I send out a creative prompt on Patreon every Sunday. This is my meditative practice and the way I keep my creative practice alive.
I just bought a small container of buttons at a thrift store, scolding myself while I reached for the $3 purchase — what the heck will I do with a hundred buttons?
I left the buttons out for a week and then poured them onto a plate to see what I had. My fingers ran over the ones in shades of off-white — teeny to dime-sized. I especially liked the shiny metallic buttons, some in red and black. I pulled out a button with a rose on it and slid it to the side of the plate, then reached for the square mother-of-pearl button and held it in my palm like a worry-bead.
I arranged the buttons on a piece of Marimekko fabric from my recent trip to Finland and found some neon pink thread I've been hoping to use for a project, and sewed on two buttons. Then my wall-hanging project sat for a week until this past Friday night, when I sat down and feverishly arranged and rearranged as many of the buttons as possible to make something that might eventually go up on the wall — see the other wall-hanging I started in this creative prompt I shared on Patreon a few weeks ago.
As I worked with the buttons, the thread and the fabric, something clicked and a theme emerged. Lately, it's been on my mind to do a painting of a crying or screaming person — and here it was — I made a crying person from buttons. My recently mended jean shorts have some patches that are turning into upside-down crying eyes.
But it all started a while back with a drawing I made of myself crying, inspired by a time I listened to 'The Long and Winding Road' while sitting alone in a car after I left a high school reunion. The song just happened to be in the CD player when I hit play. It completely disarmed me. The song, the sound of the song in the car and the aftermath of the high school reunion all came together to hit me in the gut — something only a cartoon character can adequately express.
I have a list of songs that have made me cry. Now, I think of them as therapists. Once, I even cried while rehearsing my own song, Summertime (This Is My Room). I guess the crying theme is
a tribute to the excellent therapeutic value of a song when it hits, and everything unravels. May we all have a list of crying songs that will come to us in times of trouble.
The prompt:
Make something with buttons, or just sort them out and enjoy the shapes and colours. Put all the blue ones in a pile. Think of it as your meditation for the day.
Write a list of the songs that make you cry, or a time you had a good cry and felt better afterwards.
Found this on a trip to Calgary. Artist: Sophia Truscott.