New Year/New To Dos

Beginning the new year with pneumonia is not the ideal way to start, but working from my bed and pondering a madeliene, I have built a new website, reflected on the year ahead in my journal, and read many books. I am not one for resolutions when the new year comes, but I do like to-do lists. I found the image above randomly online when I was researching for the script for Neverland , this summer's show at Circus Juventas. It seemed like the perfect list for the new year. 

According to J. M Barrie  and his character Peter Pan all you need is a little fairy dust and...
“... Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!” 

Barrie also wrote: 
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” 

This all seems like sound advise for the artist. Positive thinking("happy thoughts") and the right tools for the project (fairy dust), can make magic happen in the studio, but the moment doubt sets in, creativity ceases. 

This year I will have faith that I can fly, or at least learn to fly, and then hopefully, I will fly away. It is all one really needs to be an artist. And I agree with Leonardo Da Vinci:

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” 

A finished manuscript, a finished set of illustrations for a book, or the finished set come to life with the performers stirs a feeling of having taken flight in me. During the process of creation I have grown wings. In the interim time of planning and sensing what is next, I long to return quickly to flight. But it can take awhile, especially with pneumonia. As I cough a little less and even dance a little in the kitchen while making tea, I can feel a fledgling's wings flapping inside. I am beginning to think of happy things… where's the fairy dust?