A Little Muse Tease Before the Book Launch

Meeting My Muses

Thanks to a generous friend, I had a beautiful house all to myself in the beach town of Capitola, California. I planned to spend a quiet week writing, making art, and untangling my thesis. But before my self-made creative residency began in earnest, it was doubling as a one-night romantic getaway with my husband. Well, “romantic” was purely hypothetical at this point. Alex had been so consumed by school lately, it felt like our marriage could use a little nurturing—and maybe some untangling, too. 

The house in Capitola was eclectic and cozy, minimally decorated with modest paintings of grey, longing seascapes, and fruit spilling out of glass bowls. This humble decor belied hidden luxuries, like the five-star hotel-quality memory-foam mattress we were sleeping on.  

I rolled over beneath the Egyptian cotton sheets, stretched like a cat, and reached out to touch Alex. He pulled away and got out of bed before my fingers made contact.  

“Do you really have to go back this morning?” I said as he dressed. “I’d love for us to take a walk on the beach today.” I smiled, then hinted, “Or just stay in bed.”  

“I told you, Robbyn; I have too much to do,” he said, briskly tying his brown leather bluchers. “I shouldn’t even have come down here with you last night.” 

That hurt.  

I had taken my husband out for a date-night dinner at a nice seafood place in Oakland before we drove the two hours down to Capitola. The meal was beyond our budget, and the conversation had been a bit strained, but I wanted to bridge the distance I had felt growing between us lately.  

“I thought you wanted to come,” I pouted, fishing for reassurance. 

“I needed the car,” he said, finally looking at me. And just like that, my already unraveling fantasy of a “romantic getaway” popped into oblivion. 

“For school,” he added when he saw the hurt look on my face. School had become his get-out-of-jail-free card for everything lately—and still, I was trying to make it easier for him. 

He didn’t need the car. He wanted it. But I needed him to want me. 

It was a couple’s trade-off: a night away together in exchange for wheels. But was I the sucker in this deal?  

“Where are the keys?” he asked, standing up. 

“They’re on the table downstairs. Hang on; I’ll get up.” 

“I’ll find them,” he said, waving me back into bed. “Gotta hit the road!”  

“Wait, Alex! A kiss at least?” 

He gave me a quick peck and darted out of the bedroom.  

I fell back on the pillow with a heavy sigh, listening to his quick steps down the staircase. What a waste. My dear friend Anna had generously offered up her mother’s beach house so I could have a quiet, creative retreat to work on my book about transformative artmaking—and I’d hoped Alex and I might take advantage of it, at least for one night. But no dice. Intimacy was another thing that seemed to have taken the back seat to architecture school. 

***

After writing for several hours and taking a walk on the beach alone, I returned, ready to meet my muse. I had brought an entire suitcase of art materials to the house in Capitola, and I was going to experiment creatively with all that had been swirling around in my head since I began teaching in the transformative arts program at John F. Kennedy University while simultaneously completing a master’s degree there in psychology. Something about muses, the mythical journey, and inspiring artists to achieve their potential. I wasn’t sure yet just how the material would unfold, but my self-made creative retreat would give me some serious solitude to write, contemplate, paint, and play.  

I pulled out my paint, glue, and scissors, and some old vintage magazines, and spread them out on the living room floor. Next, I arranged a mini altar on the oak coffee table, which included a glittery scarf, a tall white candle and a bundle of sage resting in an abalone shell; a bar of chocolate and a glass of red wine; my well-worn deck of tarot cards; a photo of myself in kindergarten, sitting proudly in front of my grand-prize-winning art-fair drawing; and a tiny circular tin with the Wizard of Oz cast printed on it. The tin had been a parting gift from Josefa, a student in the Art and Archetypes course I was teaching. 

I threw a comfy, overstuffed Turkish pillow from the couch onto the floor, sat down in front of my altar, shuffled the tarot deck, closed my eyes, and pulled a card. The Tower—Expect the unexpected: massive change, upheaval, destruction, and chaos. “Not exactly what I was hoping for,” I mumbled to myself, leaning the card against the wine glass. I broke off a bit of the chocolate and “offered” it to the goddess of creative inspiration, aka my muse. Then I lit the candle and held the sage over its flame, letting the pungent, sweet smoke fill the room. Once it was glowing, I waved the bundle in a long, slow painting gesture, swirling the smoke in front of my face. Closing my eyes, I was instantly transported to hiking up one of Mount Tam’s dusty trails in Marin County, California, breathing in the wild, dry sage growing there. I took another deep breath and exhaled slowly and completely.  

