Tag Archives: answers

Why would a canary be flying along in a Colorado canyon?

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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How would you like to read a new novel, a love story in fact, by Jo Ann Brown-Scott about a woman artist?

You know how I like to talk about Karma, you must already know that I question randomness, you know I am passionate about art and I ask my imaginary friend the art Buddha for approval, you have heard me mention at least a time or two that creativity comes and goes but will stay with you forever if you feed her well…..and I am sure you know about love.

So reading this new novel will satisfy your craving for all of that and more. You need to read it. It is warm and funny, serious and profound, pertinent and relevant and it will introduce you to a new best friend – the heroine named Annie.

available on Amazon.com

http://www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com

Google – http://www.joannbrownscottauthor.com

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Excerpt – A CANARY FLIES THE CANYON

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Have I mentioned that this novel is a love story? Well it is…on several levels.

Annie, the book’s heroine, is a born artist. She was just that way, 100%, through and through from DAY 1 and she knew it from the very moment she could think vs. the kind of artist who gradually grows into art and suddenly realizes one day that she is indeed going to deliberately become an artist. Annie had no choice; she fell in love with visual art long before she ever loved anything else including ice cream and Santa Claus. But she also falls in love with three men as she matures into an accomplished fine artist and a wise human being. Each man brings lessons she needs to learn; each love affair brings her closer to the total person she was meant to be.

Along her journey of life she realizes that timing is everything and rarely does a person stumble upon the perfect pairing of the well-timed opportunity and the freedom to grasp it then and there at the exclusion of every other option. The universe works in wild and wonderful ways; it often tempts us at the wrong times, offering us what we thought we wanted but with strings attached, just for the fun of it to see what we will do. And so we agonize, trying to choose between what we really really want and what the more practical choices are.

Then there is the element of chance; throw that into the mix and suddenly what we really really want seems to have come to us out of the clear blue sky and we view it as almost a miracle; a rare gift; even a coincidence, if there is such a thing as a true coincidence. We wonder if it is going to be our only chance, and we think that maybe we should grab it up while it is still hanging out there, looking so tempting and so grab-able. Maybe we’ll never have another …chance.

What is a chance? Is it a random opportunity sent our way by the universe? But is anything really “random”? Is it a test, to see what we’ll do? Or is it all destiny, written in our stars long before we ever had an independent thought?

In my new novel, which is quite contemporary and current, I placed a bit of my own somewhat ageless and traditional verse at the beginning of each chapter, for contrast, meant to clarify what the message is:

Here is the first one, for the PREFACE,  page vii:

Mankind is on an eternal march;

a trail of humanity driven by instinct

and perhaps divine inspiration.

Although we are at times directionless,

straying randomly from the path

an internal compass guides our way

and we are actually at one with the stars,

purposely aligned and aware

of our place in the universe.

Book available on Amazon.com

http://www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com

http://www.joannbrownscottauthor.com

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The Creative Epiphany – Life’s Texture

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Life is long, if you are fortunate, deep if you are a thinker, wide if you are an adventurer, lofty if you have dreams and greatly, intricately textured if you are given a gift such as the gift of creativity. Everyone is given a gift of course – it is your mission to discover what it was that was awarded to you free at birth and nurture it and employ it well. I claim, most humbly, to have a life that encompasses all of those above mentioned dimensions. My life is never dull; always rich with fascinating people and wealthy in experiences. The days are not long enough, the nights are dark but stunningly visual. Although I am certainly not wealthy, by all other criteria I like to think I have it all – I do have it all – and I feel fortunate and lucky and rich in the details of life.

As I write this on March 1, 2013 I have had a supremely rotten day. One for the books. At one point I was able to remove myself from the action and watch it unfold right before my eyes as if it were happening to someone else, and I was mildly, oddly entertained. In a “dark comedy” kind of way. What was happening was so ironic – so perfect in its awfulness given the circumstances and perfectly badly timed – so poetically pathetic and so much like a film. I wondered what she would do – that woman I was watching who speaks so eloquently about attitude and motivation and life-changing epiphanies. Was she going to be brought to her knees? Was she going to crumble? Could she walk the walk of the talk? Would she cry? Would she have a molten meltdown?

The day is not over and so I don’t know. She seems ok right now but there is still the night – the 3am wake up when everything looks darker than pitch and seems hopeless. Oh yes there are others who have it much worse – she is well aware of where her puny problems rank in the hierarchy of human sufferings. Yet still they are HER problems, and she is the one dealing with them. She can’t hire anyone to take over – it is her life. She can’t be anyone else because they are all taken, as the saying goes.

As does everyone else, I look to myself for answers, and that is a full time job. As dawn breaks I will probably gain confidence that I will be fine. The complicated nature of life and the simplicity of the answers will strike me, and I will figure it all out. As always I will find comfort in people or creativity or mundane tasks. That’s what we do. That is what she and I do – the me, myself and her. We go about our day and let things un-complicate all by themselves, which is what often happens. As the ball of yarn spins out of control and unravels in crazy, loopy textural tangles all across the floor of our life we are already considering that it cannot be left that way, and we know we’ll have to wind it up again.