Welcome to my Creative Journey!
************** Hello everyone! **************
08-29-2022
My name is Alyssa Jackson and today starts the beginning of my Creative Practice journey! First, I would like to share a little bit about me. I was born in Marietta, GA and moved to Florida when I was two years old. I grew up in a small town in Polk County where there used to be more cows than people. Given the small town environment, I found many things to pass the time, one being music. I feel in love with singing and piano from a young age and it was my favorite part of my school day. When it came time to choose a college, UF was the obvious choice. It had been my dream school for years and I was thrilled at the opportunity to attend. I am a Music Education major who is getting a certificate in Music and Medicine. This is what has led me to this point - my Creative Practice journey.
For the next 12 weeks I will be diving into many artistic pursuits in order to see the impact it has on my physical and mental health. Since I love music so much, I will try something new in the form of physical art mediums. However, I have no idea where to even start! My experience with physical art is limited so I plan on changing my artistic medium every four weeks. In order to see the effects of a habit, it takes a minimum of two weeks to see results. This way I can try different outlets and find what I am really passionate about. I intend on attempting these artistic mediums at least 3 to 4 times a week. Below is a schedule on how I plan on spacing out my mediums and a timeline of my blog posts.
~~~~~~~~~~~ Blog Schedule ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday, September 4th - Introduction Post / Journaling & Poetry: An Introduction
Sunday, September 11th - Journaling & Poetry
Sunday, September 18th - Journaling & Poetry
Sunday, September 25th - Journaling & Poetry: Thoughts and Summary
Sunday, October 2nd - Painting: An Introduction
Sunday, October 9th - Painting
Sunday, October 16th - Painting
Sunday, October 23rd - Painting: Thoughts and Summary
Sunday, October 30th - Photography: An Introduction
Sunday, November 6th - Photography
Sunday, November 13th - Photography
Sunday, November 20th - Photography: Thoughts and Summary / Project Conclusion
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Each one of my pieces is going to revolve around a specific theme. That theme is going to be growth. This abstract theme can represent growth in nature or in a more personal sense. This is going to be my theme for the first half of my journey and I will reveal the second theme I choose as my journey progresses. Growth has a very personal meaning to me at this stage in my life. I am learning who I am and with that comes a lot of perils from life. I want to grow into a wonderful person and the actions I take now influence that. I am hoping this project will grow with me during this semester.
As a good starting point, I would like to document my health as of recent. Currently, my physical health is mediocre. I have some bad wrist, neck, back, and shoulder pain as well as frequent migraines. Mentally, I feel very overwhelmed. The start of this semester is looking like a crazy one. I am underestimating myself and worrying about my future success. I feel constantly on edge between my job and school, even though I am caught up on my work as of recently.
My goals and hopes for this project are that I will find a new love for art. I hope that it will remind me why I chose this crazy career path and why I love it so much. I hope it will help me define my style and maybe a bit about myself. I know I have a passion for the arts but it is clouded by the stress and anxieties of the looming semester. Maybe through these posts I will able to find my sense of creativity again. Maybe through these posts I will find ways to cope with my anxiety disorders. I am all but hopeful about the next 12 weeks.
This is my beginning. I can't wait to compare this to the end.
Let Week 1 Begin!
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************** Hello Again! **************
09-04-2022
I hope you have had a wonderful week. It certainly has been an eventful one for me. This entire project has been an exciting process I've been trying to figure out. On Tuesday, I decided to plan the first section: journaling and poetry. I planned to work 3 to 4 days a week and switch between the two mediums. For this first week, I decided to write poetry on Tuesday, do some journaling prompts on Wednesday, read and interpret poetry on Friday, and do some more journaling prompts on Sunday.
************************ Tuesday *********************** On Tuesday, I figured I would try and write some poetry. Because I know little to nothing on poetry, I decided to do some research first. I know that poetry is a very specific art form that in some cases has many rules and in others, doesn't. When learning about the different types, I decided I wanted to do a more free flow form of poetry. This project is about exploring art and health. While iambic pentameter is cool, I don't think I will learn enough about it in two weeks to feel the full effects of poetry.
Sticking with my theme of growth, I decided the prompt for my first piece of poetry would be "When I'm Older." This project will be a mix of personal growth and natural growth but I felt strongly to write personally. I started out by thinking of a series of "When I'm Older" sentences that I thought at different stages of my life. Each line started with "When I'm Older..." to keep with a repeating theme. However, the lines change as the age increases. Below is my typed version of the poem. I am a perfectionist and I personally felt that typing it out relieved the stress of spacing and the way it looked. I understand that to some, it is a different form of expression. However, I do not see a difference in typing out poetry and writing it. It is all a form of expression.
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At the time of writing the poem, I felt at ease. Tuesday was a very stressful day for a lot of reasons but when I was able to just focus on the words I wanted to flow out onto the page, I felt calm. I had several ideas flowing through my head on how I wanted to write it. The first draft wasn't the perfect one either. However, now that I am done writing it, I feel good about it. It is like some of the thoughts crowding my brain got released. The ones that don't pertain to every day life but still bother me constantly. My physical pain was slightly eased or it came to the point I didn't think about it. The discomfort came back after I was done writing though. As one of the videos we watched this week brought up, art is not a replacement for medicine but is a distraction from the pain and stress. It was only day one and I could tell that was true.
************************ Wednesday ************************
On Wednesday, I decided I would do some basic journaling. I am a Pinterest lover and wanted to pull some ideas from there. One thing I know about myself and art is I always need a good starting point. Once I am inspired, there are many directions I can go. Finding the starting point is the beginning for me.
I found a post that read "25 Journal Prompts to Know Who You Are?" For the next few weeks, I plan on answering 5 questions a week. I can also do some personal journaling depending on the day but I want to get through at least 5 a week. This week I answered these questions below. I feel these relate to the theme because it is working on personal growth rather than physical growth.
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For each question, I took some time to think about the answer and really tried to understand the question. I want to learn more about myself and journaling, as I have been told, is a wonderful way of doing that. Of course, I definitely overthought the questions. However, once I started writing, I started to feel some puzzle pieces connect. It was very imaginative to thing of these different scenarios as if they were or have been real.
Mentally, it felt like opening a lot of doors that have been closed. I have been so focused on school and work and not falling behind that I have missed some of the parts that made me who I am. Also, I have a predicting feeling that this will also bring up some bad memories and events. This time, there were no questions that triggered anything but I believe there may be a point where it will happen. We shall see when the time gets there. Physically, I felt little to no change. Wednesday was very stressful for me so I felt slightly more relaxed but the whole feeling never went away.
************************ Friday ************************
On Friday, I wanted to write another poem. Sure I am a novice at it but I felt inspired by a dream I had to write this poem. Next week, I hope to read some poetry to get a better understanding for it. This, however, was something that popped up and I knew I had to get it on paper. It is a simple poem about a tree that grows from a seedling to a strong tree that towers over all. I had a dream about this and while my dream was not the same as the words I picked, I feel it fits the energy the dream gave me. Here is the typed out version of the poem.
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