Some Thoughts on ‘Gifting Circles’
The other day a friend - a 24-yr old woman - asked me what I felt about "gifting circles" - what I knew about them and how it jived with me.
I said I felt that these gifting circles prey on an innate greed* along with an innocence and naiveté in people. They operate under the guise of 'female empowerment' or 'manifesting abundance' and the 'law of attraction' (which is about the most materialistic spiritual belief system out there) and this 'circle of sisterhood' where women can share what they are going through, etc. Yet, at its core, there is this offer of an up to $40K 'dessert' they will receive when they reach the inner ring/top of the pyramid/head of the table, etc. Having nothing to do with sisterhood, that is the ultimate driving force leading people to join. After all, most women already have a circle of girlfriends to share with.
Seeing the Spontaneous Creation Through to Completion
There's much to be said for the value of doodling. I've probably even said a bit of it already. I think so much importance is put on the idea of 'a finished drawing' that it's sometimes possible to loose sight of the looseness of the spontaneous flow. In fact, the specificity of a 'finished drawing' (said with such grand eloquence) can cause one to over think what one is setting out to do.
When I make a drawing of a painting I'm going to create there's a lot of, well, doodling that goes into those first intimations of the image. When an idea comes to me it's never a fleshed out finished thing. It's sort of like a big broad brushstroke that says 'something like this.' What follows are a lot of scribbles, dashes and dots, lines and curves, and trying to understand my lines, my motives, my reasons for making it.