Hello!

An invitation to join me on the Artist's Way

Hello my dears from a very green Ireland!

Long time no see, at least on Substack.

Life has been quite busy with new businesses, creative projects and adventures underway.

One of the key things which has anchored me over the past few months is Julia Cameron’s rightfully famous The Artist’s Way.

My lovely mom gave me a copy of the book and I’ve been writing my morning pages ever since.

Essentially the book outlines a 12 week course; you write three pages every morning, take yourself on a little artist date once a week and then do a weekly review of your progress.

It’s a really popular way to get in touch with your creativity, even if you think you’re not creative (newsflash: you’re wrong) or have somehow made creativity your entire life (umm yeah that’s also possible too).

I was skeptical but over the past few months, I’ve had so much fun painting, drawing, printing, sketching, clay modeling, stone carving, writing, speaking… it just seems to be an endless stream of creative ideas and fun. Throw your phone in a drawer and give yourself an hour to play!

I’ve become obsessed with the idea that modern conveniences have in fact stolen presence, rather than gifted us free time. Instead of baking bread, we now buy bread and rather than kneading dough for twenty minutes, we now hold a little screen two inches from our face and look at someone else baking bread in the hopes that we buy a cute apron, a holiday or, ironically enough, some artisanal milled flour.

Get out of the artistic cuck chair and actually make something, for the love of God.

So in the spirit of giving back and to test the book’s main theory of following your intuition, I’d like to invite you to join me in doing the Artist’s Way over the next twelve weeks.

All you need is the book! There are audio, digital and print versions galore. I really liked the workbook because your girl has a million things going on, but if you have time, please read the full book too!

I could hold a weekly Zoom meeting on Tuesday evenings to keep everyone accountable and give you a chance to share your experience.

This is completely free and open to all.

Just hit reply to this email if you’re interested or email me directly at hello@spiritandluxury.com

Please join us! There’s already 5 or 6 incredible artists in the group from Ireland and the US. No worries if you can’t make a session or two.

I’ll send out little weekly updates here too.

Love,

Aoife

You too can possess strange kinds of art that are adorably wonky

PS. In case you have completely forgotten who I am or why you signed up to this newsletter, hi! My name is Aoife, I’m a writer-artist-photographer (we’re working on the wording) who runs around Ireland and Europe flying drones and writing poems. I occasionally write newsletters like this one that entertain and confuse my family, friends and a thousand internet strangers.

My website can be found at www.spiritandluxury.com and my Instagram @aoife.long.ireland