“My presence in this moment is all there is to give, and that’s enough,” I said out loud. This was the first line of a personal mantra I had crafted with the help of a wise mentor several years earlier, during a group wilderness “hero’s quest” I had joined. ” I trust my expression of myself to reveal a doorway to the divine, no matter what its form.” I took another deep breath and really let the words sink in. No matter what its form. . . . Release the ego! I told myself and took a sip of wine. Then I recited the last line to the universe, which was probably the scariest, “I am willing to reveal myself fully, solely to know the truth of who I am.” But am I? I wondered. I didn’t quite believe it yet, but I was working on it. 

I pulled a stack of magazines from the pile and began to rip out images—though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was the birth of what would later become the Muse Mirror collage. As the hours flew by, I transformed fashion models into paper-doll muses, cutting and pasting them onto colorful, handcrafted papers and cards. I moved to the dining room table, covered it with newspapers, and began mixing media—another precursor that would later inspire Mixed Media Tickles. 

I altered their faces with shiny gel pens and transformed other collage elements with oil pastels and paints. I kept working with the materials to make them my own, changing the context to create and capture my mood. I tore words from the pages and added poetic headlines like “intuition” and “destiny,” and for some cards, more unnerving phrases like “silly, wicked, shocking” and “elevate your expectations.” 

I spread the muse cards I’d made out in front of me and examined them. I was pretty happy with the collection of muses I had invoked from the magazine. I had even managed to create a few male muses. But I was vaguely aware that I didn’t have any older women in my bunch, or anyone who was specifically engaged in something creative.  

Well, you can’t force that, I thought, shuffling my supplies around on the table. Suddenly, a beautiful portrait of a woman in her eighties popped out at me from the newspaper. She was holding paintbrushes in front of a canvas, staring wisely out at me. The photo’s caption said, “Picasso’s Muse.” The image was of Françoise Gilot, who, for a decade, had been one of Picasso’s many lovers. In addition to being the mother of two of his children, she was an internationally renowned artist—working primarily in watercolors and ceramics—and the bestselling author of "Life with Picasso," her memoir. 

“I was a painter before I met Picasso,” the article quoted Gilot, and that line struck me hard. I immediately made another collage card featuring her as a muse.  

When I was finished, I stood back and admired my work. My self-made thesis-writing and creative retreat had revealed far more than I expected. Rather than explaining a theory, I was actively creating transformative art to gain insight into myself. Each collage had its own vibe and character, and I wanted to understand the muses even more. I grabbed my journal, and while gazing at each card, I began writing from the muses’ perspectives while spontaneously naming them. Here is what a few of them had to say: 

Inner Muse: Fifi

Fifi: 

“I’m a traveler; I seek the solo adventure. I love a road trip through the desert or a dark Parisian nightclub. These are my stomping grounds. But I don’t travel light. I carry suitcases and costumes so I can go incognito. I’m a chameleon for the scene. I can become whatever is required to fit in. I am creatively adaptable—a good-times girl, always on the go. But underneath, I can be very lonely.” 

Inner Muse: Françoise

Françoise Gilot:  

“I was a painter before I met Picasso. Life has many chapters. Art is constant. I was already an artist. Pablo was an asshole.” 

Inner Muse: Bernadette

Inner Muse: Rebecca

Bernadette: “I am ready for something new. I’m wild, like an animal. I can’t be tamed—primal freedom. Like a fox, you can stalk me, but I’ll be onto you first. Creatively, I keep you in connection to your intuition.” 

Rebecca: “I’m a fresh-faced romantic, lover of love. Roses are my passion; they symbolize my passion for life and my love for myself. I gather beauty and truth, innocence and honesty. I am what I am. Open and approachable, curious and friendly. But I have my own tastes. Creatively, I am a source for true love within.” 

I also made more muse collages with messages such as “thrown for a loop,” “awaken your senses,” and “change your life.” 

Somehow, almost magically, my découpage muses revealed my inner truth and mirrored it back to me. The creative insights I gained gave me clarity in several areas of my life, and I knew what I needed to do next. The seed for “Kissing the Muse” had been planted.  

But in my wildest dreams, I never would have believed just how prescient those original muses would turn out to be or how creatively “kissing” them would utterly transform me—and my life. 

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