The Makeover Issue

Have you seen the latest issue of O Magazine? It’s the Makeover issue. The whole thing is about transformation.
Women know a lot about makeovers. Every season we’re supposed to learn the latest fashion thing, and purge our wardrobe of the current style no-nos. If transformation were that easy everyone would be in their “higher self” attaining unimaginable superhuman feats.
Real transformation, however, is not as easy as changing shoes. God bless Oprah for her courage to take the weight issue out of the shadows of shame. Yet many still struggle with body image. We each have to deal with our own issues. What’s yours? Money, work, addiction, procrastination, guilt, revenge, temperament, self-doubt?
The first step toward transforming anything is naming it. The second step is determining to be in charge of your life. Any shift you make is a victory. It will empower your decision to persevere. One of the most rewarding things about being a coach is expanding the perception of a client. Those ‘Ahah! Moments’ when the client has a new insight give me goose bumps.
I don’t believe in creative blocks in art or life. I believe the ‘block’ is a locked gate. And the key is hidden somewhere nearby.
One of my ‘issues’ is not being able to promote myself. I was taught that saying anything good about yourself is bragging. The Catholic Church taught me modesty in all things. Frankly, those two teachings are not good business practice! So in the spirit of helping you with your transformation, I’m using some Oprah-style courage to tell you I’m a terrific life coach, and I’d love to work with you! Let’s find that key to your locked gate. Give me a call!

Adriana Díaz * Creative Life Coaching*

510 530-4182. Tell your friends! 510 530-4182

As Oprah concludes in the back of the recent issue: Reaching your potential is more than an ideal. It’s the ultimate goal.

Get Some Perspective

It’s easy to understand why perspective is important to a painter or a photographer, but how does perspective play a part in daily decision-making? Recently I read a quote from Irish author Anne Enright that offers wisdom about perspective in writing and life. “All description,” she said, “is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.” Perspective is the geography of politics, ethics, and values.
“Find a place to stand” tells us to “take a stand”. We ask the question ‘where do you stand’ on gun control, the death penalty, or abortion, for example, to learn someone’s perspective. You may be very clear about your opinions on the larger issues of life, yet feel unclear in deciding whether or not you would really go through with cosmetic surgery.
Issues arise that stop us in our tracks, because we can’t discern a clear personal perspective. Someone who’s out of a job buys groceries with a perspective of cautious spending. The perspective of limitation guides each decision. Someone with cash to spare, however, buys food from a perspective of desires, abundance and freedom.
What do you want? What are you working toward in your life? Before you take steps toward making it happen, solidify the foundation of your actions by taking the time to know your perspective. What are you risking? What values are attached to the goal you seek to achieve? Are those values in line with what you stand for? Take a look at where you’re standing, literally and figuratively; imagine two separate decisions and try to see three years beyond the possible actions. That distance gives you a chance to see the “bigger picture” and the possible influence of time.

Think you might need a coach? Curious about the coaching process? Give me a call at 510 530-4182. I’m happy to take questions and talk about what coaching could do for you. Just three months of coaching can set you on a new path armed with a fresh understanding and tools for decision-making and evaluation.

Watching Paint Dry

All over the East Bay artists are working busily to prepare for Open Studios. I am one of them.
Unlike the old stereotypical image of the artist as a Bohemian living in a garret on the outskirts of society, the twenty-first century artist has to be a hardworking, dedicated individual, developing her/his art in a world parallel to work and relationships.
When we get into the studio, we have to lock the door of our mind in order to engage in the love affair that is art-making. We try to remove ourselves from all the pop culture images, slogans, and values in order to "think outside the box", a phrase that has become,itself, a cliché.
What does it mean, to think outside the box? For me, (I can speak only for myself because every person's process is their own) it means sinking into a place of no thought at all. My fingers join my eyes in seeing, and my eyes join my fingers in perceiving the visual and sensual materials with which I work.
Then there is the leap! The daring act of marking a clean surface. The audacity of putting a hole into a canvas in order to attach wire and bits of fabric. I scribble and scrape, spray water, attach objects. I enter a state of creative inebriation. . .if I'm lucky.
Then there comes the moment when the artist must let the materials do their own thing. Yes, time to watch the paint dry.
This is not an idle time. It is a time of practicing restraint. A period of meditation and study. I look around the studio and play "what if":What if I sanded it next? What if I rub in some crayon? But I do nothing but watch.
In Freeing the Creative Spirit I wrote that creativity is a process of making something happen, then letting something happen. Every now and then I realize that life is just the same.

