Link for the November 2024 Service and Event Calendar  

 
Link for the December 2024 Service and Event Calendar

 
 
Service and Event Calendars are posted on the A.R.T.S. website News and Events page, Service Info page and About A.R.T.S. page.

 

For 2024: Writings on the A.R.T.S. Steps

 

While the Twelve Traditions guide us in the primary purpose of A.R.T.S. Anonymous, the Twelve Steps guide us to recover our inspiration and joy in expressing our creativity. What better way to celebrate 2024 than with a focus on the Steps that corresponds with each of the twelve months. Below is one member’s contribution on Step Eleven.

December’s Newsletter welcomes your response to Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to artists, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The following series of questions are suggested as a guide when writing a response.

What does Step 12 mean to you?

How do you feel about Step 12?

How might Step 12 free your creative expression?

It will be wonderful to receive your thoughts, feelings, and application of Step 12. Please send your response to the editors at newsletter@artsanonymous.org for possible publication.

 

Step Eleven – A Personal Response

 

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

 

Using the 11^th Step and Making Art

To connect with higher power to help with recovery, I journal and see what my fears and blocks are, then write them out for my God Box. Then I get out of bed, go downstairs, and on the way turn over a grey rock with “Turn It Over” painted on both sides in pink, turning these problems over to God. Then I open the curtain in my kitchen and pray for the light of the day. Next, I light a candle on my altar praying for peace in the world and in my life.

Having thus cleared out whatever energy blocks may be in the way I am free to tap into my creativity for the rest of the day.

When in Mexico while I was doing an art installation on an island, I would bike to the beach,
chain up the bike and enter the water praying for inspiration as I began to swim, receiving messages from the goddesses I was mosaicking along the way. I would receive messages as to what colors to use, and words to put on the wall.

At home in my house in Cleveland Heights OH, the prayer might be more mundane, such as asking for the focus to get a mailout done of a journal I edit, or to make the right choices of art to print up.

Whatever the gradation or the project, I am calling in the higher power of God to help me be a channel to get work out.

 

Old Man

Click here for an audio file of a song by Donna D.
 

How the Twelve Traditions Can Guide Service in A.R.T.S. Groups
 
By Cindyann W., Dasha B. and Allegra B.
 

Sharing service responsibility might be the best way for A.R.T.S. 12-Step groups to carry the message to the artist who still suffers. The 12 Traditions offer a wonderful guide for inspiring service within groups. Service might begin with regular attendance at meetings. In time this can lead to serving in roles that support the group. The Traditions help the group build a foundation of safety and security for recovering artists to grow in recovery. Learning how to identify, introduce themselves, and participate in the meeting aids recovery. Faithfulness to the principles found in the Traditions unifies group behavior and what it means to serve the meeting in a leadership role.

The Traditions help members practice autonomy, participate actively and responsibly, and grow in recovery. The Traditions also help the group grow and sustain member attendance. Members adhere to the principles when they step up to lead, and share, focusing on the common welfare and harmony within the group and with one another. The group’s recovery matures and becomes attractive, and members become responsible contributors, rather than passive recipients. This builds a sustaining fellowship while sharing talents, skills and resources. Giving service is voluntary, but it reveals a willingness to adhere to the concept of the “unenforceable obedience” nature of the Traditions. (Lois W., co-founder of Al-Anon and wife of AA co-founder Bill W.)

click here for the complete article

 

 

Motions and Topics Review Committee

By Donna D. and Allegra B.
 

A.R.T.S. Step Study Workshops


 

Step Ten Study Workshop Rescheduled:

There is a Step Five Study Workshop on Sunday, November 24, beginning at 8 am GMT/9 am CET/7 pm AEDT
 

World Service Conference Updates
Most of the Information provided below is also on the Conference page of the A.R.T.S. Website

 

Final Conference Planning Meeting: Saturday, November 16. Decisions need to be made about what happens at the next World Service Conference in January 2025. The meeting begins at 12 noon PT/1 pm MT/3 pm ET/20.00 BST/21.00 CEST/22.00 MSK/6 am AEDT (the next day). All interested members are welcome to attend, Meeting Delegates and/or alternates are particularly needed, as Delegates have a vote and a quorum is needed.

