Category Archives: Art Journaling

RELAUNCHING A BEAUTIFUL MESS!!

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Posted by kritzau on January 4, 2012 – 9:04 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling, Home.Food.Garden, Poems and Blessings, Spiritual Direction

Well the site never got “turned off.”

This may have been providential in the midst of shifting my focus to my new site kristinritzau.com (which still exists).  As I have been doing some vision planning for 2012, something became quite clear… TOGETHER WE ARE BETTER. Through the workshops, events, and open mic nights, this has been so evident and so refreshing.  As I thought about it, this is what ABM was birthed out of – a safe space to be yourself, authentic and true.  Why not have a blog where we can continue this community?  Where others can join when they want to and contribute.  Where we can find our voices and share our gifts as well as honor and respect other people in the space.

So here we are in 2012, with a website that never got shut down, and a philosophy to support it.  So why the heck not?  I am over the moon about this idea so here it goes: Each week, at least to start with, a different voice will be featured sharing an original essay, photo, collage, art piece, or poem.  These ideas will revolve around a seasonal prompt which will change every four months.  So for example, if the prompt for this winter is “Finding Hope,” then you would use that to create something to share with this community and your own of course.  It could be just a short poem to a picture that inspires that prompt in you to a story to a painting (which you would take a picture of)… hopefully it will make sense as it begins.

I have contacted a handful of people to initiate the blog which will start next week, but as we get the ball rolling if you feel like you want to contribute something, send me a message and I will send you the prompt for this season.  And remember TOGETHER WE ARE BETTER! Happy New Year everyone.

Savoring Summer

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Posted by kritzau on June 23, 2011 – 3:01 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling, Home.Food.Garden, Workshops/Retreats

Summer is here.

The corn reminds me every morning by growing inches each day, just soaking up the heat. Likewise, the tomato garden on the other side of the yard is not complaining.

That’s a good thing because we are about to leave for a week of contemplative prayer and no technology – therefore, no blogging.  A week of slowing down, savoring life as only one can when disconnected from all things savvy.

So I wanted to show pictures of the garden before we leave so I can see how much it grows while were gone.  And to update you on its progress since I posted not too long ago about the adventure of homesteading we embarked on a couple of years ago.  It has been great hearing about what all of you are growing and getting encouragement too.

I hope to come back from this retreat rejuvenated for this new season with lots of inspiration, love and energy for what is ahead.  I am working on quite a bit of new material and (drum roll) … a new design for the website that will be amazing!  I can’t wait to share it with you. So it’s a good time for a break and I hope you are getting some vitamin d too.

I also wanted to invite you to the homestead for another Beautiful Mess Workshop event.  July 30th I will be hosting another creative day here where we’ll explore what it looks like to discover our true voices and find safe space with other women.  It promises to be a memorable day that many women have connected with over the past couple years. I hope you can make it! And if you have come to one in the past, it would be great to have you back too as new explorations always emerge.  Please click here for more information.

See you soon! Happy Homesteading.

Making a Mess in Colorado

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Posted by kritzau on May 23, 2011 – 6:25 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling, Workshops/Retreats

A lot of paper was ripped in the past four days. And with every tear, I pray that something in the world was stitched up.

I flew to Denver last Thursday.  It was the fourth trip I’ve been on in a month.  This spring has encompassed another country, another county, another state, and all different kinds of amazing events and people at every stop.

The three events scheduled for this past visit flew by, but not without moments to pause, to meditate, to share, to laugh, to rip, to cry, and to heal. I met over 30 women this past week (and even more up north in Modesto) who are longing to find depth, connection, and growth in their communities and with themselves.

(centerpieces for the event at Big Valley Grace Church in Modesto)

A trend is emerging at these workshops of women being reintroduced to the right side of their brain: the creative, intuitive, fluid and often ignored or undervalued side. Through ripping up magazines, finger painting and throwing “normal” structure out the window, we began to breathe a little easier, deeper, and truer together — all at different rhythms, but side by side nonetheless.

It wasn’t without rules though.

“Rules?” You might ask, “I thought perfectionists were trying to recover from those?”

These were different: Read More »

Shadow of Myself: A Confession

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Posted by kritzau on April 4, 2011 – 7:58 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling

I forgot something the last couple of months and for that I must apologize.  You made me remember.  I have forgotten myself.

Last week when I pieced together the pictures of our homestead, I was struck by the surge of energy I had in working on it as well as the almost 200 visits (and counting) to that entry in particular.

I’ve been in a season of emergence. A season where new dreams and desires are materializing while also colliding with other’s expectations and voices.  In this process, I lost my voice.

It wasn’t abused or beaten down – it just became hidden while I tried to envision my life in and through other people’s eyes.  My writing became project driven and uninspired.  It was hard to show up to myself and to others around me.

This all happened quietly and subtly.  Writing and expressing myself were harder as I tried to think about what others would want to read instead of what I wanted to say. Creating was even worse as it became forced and bland. And I was eating quickly and too much – trying to take in as much of life as I could, but it was never satisfying and left me feeling ill and bloated. Some people call this a funk. Read More »

Perfectionist Pictures

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Posted by kritzau on January 24, 2011 – 9:01 am
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling, Workshops/Retreats

Saturday I had the honor of hosting a workshop at my home.  I was excited even before these seven women came over because I knew a little bit about almost all of them and also predicted that they would get along splendidly.  Lucky for me, I was right.  They came in ready to slow down, relax, breathe, and share and I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day with them.

We all need permission from each other once in a while to show the true colors of our souls and our colors came spilling out.  They merged with one another and what seemed unbearable and lonely before transformed into something with hope, messy yes, but beautiful because honesty was present.  So enjoy these pictures of our day together and I hope at some point, I can share this experience with more of you.

(Become a fan too!)

A.new. Art Journal

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Posted by kritzau on October 31, 2010 – 10:24 pm
Filed under A Beautiful Mess, Art Journaling

The past two weeks have been filled with many memorable events.  It’s been hard to find time to write and, even more so, show-up to what is (I plan on writing more on this topic soon).  Although this month has been packed, I did find a moment to move on to my new art journal.  I started art journaling in 2007 and just finished my first journal at the beginning of this month.

Sure there were a few pages left in it and the perfectionist in me thought for a hot second, “You need to go all the way to the end.”  But then the recovery voice showed up and gently spoke, “Those pages can stay empty.  It’s a new season; time to start the journal you’ve been staring at for five months.”

This is the journal:

(sabrina ward harrison’s “make believe” journal from papaya art)

It was a gift for my birthday in June.  And since I wasn’t ready to begin it quite yet, it sat quietly on a shelf in my office reminding me that a new start was just around the corner.  Part of me wanted to grab it at times and repeat the pattern of my youth of starting 12 prayer journals in row, never finishing one of them. I liked the idea of a pretty journal over and over again and not so much the process of sticking with something.  But I learned in that, so for 3 years, I used the same journal…. sometimes begrudgingly, but other times it was better than a conversation with an old friend — it became a friend.  But I wasn’t quite ready for a new friendship yet.  It wasn’t time to rip off the plastic casing or to open the thick, white pages.  The thought of starting something new in June seemed daunting, paralyzing even, as I just received the first copy of A Beautiful Mess.  I needed an in-between; a pause of sorts; a hibernation.  Read More »