A Face Without Lines

I did the drawing on the right as another meditation on age and beauty. It's titled: "A Face Without Lines is Like a Book Without Words".
I've always loved the elderly. My grandparents were my special guardian angels. They taught me about my ethnicity and the original language that has nearly been gutted from my family by anglo-American culture. I know that my experience was very unusual, especially in the U.S. where most kids don't grow up around their grandparents, and I'm still grateful for that opportunity. I'm realizing now, that they also taught me to value aging.
Women, of course, are more sensitive to cultural prejudices against aging than men. After all, there is a tradition in Hollywood to cast the youngest starlet as leading lady opposite an aging actor. Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, now George Clooney: all seem to have a phobia about love scenes with a woman their own age (on or off screen).
The only bias not considered politically incorrect, in fact, is derision toward age. Sure, it's against the law to say that a person is fired or not hired because of age, but it's not against the law to do it, as long as it's done for another, permissible, reason. Listen to advertising. Products for hair color, and especially make up and face creams openly warn us of the debilitating signs of AGING. With so many people of all ages looking for mates, AGE is the single most marginalizing or discrediting feature. It's true our culture hates fat, too, but body size is alterable, age is not in our control.
If humans didn't learn through experience, if we didn't change and evolve over time, we'd live in a world of Barbies and Kens. How would we destinguish ourselves from the masses? Youth, itself, would lose its meaning. What I advocate is a culture-wide multi-dimensional understanding of beauty. Why should we idealize skin with the light-reflective quality of ceramic glaze?
Imagine a world in which the title of my drawing were printed on billboards and in print ads across the Internet. "A face without lines is like a book without words." Lets believe in that. Let's encourage our daughters to get smarter, wiser, and more compassionate.
I remember discovering Confucius and Radhakrishnan in college. It was as exciting as science fiction. My face was young and fresh, but my mind was excited by what is ageless in the world. Then, reading Jung's Memories, Dream, Reflections for the first time, I realized that the mind itself was a vast universe.
Developing my skills as an artist took me deeper into the study of line, and that's when I understood what makes the aesthetics of visual humanity most interesting. Line can be read like words. Some lines are dark, gouged by time into canyons of anger or hatred. Some lines are playful, they develop through the habits of laughter and play. There are worried lines, sorrowful lines, loud lines, and quiet lines.
Each of us has our own book imprinted into our faces and our bodies. I think it was Lincoln who said, 'Anyone over forty is responsible for his face'. Our habits write our story. Take a look in the mirror; don't be afraid. Read your story. What will be written there tomorrow?

I said I'd post a photo of myself so here I am with my dear friend Morrie Turner. Morrie Turner is one of the lesser-known heroes of the civil rights movement. He was the first nationally-syndicated African American cartoonist in America. His endearing Wee Pals cartoon strip was the first to depict people of color, making Morrie not only a pioneer, but an inspiration for young cartoonists of all colors. The wisdom that comes through the children in Wee Pals is equal to that of the Peanuts gang, and the strip often takes on issues of race with amazing charm and candor. If you are a reader of the Oakland Tribune, you're familiar with Wee Pals, but you may not know much about Morrie. To learn more about this talented, modest, and genuine man, please go to: http://www.creators.com/comics/wee-pals-about.html.
In the photo, we were at the San Francisco Library where a special exhibition celebrated Morrie's illustrious career. I'm so proud to call him a friend, and I'm sure you will be glad to know about his unique and creative contribution to the world.