 

 

Dates of the next World Service Conference: January 10, 11, 17 and 18, 2025. Each day of the Conference begins at 10 am PT/11 am MT/1 pm ET/18.00 GMT/19.00 CET/21.00 MSK/5 am AEDT, for a total of 4.5 hours. (Two 2-hour sessions with a 1/2 hour break each day.) Pricing and ticketing details are still being worked out.
 
Delegate/Alternate Delegate Information and Registration: Are you a NEW Delegate or Alternate Delegate from your meeting or group? Or would you like to find out more about becoming a Delegate or Alternate Delegate for your meeting? Please use this link for information, and to register as a NEW Delegate or Alternate. (If you are still serving as a Meeting Delegate since the last Conference, please provide updated contact information in the same registration link if anything has changed.) As a Delegate or Alternate, you will receive regular updates of relevant meetings for Delegates and Alternate Delegates and the World Service Conference.
 
Service Needed in Support of the Conference as it is happening: Zoom Technical Support People, “Scribes”, Security Service. Two to three volunteers for each position would be ideal so that this can be done around people’s schedules and time zones. Please see the Service needed for the Conference page for job descriptions. Email conference@artsanonymous.org to sign up, ask questions, or schedule a training.

 
Please email officemanager@artsanonymous.org, chair@artsanonymous.org or board@artsanonymous.org to find out more about any of these service opportunities.
 

Service: A Story as Old as Time
By Donna D.
 

Once upon a time in A.R.T.S., a little after November 2021, the new A.R.T.S. Board began implementing the idea of having the first ever virtual A.R.T.S. World Service Conference (WSC), making it possible for the whole world to take part easily. One absolute necessity was a Conference Chair, someone reliable to lead us into the unknown. Hundreds and thousands of A.R.T.S. members jumped at the chance throwing their hats into the ring (LOL). The victor was Matt B. from Melbourne, Australia. His recovery background had taught him, “God does not call the equipped, He equips the called”, and “You NEVER say no to service”, or “Suit up and show up” or something like that, and he probably said, “How hard can it be?” Now, three years later, about to lead us for the last time on January 10,11,17,18, 2025, Matt, bruised and battered, but more enriched, courageous and as brave as ever, has given A.R.T.S. an entire List of Duties to guide us into the future. He has developed a fabulous list of exactly what he did for the last three years and here it is below.

Now, you may be thinking, “Yay Matt!!!”

I, too, am thinking, “Yay Matt!!!”, but personally, as Chair of the New Never Before (that I know of) Nominating Committee, I am also thinking, where are we to find an A.R.T.S. member willing and able to carry on this glorious beginning? Who, after reading this list of duties, will throw their hat into the ring? Or, as Johnny Cash might say, “The Ring of Fire?” 
 

click here for the complete story [page 1]  [page 2]  [page 3]
 

 

A.R.T.S. Closing Prayer
 

In closing, I would like to say that no matter how distanced we may feel from our creative sources, no matter how long it has been since we were in touch with our creative spirit, or how feeble may seem our creative impulses, they are reawakening in our Higher Power’s time, through this program and through our actions, no matter how small or how simple, a day at a time. I may not be able to see my own growth, or even to see my creations as beautiful, but I am able to see yours as inspiring and enriching my emotional, spiritual and physical world. We are not recovering merely to hide our light under a bushel; our creative gifts are a gift. To celebrate them, we humbly apply ourselves, sometimes to the work of art, and sometimes to play. May A.R.T.S. Anonymous teach us that our art, celebrated, will benefit and feed our own souls first, and the world’s second, for the world hungers as much for this beauty as for food. We meet here together to feed this deeper hunger.