“You can choose a love and a life that does not break you. You can claim a softer beauty and a kinder want. Even your animal hunger can soften its rough edges and say a full-throated yes to what is good and kind and holy. Know that insanity is not a prerequisite for passion and that there is another pathway to your art, one that does not demand your pain as payment for its own becoming. Love, it doesn't have to hurt anymore.” ArtArtistHealingCompassionCreativityKindnessSelf LoveTendernessSelf Compassion Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“Never get too attached to the first draft of anything – this includes writing, art, homes, love. You will revise and revise and revise. We are always in the midst of our own becoming.” LoveWritingArtHomeWisdomLife LessonsWild HeartJeanette LeblancReviseFirst Draft Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“We are doing it, me and you. We are doing it with heart. And with art. And with soul and blind faith and ancient knowing. Because we have to. Because there are people who need us to. Because WE need us to most of all. No matter how discouraged you’ve been. No matter how the destructive old patterns have been returning, knocking loudly at your door. No matter the moments of utter freeze or massive resistance or sheer exhaustion. Go out today and make something. Something brave and defiant and determined and true. And then muster up your last bit of moxie and hold out your arms and offer it to the world. Say “I made this. For me and for you”. Say “ This is what keeps me from the rabbit hole”. Say “This is how I go on”. Say “I see you, too and I know how hard it is and I want you to have this to make it a little bit better” I promise. It changes things. For all of us.” ArtCompassionCreativityCreationDepressionMental HealthArtistsMake ArtMaking Art Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“You are the birthplace of your own art. Always and forever. Which means you are the art itself. ⠀ ⠀ And that is fucking beautiful.” ArtArtistCreativitySelf LoveEmpowermentSelf Love QuotesWorking Artists Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“Deal resistance a death blow and make sweet love to your art all night long. Put on your fishnet thigh highs and your patent leather stilettos and your special occasion lingerie. Seduce the hell out of your own creative soul. It’s time for an epic lap dance. Dance for your paint and canvas, for fingers tripping across keyboard, for the open arms of motherhood, for the layers of flavor in the meals you create. Wind your hips down for the click of the shutter, for the 3 a.m. bathroom poem, for the late night lesson planning” ArtActionMotivationCreativityResistanceMuse Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“We were in Julie’s room one night, my eldest daughter and I, maybe a decade ago now. I wanted to show her how the canvas painting she had carefully labored over for her little sister's Christmas gift was framed and hung on the wall. I said, gazing at her masterpiece with no small amount of motherly pride, “Now it looks like a real work of art”. Bella looked at me quizzically, wondering yet again how her mother could possibly understand so little about the world. “Mama, every time you make something, or draw something, or paint something, it is already real art. There is no such thing as art that is not real” And so I said that she was right, and didn’t it look nice, and once again, daughter became guru and mother became willing student. Which is, I sometimes think, the way it was meant to be. ~~~~~ art is always real. all of it. even the stuff you don’t understand. even the stuff you don’t like. even the stuff that you made that you would be embarrassed to show your best friend that photo that you took when you first got your DSLR, when you captured her spirit perfectly but the focus landed on her shoulder? still art. the painting you did last year the first time you picked up a brush, the one your mentor critiqued to death? it’s art. the story you are holding in your heart and so desperately want to tell the world? definitely art. the scarf you knit for your son with the funky messed up rows? art. art. art. the poem scrawled on your dry cleaning receipt at the red light. the dress you want to sew. the song you want to sing. the clay you’ve not yet molded. everything you have made or will one day make or imagine making in your wildest dreams. it’s all real, every last bit. because there is no such thing as art that is not real.” ArtArtistCreativityArtistsCreative LifeArtists LifeMake ArtWriter LifeCreative Practice Author:Jeanette LeBlanc
“Truth? Sometimes I question every last thing I’m doing. Truth? Right now, those questions swirl every damn day. Is this also true for you? Still, we keep moving forward, you and I. We try new things. We doggedly keep on doing the old things because though they may not have worked in the past it doesn’t feel like crazy to continue, it feels like the space of trusting some wild sort of knowing. We love, good and hard. We show up for life. In the midst of depression, insanely messy houses, and bank accounts sliding closer and closer to that fine red line, and panic attacks, and kids who won’t listen but who damn well know how to question and love. And we make stuff. My god, the way we keep on making stuff. Because we can and we have to. Because it’s the only damn thing that feels right when everything else feels a hundred kinds of wrong. We create. Defiant and determined and true. Weary hearts brought to blazing life if only for those wild moments we dance with the muse.” WritingArtArtistCreativityDepressionMental HealthWritersWriting CommunityMake ArtWorking Artists Author:Jeanette LeBlanc