Ready, Set Your Intentions, Go!

A week ago, a graduate of my first Artist’s Way Creative Cluster, a former co-worker, and friend (all the same person), Karen, sent me an e-mail with an “idea” for a workshop. She was wanting to do a Vision Board and thought I might enjoy it, too. Yes, yes, yes was my immediate response. And because it is a New Year, it seemed like the sooner the better to get intentions set.

First of all, you might be wondering what a Vision Board is. Christine Kane wrote about them in a February 1, 2007 blog post and you can get to her post by clicking HERE. In a nutshell, Christine says this about Vision Boards:

A vision board (also called a Treasure Map or a Visual Explorer or Creativity Collage) is typically a poster board on which you paste or collage images that you’ve torn out from various magazines. It’s simple.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live, or where you want to vacation, your life changes to match those images and those desires.

The other idea I had around doing a Vision Board was choosing a word to focus on. I got this idea from Allie Edwards, who has done a “One Little Word” project for the past several years. Allie selects a word every January as her word for the year, “a word that I can focus on, meditate on, and reflect upon as I go about my daily life.” She also says: "A single word can be a powerful thing. It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything. It can be sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow."

I decided to combine my Vision Board with "one little word" and the word I chose was CREATE. want 2009 to be the year that I focus, meditate, and concentrate on creating. Not just talking about it, writing about it, or buying supplies for it.

So last night, eight creative and inspiring friends gathered together at Alley Art Studio for a night of creating. Laura, a friend and who happens to work for Howard, helped get everything set up. Transformation! Howard’s law office (the main floor of our old house) became Vision Board Central.

To gain entrance into the event, everyone had to bring a treat; no one was disappointed with our selection.


Since the time I’ve heard about Vision Boards, I imagined mine being framed in baroque gold. So, a couple of days ago in preparation for last night, I journeyed to a Goodwill Superstore in search of something with a gold frame. I found just what I wanted: a mirror with an ornate gold frame. If it would have been made of plaster or metal, it would have been at least $24.99, but because the frame was made of PLASTIC (!), it only cost me $7.99. Perfecto.

Lately when I’ve had trouble sleeping, I wake up thinking of unfinished art projects. A couple of nights ago my thoughts were on my Vision Board. It came to me that I wanted to leave the center of my golden-framed mirror blank – a mirror to reflect me. Then I had the idea to add a transparency of a tree (thanks, Helga) in the center of the mirror, ringed with old postage stamps that featured women. I did my gluing in advance of our gathering last night.


Back to last night. After a brief sharing time, we all claimed a space and began searching through magazines and bins of ephemera for images that grabbed us.

And even artful, fluffy Sinatra joined us!

It seemed like no time had passed when I looked at the clock and realized it was already 9:00 pm. It’s nine o’clock!! I shouted. Not wanting to rush the process, we all decided to reconvene next Thursday for a gluing, embellishing, and final sharing session.

So stay tuned for our glorious completed Vision Boards!