I promised Tess Wynn and Cindy Chambers a private audience with Simon if they came to the Open House early and they showed up, two long-time friends and followers of the blog and members of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm (Tess has a great new blog of her own) and met one another and then spent some time with Simon in the pasture. The Open House has just begun and there are more than 100 people here already and the road is jammed with cars. More alter.
Maria hung one of her quilts on the barn door and put one of my photos of the barn up on an easel (it’s for sale for $150). Red is ready and so are the donkeys. I saw George Forss, the famed photographer and my friend, he can’t walk on his broken leg and is, he said, gently bemoaning his fate. I brought him soup, an omelet, scones and some muffins to keep him quiet for a while and fed. Jack and Kim Macmillan have arrived to help set up Maria’s studio and figure out parking and traffic. It’s sunny fairly cool and humid. Jackie Campbell came in from Minnesota to help us chop up carrots for the donkeys and she will also help collect donations for the Hubbard Hall Scholarship Fund.
I’ve chosen a reading selection from “Second Chance Dog” (we will be raffling off copies of the book for people who donate to the Scholarship Fund). Mary Kellogg is on the way to read some poetry, I’ve been running into visitors from all over the country all over town. Got to check on Maria’s Studio.
Today Maria and I are hosting our sixth Bedlam Farm Open House, four at the first farm, two here. From the minute we met, we began hosting shows and open houses. We learned that this is what we are about, although we were a long time understanding this. For us, this is a celebration, a sharing of our lives, an opening up a continuation of the commitment we made to one another five years ago when we made our creative connection and decided to share our lives together, open up our minds, our hearts, our souls.
In our world, creativity is considered a hobby, a sideline, something to do when we are not making money, making war, conquering Wall Street, paying for health care, arguing politics with one another – the important things to many people. For me, for Maria too, although she can speak for herself, creativity is not a hobby, not a quirky pastime. It is an ideology, a philosophy of life that led directly to the Open House set to begin here at noon – people are gathering in town from all over the country, we are humbled and excited.
Creativity is a way to live, not just an impulsive to share. It is a different way to think, to love, to be. In my mind, it is not creative to live in panic, to argue or hate, to fear or judge. War is not a creative solution to the world’s problems, nor is a dogma like the “left” or the “right.” Creativity is about finding ways to connect people not to divide them. It is about freeing the inner spirits, the hidden songs and colors and magic mirrors inside of us. It is not creative to send angry e-mails or post nasty messages on Facebook.
It is not creative to throw sticks are your heart, or the hearts of other people. Encouragement is the philosophy that underlies creativity, which is literally for me the opening of the soul. An Open House is a literal opening up, an overcoming of the modern impulse to be wary, to be careful, to avoid risks. Somebody could fall down. Somebody could steal something, somebody could be disturbed and cause trouble. Our world is filled with good reasons offered the non-creatives of the world to be mistrustful to close up. I have rejected that path, that is not a life worth living to me, it closes us off to human experience, it shuts creativity down. When creativity is stifled or shunted aside, the soul grows cold and angry, suspicious and fearful.
So creativity then, begins the opening within. It opens me to friendship, to honesty, to light and color, to spirituality and peace, to writing and photography, stories, images and feelings. This is the magic of the human soul, not the stress, tension and emptiness that we see reflected all around us. Creativity is openness, and openness is not really about paintings or photos or books or drawings. It is about the very essence of us, of the mindful life, of what makes living really worth living rather than surviving and enduring.
Maria and I are very proud and happy to share our lives with the people gracious enough to want to come and see it, people already here from Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Maine, New Jersey, New York City, Maryland, Arizona and Quebec.
What, I wondered this morning, can I possibly have done to deserve this outpouring of connection and interest, what about our lives could possibly be worth coming so far to see. It is, I think, not about me, surely not about me. It is about Maria, her work, the dogs and donkeys and perhaps more than anything else, a celebration of openness, the Ideology Of Creativity.
