Artful Musings
Create a Gratitude Art Journal
I’ve been thinking lately about why we focus so much on gratitude every November when we should be practicing gratitude every day of the year. Like any other habit, it can be hard to remember to make gratitude part of a daily ritual, especially when we get busy or when things aren’t going our way.…
Midlife Magic: 7 Humorous Tips for Building Strong Relationships
Hey there, fabulous ladies in the midlife club! Who says your journey of building strong relationships has to be all serious and solemn? I’m here to sprinkle some laughter and joy into this adventure. So, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, sit back, and let’s dive into 7 humorous tips for nurturing connections in…
5 Creative Ways to Calm Your Busy Mind
Ever feel like your thoughts are all competing in a relay race but you never actually manage to hand off the baton from one to the next? Instead you keep dropping the baton and going back to pick up another? This busyness can be caused be an excess of creative ideas, an overly long to-do…
Art journaling tips: How working small can support your creative practice
At the beginning of the year I started a new livestream series on YouTube called Painting in your PJs with Minette. 3 to 4 mornings a week I make art live and share what I’m thinking about, reading or working on. I frequently work in handmade art journals and I enjoy all kinds of mixed…
Draw Like a Kindergartner and Other Ways to Bring More Creativity into your Day
About 10 years ago, I got really serious about my creative practice. I started to explore painting and mixed media. I’ve always been a writer and adding the visual arts to my regular creative practice changed my life. For the past decade I have been using visual and verbal arts as a means of self-discovery…
5 Benefits of a Consistent Creative practice for navigating midlife
Something interesting and predictable tends to happen to women in midlife. You find yourself yearning to reconnect to your creativity. In fact, this longing is so common that it is essential to one of the stages of the Heroine’s Journey as described by Maureen Murdock in her popular book The Heroine’s Journey: A Woman’s Quest…
7 Ways to Unleash Creativity and Tap into Your Artistic Side in Midlife
Tapping into my own creativity over the last decade has changed my life in more ways than I can count. It has shifted the focus on my life’s work and brought me hours of fun, connection and adventure. Now I have regular daily creative practice that nourishes and sustains me. I call it my MAAP…
Rediscovering Passion: How to Reignite Your Dreams in Midlife
Ah, midlife! The time when we women find ourselves at the intersection of wisdom and fine lines. It’s a phase that comes with its fair share of challenges, from juggling career and family to contemplating the mysteries of gravity and wrinkle creams. But fear not, my creative friends! In the midst of this delightful chaos,…
3 Essential Qualities of a Midlife Renaissance
This is part 3 of a 3-part series on the 9 essential qualities of a midlife renaissance. You can find part one here and part two here. The final 3 qualities are vitality, spiritual life and visions and goals. When you combine all 9 of these qualities and take time to review your level of…
Part 2: 9 Essential Qualities of a Midlife Renaissance
In part one of this 3 part series, I shared the first 3 qualities that are essential to a midlife renaissance: creativity, adventure and connection. Today is July 4 here in the United States, a day to celebrate freedom and independence. I think these are two qualities we are seeking to recover in our midlives…
9 Essential Qualities for a Midlife Renaissance
I’ve been thinking a lot about midlife recently and wondering what would most help others to go from midlife crisis to midlife renaissance. I have come up with 9 essential qualities for a midlife renaissance and will share them over the next few days so there’s not one overly long wordy post. I’m wordy enough…
What is The Essential Midlife Mindset?
I recently had the opportunity to host a leadership training for a small group of women from a local company. I was asked to come in with some creative and playful ways to look at what it means to be a leader in this company. One of the topics I always cover is inspired by…
What is a Midlife Renaissance
I like to think of a midlife renaissance as a coming of age for the mature adult. All of your trials, challenges, gifts and talents have primed you to step into a new role of your choosing. A midlife renaissance feels like a brilliant sunrise after a long and tranquil night. Just as the sun…
7 Reasons Why Making Art is Good for You
I’ve been thinking a lot about why I do what I do and how to describe it better, it’s so tricky sometimes to find the words. What I can tell you right now is that I am passionate about using creative process as a form of radical self-care. I also thought about all the reasons…
Two Words to Avoid for Deep Connection
“I’m fine” are two words to avoid if you want to create a deep connection to yourself, to others and to Spirit. I distinctly remember a day in grad school in Austin, TX where I was working on my Masters in Latin American Studies. I was walking to class when I passed my friend Luke…
Me, Mary Oliver and Positive Self-Talk
I have always loved Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” and her now famous lines “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Today I am sitting with this line from the perspective of what will I do with this one precious day? Today is the only…
Inspired by a Gloria Steinem quote
Gloria Steinem has a lot of great quotes but this was one I hadn’t seen before. Do you ever read something and feel like you’ve been gobsmacked over the head with a nerf bat? No? Yes? It seems to happen to me A LOT! It could be because of how much I read or it…
Visual Journaling Page Inspired by rupi kuar
I love the poet rupi kaur. Her short poems are full of depth and insights that often make me catch my breath. This is one of those poems: it was when i stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than…