do what you love Page 61 of 82

Urban oasis

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A few hundred metres from the bustle and chaos of Takeshita-dori, the main hangout of funky teenagers in Harajuku, Tokyo, lies a true urban oasis.

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Meiji Jingu is a beautiful imposing shrine nestled amongst a forest of green, right in the middle of one of the busiest parts of the city.

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Your pace slows, and you start to breathe more deeply with every step away from the street, into this sacred place.

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As you wash your hands at the entrance, you feel like you are washing away the inevitable city dust.

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As you watch others step forward and give their offerings, your own mind calms a little.

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Why not take yourself away from the hustle and bustle and find somewhere quiet to escape to today?

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If you fancy your own adventure, why not join me for the Do What You Love e-course? This very special online adventure is designed to help you identify your passion and make it a greater part of your everyday life. Class starts on May 14. Find out more and register here.

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In the city

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Several months ago we decided to make a big move to Japan. It seemed so far away back then but now it is here, and we are here.

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First stop the capital, Toyko, where I spent three years working long hours in an exciting job 10 years ago.

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Glass, concrete and neon.

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Clean streets and fast trains.

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Cool design shops and anything-goes fashion. Sweet old men who randomly offer you gifts of hard boiled eggs.

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Drinking with old friends. Noodles at midnight. This is Tokyo, and it is good to be back.

PS All this week I will be bringing you glimpses of this city that I once called home…

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If you fancy your own adventure, why not join me for the Do What You Love e-course? This very special online adventure is designed to help you identify your passion and make it a greater part of your everyday life. Class starts on May 14. Find out more and register here.

Gone adventurin’

Beth - sun(Image by NavyBlur)

Our stuff is in storage. The out-of-office/studio is on. The to-do list is done. We are off.

My man and I are heading East for a big adventure. We are going to spend a few months in Japan – slowing down, looking, listening, exploring, (dare I add ‘retreat researching’??) and I am so thrilled. These past few months have been crazy, and the past few weeks have been nothing short of chaos. But they have all been leading to this moment when we step onto that plane, head into the skies and fly in the direction of adventure.

See you in Tokyo!

Beth

PS. If you fancy a very different kind of adventure of your own, I have just relaunched the Do What You Love e-course which will be brought to you for the very first time from Japan! Class begins on May 14. There’s a special early bird discount if you sign up before the end of March. See here for more details and to register!

The Do What You Love e-course… back by popular demand!

The Do What You Love e-course... back by popular demand! dwylhq1

For the past couple of months I have received a lot of emails asking when the Do What You Love e-course is running again, as it has been tucked away quietly since the last run of it back in November.

The Do What You Love e-course... back by popular demand! hello soul 051 by TKD1

Picture of me by Tiffany Kirchner-Dixon

 

It is all about adventure, identifying your passion and making that a bigger part of your every day life. But for the past few months I feel like I have been padlocked to my desk getting lots of other things out into the world.

It would have felt wrong to run the course when I was holed up in my attic office, but now Spring is on its way, I have a plane ticket it my hand and I am about to head off on my own big adventure to Japan. It feels like the right time to run it again. Won’t you join us?

The Do What You Love adventure will begin on May 14, and for the first time ever will be brought to you from the Far East! It is going to  be very special indeed… find out more below or register here (there’s a discount if you sign up by the end of March!)

The Do What You Love e-course... back by popular demand! ecoursesidebar1

This online adventure will take you step-by-step on a path to discovering your true passion, and finding a way to make it a greater part of your everyday life.

In six weeks you will expand your comfort zone, nurture your playful spirit and use this to feed your creative soul.

You will travel this path with a community of like-minded people from across the world, sharing your stories, forging new connections, and inspiring each other.

This will be like no other class you have ever taken. Can you afford not to join us? Find out more and register here.

Life as a designer-in-progress: Petra Kern’s story

Life as a designer-in-progress: Petra Kern's story DWYL BLOG SHAREDSTORIES 650X250PX LR

Today’s shared story comes from Slovenian designer Petra Kern.

 Petra Kern Portrait

I would say my story is very basic and simple. It really is. But as I look back I consider myself quite lucky that things came to me in exactly this order and in this shares. I was journalist for women and lifestyle magazines since I was 19. As a friend said the other day, “Those were the dreams of that life.« But to become pattern designer suddenly became the dream of the life I am living now, and for the future”.

Yes, I always loved art I always longed to make it but I really never had the courage to actually paint and share my things.  And I never really knew  that a profession such as textile designer or surface designer even existed!

We all know those little nagging voices inside of us: ‘There are so many better than you. Oh, how would you do the art, you do not, repeat do not, have any art education. So we really need another artist anyway … ?’ Luckily the other »do what you love« voices were louder.

One day in 2009 I went shopping and my eyes were caught on set of cheap sparkling markers for kids. With those I created my first patterns.

Life as a designer-in-progress: Petra Kern's story DWYL1

These were my very first patterns and they made me drunk with joy and happiness.

It felt so good, that one glorious day when I was still on maternity leave (in 2010)  I decided that I have to do this every day of my life or I am going to be very, very unfulfilled and miserable by the time I am eighty. Of course lots of fears came with my decision to do whatever it takes to live from my art and designs. I guess I can count myself lucky that every time I get down because of worries and self doubt those spirit-lifting voices suddenly appear with super strong power and scare those fears away for a  while.

