And So I Begin Again

[Cynthia Gentry]

Did you ever read that book about being an artist? The one where the author suggests you write "morning pages" each day to clean out the garbage in your head and connect with your creativity? Oh, I remember, it was The Artist's Way. (I'll add the link later, something's wrong with my keyboard.) Anyway, that's what this is going to be for me...sort of. 

 

This morning I read a great interview about getting beyond the resistance and just doing the work. (I'll add that link later, too). That's what I'm going to do here. 

 

The work that I have been avoiding is building treehouses, playgrounds, fun spaces. I've been studying play for seven or eight years and for some reason got it into my head that since I wasn't an academic I couldn't have a voice and since I wasn't an architect or a landscape architect that I couldn't build. Resistance. Excuses. Nada mas!

 

I want to build a treehouse where.... here's what I see... little kids climbing up. With each step up they get a little nervous about the height, but the anticipation pulls them up higher and higher. They climb up on the sturdy floor and they are in a new world. They can look down and see what was a place they knew well but now looks decidedly different. They peer into the distance and farther still through the lens of a telescope. There minds fill with the excitement of mystery. 

 

I can see so many different places in my head. The time has come to stop editing everything because I'm afraid I might be wrong, and get on with making this new kind of art. 

 

There are three potential treehouses in my future right now. Good time to start, huh?! I've got a meeting with one of my two favorite treehouse builders today. Amy Leathers at Lord, Aeck and Sargent, an architectural firm here in Atlanta. Amy totally gets it. She designed "my" treehouse at Camp Twin Lakes. We're meeting at Chastain Park to talk about a treehouse there and about the possibility of the next Playable International Design Competition.

 

Off I go!