many times, and will still again seek the sparkle instead of waiting for the splendor. Beauty can come alongside me and fortify me right where I am, as I enjoy “my own” fireflies and early-summer stars.