Life as a designer-in-progress: Petra Kern's story DWYL2

In two years my hand painted portfolio of patterns has grown, and I have tried every technique I’ve learned along the way.

I am still searching for my place in the world and right now I would describe myself as designer-in-progress who is ready to offer designs for licensing. I had to discover the whole new world of painting, mixed media, pattern design and computer skills in those two solid years.  Now is time to find people and companies that will license my designs.

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In your own business you overcome a lot of laziness and self doubt. I got through them with new computer pattern designing skills. I am totally self taught.

The greatest lesson my new business is teaching me every day is that once you have your own business nothing is too hard. You suddenly find a great amount of will inside you and a giant hunger for knowledge. Suddenly your little world become so much bigger and when you look around yourself you find that you are among your people who also do what they love. And one more thing – since I am doing what I love I am a person who loves Mondays. For me they are a beginning of a five day creative process. Totally worth it!

[All images courtesy of Petra Kern.]

Find out more about Petra and her designs on her website, Etsy shop, or Zazzle shop, or connect on Facebook.

 

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story DWYL BLOG SHAREDSTORIES 650X250PX LR
Today’s shared story comes from Stacy Chizuk who has a background in social work and a passion for photography.

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo One

Doing what I love is like unplugging from time. When I step into my creative self, I am not bogged down by thoughts of “to do” lists or haunted by plaguing “what-ifs” or the self-destructive “shoulds”. When I do what I love, that ticking clock in my head stops and a joy emerges that I often forget dwells in my soul.

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo Two

I picked up a camera when my first son was born six years ago and I never put it down. My Canon is always thrown around my neck, riding shot gun in my car or stuffed down inside my diaper bag. I started with a basic point and shoot and have gradually upgraded throughout the years. My grandfather was a photographer and on his deathbed five years ago he asked me to carry on the tradition of photographing the family. I agreed wholeheartedly. Growing up I never understood why he would take my sister’s and my photographs so often. We would groan and hide from his large Nikon lens, especially during those awkward pre-pubescent years (picture the 80’s hair coupled with heavy black eyeliner). Then after the birth of my first child I understood. I appreciated the desire to capture a moment of time. In capturing that moment I discovered the challenge to comprehend the magic and mathematics of the light, decipher the mechanics of the camera, and to gaze through the lens as if my own kaleidoscope into the world. I became addicted.

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo Three

I left the field of social work after giving birth to my first child. However, I still wanted to give back in some way without feeling I was losing myself in the giving. I had always loved writing since I was a child and taking the quote from a random postcard I purchased in one of those funky incense-smelling shops, I decided to “take the leap and build my wings on the way down” and I started a photography blog. My intention was to only post photos but it unfolded into a forum for me to write. I write for myself. I write to set free the incessant, sometimes humorous, sometimes solemn thoughts that camp inside my head. When I began to hear my authentic self in my words and see that self in my photographs, I discovered a feeling best described as a liminal moment. A liminal moment as described by author Rebecca Wells in her book Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, “Those moments apart from time, when you are gripped, taken, when you are so fully absorbed in what you are doing that time ceases to exist.” So I began Liminal Moments Photography.

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Since starting my blog and a small photography business, I have been able to incorporate a piece of my social work self in photographing children in foster care that are looking for an adoptive family. Many of these children love the personal attention a photo shoot brings and they often are my favorite kids to capture!

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo

Their ability to smile and shine despite traumatic childhoods is inspirational. When I see my photographs of these children displayed in public arenas, I feel both excited because the photograph truly captures their spirit, yet heartbroken because the reality is their pictures are there because they need a family to love them. My goal in taking their photo is to capture their essence, their spirit, their love. If I can do that, then hopefully I will have helped them in some small part along their journey.

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo Five

Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, “a woman’s creative ability is her most valuable asset, for it gives outwardly and it feeds her inwardly at every level: psychic, spiritual, mental, emotive, and economic.”  When I hold my camera in my hands or free my words through my blog out into cyberspace, I feel as though my soul is being fed. I hope it touches others and helps to ignite their creative spark.

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story Photo Seven

[Images courtesy of Stacy Chizuk.]

To find out more about Stacy visit her website.

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Join us for The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design, – next class starts in April!

Stepping into my creative self: Stacy Chizuk shares her story DWYL 330 X 100 rotating1

Parisian cafes (love, love, love)

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Let’s just say I spent a LOT of time in Parisian cafes. Heaven.

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I think this might just have been the best raspberry tartine in the world, ever.

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More Paris posts here: Parisian markets / Paris story / Les papeteries / Paris details / Window shopping in Paris

I was in Paris researching The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design – join us for the next course starting in April!

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Les papeteries

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Paris and paper are an intoxicating combination. One particular street in the 4th Arondissement, rue du Pont Louis-Phillippe, is home to Calligrane (I literally couldn’t speak this shop was so beautiful), Papier Plus and Melodies Graphiques. The handmade paper, precision and care of display, beauty and textures on every surface, ahhhhhh it was just perfect.

Take a look…

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I also love Intaglio which has shops in both the North and South of Paris.

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Take a look at this fab little video from Jamie Kripke/Visa which gives you a glimpse inside Melodies Graphiques.

More Paris posts here: Parisian markets / Paris story / Parisian cafes / Paris details / Window shopping in Paris