DOORS

I love old doors. I saw this image on flickr and had to save it for my inspiration archive. The faded and cracked paint - that lovely blue color - looks like an old store front to me.

My house has heavy old wooden doors. You know, the kind that you can hear open and close. The kind that let you know your loved one is home safely. There are rarely closed doors at our house. My family uses the entire house. Even slamming doors are few and far between. We respect the closed door as a call for privacy or separation, but none of those doors stay closed for long.

The new studio has a plain old barn door right now. Not really appropriate for keeping critters out. But I love that door too. How it screeches when it opens on those old and rusted hinges. The idea that for all these years it has protected the contents of the barn. So I have been in a quandry about how to deal with it. I need the light to come in. I need a more sealed environment for the studio. So - what to do. I am keeping that door and somehow we will build a vestibule type of environment with a glass storm door just inside. I have the ideas - it's up to someone else to figure the technical part of this out. Then I can leave the outer door open while I work.

As I look, read, listen, and absorb all of the stimuli everyday, I have become aware of the symbolism of doors. The doors of my heart can be closed and designed for protection or they can be open and expectant of relationship. I tend to close my mind about somethings and be more open to others. My creative doors tend to be open more often when I am focused on being inspired. I have had the doors of opportunity opened for me and refused to enter. I have entered those doors too. Even the exit doors in my life have either been crossed through or turned from. I have closed and locked a few dooras well. Fear of facing the demons on the other side, either real or imagined, have kept me from even approaching some doors.

Another angle to look at this is to try and recall doors you have opened for others. Do you let people in? Do you open the doors of opportunity for others? Is the approach to your doorstep welcoming and inviting or dark and glooming? Do people take you to be open minded or closed?Do you dismiss people permantly through the exit and then lock that door behind them? Do you walk out of their life and throw away the keys? Or do you have a door labeled forgiveness? Take a look at the doors in your life. I would love to know what doors you have in your mind and heart's inner rooms.

Creating this studio space for me is opening a door I have longed to open. Somehow it validates my creative spirit. It is giving me the feeling that my creative journey is not only worth continuing, but that it is important to continue. I want to welcome my creative friends into my space and allow them to feel inspired. I want to welcome others too and have them feel welcome and nurtured both in my home and studio. I want to be able to create things that have an heirloom feel or that speak to someone at a specific point in their life. I want to interpret the world around me in a visual way. But I want others to feel welcome, actually invited, into that process.

I am truly having a beautiful day. I wish you one too.