My name is Buffy aka Wenona Gardner. I am enrolled in the Stockbridge-Munsee band of Mohicans tribe. I wanted to share with you a little bit about why the Artist's Way is so special to me. I first came across AW in '96. I have completed the "Artist's Way" three full 12 week cycles. I am currently working in Julia Cameron's "Vein of Gold" in the Kingdom of Story under the Narrative Timeline section. I also have Cameron's audiotape of creative affirmations called "HeartSteps."

In May 26, 2000 I created the Artist's Way Circle of Milwaukee Yahoo! group and moderated it for over two years and still do now. I have musical experience that reaches back to when I was 8 years old. I studied violin for 2 years, saxophone for 1 year, and clarinet for 8 years. I performed in several bands, orchestras, and musicals. I also played the Native American flute for 9 years and was the lead singer for the Oneida Intertribal Singers of Milwaukee. I obtained a business & management and arts & humanities degree from Alverno College in '95.

In 1996, I was sitting in Highwind books in Milwaukee. I was in a comfortable chair, sipping green tea, and listening to mesmerizing music when I noticed a book on a nearby table, the Artist's Way book. I picked it up and as I thumbed through it I felt this was MY book. It spoke to me and I immediately bought it.
 

My life was more fun and playful as I did the Artist's Way journey. It was doing little things like buying myself more strawberries, taking a mandala art class, and going to a theater show that gave me a sense of greater abundance in my day to day life.
 

But it also stimulated BIG changes too! I mustered up the courage to dare to live out my creative dreams...I went back to college at UW-Milwaukee to study drawing and painting post graduate. I began to play my Native American flute publicly in the park. I helped paint a mural and got my picture in the paper! These were so exciting to me!! So when I completed my Artist's Way journey, I decided to do it again, but this time I joined an online cluster (that no longer exists) to do it with. I loved the interaction!! I dreamed that such a group could be brought to Milwaukee's creative and artistic people!

While I have had a long background learning music, it was only when I began to sing native songs and play the Native American flute that I began to feel the most benefits. I find myself talking about Native American culture more and it also shows up more often in my Morning Pages. I find more joy in exploring native themes in my drawings too. Indigenous artistic expressions are definitely the best medicine for healing to me!

WHAT I AM CREATING NOW?

I still love making collages with rubber cement (I love the smell of rubber cement. lol), looking at crazy quilts, star quilts, stained glass rosettes, and crystals. While I still do art, music, jewelry making with beads, and dance...I am trying to put more focus on my writing. Musically, I recorded my own mp3 singing the "Rose." I want to record me singing in more mp3s. I have my Azure Breeze Gallery website of drawings, paintings, and poetry at: http://www.geocities.com/azurebreeze 

I created the Artist's Way Circle of Milwaukee inspired by my experience using Julia Cameron's' The Artist's Way. The group of 164 members will celebrate it's three year anniversary May 26, 2003. You can check it out at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artistswaycircleofmilwaukee

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