…when my friend, sitting across our table in tears, said, “I haven’t had to change anything in twenty five years.  I’m not sure how to do this.”

I practiced my hard listening skills.  I nodded.  I embraced every word she said.  At intervals I offered, “That must be so hard.”  I resisted the urge to advise, suggest or steer.

For awhile.

When she began again with she didn’t know how to change, I was unable to restrain myself.  I wondered aloud if winter doesn’t feel like that every season when it is called upon to give up its hold on the land and make way for Spring?  “Change can sneak up on you,” I offered.  “It sometimes looks like a good idea that you are excited about…but, really, it’s just change masquerading as something you like and know how to do.  The real challenge comes when change knocks on our door, invites us out and we haven’t a map for where we are going.”  Her tears and sorrowful stare were enough to quiet me.

In the moment, I recongized I was really delivering a message to myself.  The only universal GPS system for navigating change in my life is my heart, my instinct and my prayer consideration.  After I’ve consulted those compass points, packed my statement of intention and a snack, all that’s left for me to do is step outside, lock the door behind me and follow change.

I offered my friend another cuppa what we were sipping and stilled my talk and my shock.  Of COURSE she’s changed in the last 25 years.  What she was really expressing was that she was afraid.  THIS change pushed at every sense of safety and boundary that she had developed and she, utterly committed to thoroughness and competency, did not know what to do next.

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I feel that way sometimes in my art creation.  I explore.  Discover.  Wonder. Try things. Use both familiar and new materials and techniques.  In almost every process the question, “Now what?” comes up many times.  And then – I decide what to do next.  And I do it.  Isn’t that how it is with many things?

I’ve played with a new lettering style for many years. Of course, I’ve built a reputation on decades of work based on one identifiable, proprietary lettering style.  People often will recognize my lettering before they identify my name or my newest incarnation of artful symbolism.  So introducing a new lettering style is – daunting.  It’s walking out the door, following the invitation of change and, on THIS particular journey, locking the door behind me. (OF course, I have a key!)

So.  If you would like to see the physical manifestation of what it’s like to change, to utterly recreate something I’ve done for almost thirty years…take a look, here:

http://deannadavis.net/books-and-products-2/inspirational/

The visual art is based on the work I developed for my newest book,  HONEY IN YOUR HEART.

Every step of this creative journey has been an amazing adventure.  Even though I don’t have a map I’m fairly sure that I’ve only just begun my journey on this particular road.

Here’s one of the few pieces in which I synthesized my familiar with my new…