I intended to spend the afternoon with fingers on keyboard, but she said that a group of women were having a creative weekend retreat and they were all headed to her house after lunch.

The potter’s house.

The potter, who spends time teaching me how to collage and make books and journals and breathe like an artist. Who let’s me take home a 30-something-year-old National Geographic if I want to cut it into artful pieces.

The potter. She calls me “kid.” I like that.

Maybe it’s because she also teaches me how to “play” as an artist —to explore different avenues of creativity. And now I’m exploring and I’m trying not to burst with excitement when we “play.” She doesn’t know it, but I’m wide open right now.

Or maybe she does know it. She asked me to bring what I’ve been working on, because she needed some inspiration. How did she know I was working on something? So I grabbed my art journal on the way out that morning, and I tried to act like it was no big deal when I sat down at her art table in her sunny art room and she said “ok, what’d ya bring?” and I pulled out my art journal and started flipping through the pages and telling her how I did all of it.

And then we made books. (I know, right? How cool is that?!)

And then she asked what I was doing for the afternoon. And that’s when she invited me to spend the afternoon with the big girls on the retreat.

The writing could wait. I’d already decided to receive every creative opportunity she handed me.

I returned to her house around 2pm. Introductions, hand shakes, hugs. The ladies were gluing pages to their 2012 journals, prepping them for words and photographs and memories and introspections. The room was quiet, but the energy was grand.

I took my seat at the table. And she said “OH! You have to show them your art journal!”

Inhale.

Did she know this meant bearing my soul to these women? These creative divas from all over the state who just gathered together here to reflect for the weekend? Um. Show them my art journal? Show them?

I acted like this was no big deal. I reached down in my bag and carefully pulled out my “Making Space” journal. What was I going to say?

“Well, they call this an ‘altered book’ — it’s just a book about interior decor that I found at a local thrift store.”

I open the book: “I taped each seam and coated each page with gesso, but you can still see the words and images. It’s so much better than staring at a blank page. It gives me something to start with.”

Ok, time to turn the page to what I’ve actually created.

That’s when I start flipping fast.

“I use a two-fold for each day. Art image on the right page, and words and thoughts from the day on the left page. They always match up somehow.”

And flip. Flip. Flip.

And they oooh.

And the potter says “Don’t you just love that?! It’s just loose! It’s so loose!!” And she smiles and shakes her arms and shoulders like she’s a rag-doll and I feel like I’ve accomplished something even though I’m not really sure what “loose” means because I could dissect and explain the intention of every smudge and splatter and upside down word that I placed on that page.

And I smile back and slide the book back down in my bag and take a deep breath.

The kid, playing Show And Tell for the grownups.

Or, the artist showing other artists the secret world of her own inspiration and creation.