Time Out

    My life has gone from a winter that was space-walk slow to a season that is almost supersonic.  I'm wondering what happens to my creativity with such drastic changes.   In the past I've often used "time" as an excuse to postpone or frankly just not do art.  When I was very busy with little people I didn't create much.  I told myself I didn't have time or energy. When the little people went to school I had too much time on my hands. Not enough pressure.  It turns out that time has very little, if anything, to do with my creativity.  (Rats, another excuse gone.)

   So, lately my days and many evenings are pretty full, even with my vigilent, busy-ness self-protection.  Not running ragged, but watching those edges carefully.  Meanwhile I've had a new art project idea stewing in my head.  With fabric this time.  Instead of doing the whole thing in one or two sittings I've been doing these 2 minute  air raid "fly-bys" with glue and scissors before I launch off to other tasks.  And behold, art is happening, slowly in tiny snippets but happening.   

Self-management

    At a wellness show with a couple hundred displays I walked past one offering "Self-management" courses and did a double take.  Really?  Instantly I pictured a dog trainer teaching himself to heel or a human resources person with no staff.  Mocking aside, however, I could probably use a course like this.  For me it's much easier to organise someone else's life than my own.  Actually it's certain parts of my life that are hard for me to map out sensible and stick to.  I think these areas are very different for every creative person.
      For me money is fairly easy to keep orderly.  I also have a good sense of alloted time needed for commuting/travel and usually do ok managing adequate sleep, nutrition, exercise and keeping certain stresses low.  Borg efficiency, you know. (See "We are Borg" if you don't know what I'm talking about) What I'm terrible at is charting out and following a plan for making art, keeping all manner of paper under control, being self-directed in reviewing materials from healthcare courses and doing regular house-work (extremely low if not negative on the inspiration charts for me). 

                    Creative dream coach might ask you and me:
1.  Which of your life areas do you find easiest to self-manage? Why?
2.  Where do you struggle the most with self-management? Ideas why?
3.  In which difficult areas of self-managment have you made encouraging progress?
4.  What resources, including people you know, could help you with the struggling areas?
5.  What self-management skills do you have that could help someone else?

Triptych

     My old Webster's dictionary defines a triptych as: a picture or carving in three panels side by side; especially an altarpiece with a central panel and two flanking panels half its size that fold over it.  It's a design that always appeals to me.  This is the first one I've made myself.  Cardboard and acrylic paint.

Left and Right



This is a cartoon I drew about the struggle for my brain and heart to be friends.  The left logic side of  me thinks it doesn't need the right Gestalt side and goes to great, violent lengths to keep the heart out.  If both sides really break down the wall between them there's no telling what might be accomplished.  In reality, this wall brain/heart wall demolition doesn't happen over night.  Learning to cooperate doesn't either.    

Beat it

    I'm learning a new instrument!  It's been brewing in my mind for months.  Finally I've had my first lesson and I'm "stoked", to quote another musician.
   I'll quickly rewind my musicial history to create context. I started with piano lessons in grade 4.  This lasted 5 loosely spaced years where  I was a lazy, whiney, unpromising practicer.  Recitals sent my anxious nerves through the roof.  In highschool I suddenly had events to play for and motivation soared.  Today there's not much I like better than playing piano with a band whenever I can.
    Six years ago I inexplicably wanted to play the flute.  My husband bought me a flute on E-Bay (first and only time) and I couldn't get a sound out of it.  Took a year of lessons and now I can play passably.  Been a lazy practicer with that too, I admit.  Maybe needing more motivating events.
    Now I'm learning to play the drums.  Very exciting.  Very humbling.  This being a beginner is the most trying part but apparently unavoidable.  My brain is going down a whole new path.  The radio has become all about percussion for me and  I listen pretty carefully to drummers I play with.  It's like having a whole new set of ears.
     I've mulled through some "whys" about learning drums.  Feel like I have to explain it.  "To improve my understanding of rhythm", I've told a few people.  "To make me a better piano player", I said to someone else.  "You know, like football players taking ballet."  Maybe.  Or maybe that's irrelevant baloney (do people still spell that bologna?) and I just want to do this.  It's simply time for a new instrument and this is it.  I have no idea if I'll ever be good enough to play with other musicians "for real".  I'd like to try some day.  I also wonder why most drummers are guys though I know a couple "chick drummers" who are very good.  But,  I mustn't get distracted by anomalies. Onward.

Cafe'

    I'm still learning basic things about the culture I'm in.  Recently I attended a live music cafe' event with 2 musicians singing their mostly self written songs.  First time I've been to anything like this.  Some of the music was completely vocal with the singer alternating his vocal accompaniment with the main tune. It was like something you'd try alone in the shower but the matter of factness of it worked for the closely packed cappucino crowd.  One song was about riding a scooter and "smelling the taste of alfalfa".   I'm always intriqued by what people write songs about.  Music makes the ordinary sublime.

Finish Something

Someone sent me a link to  "29 ways to be more creative" recently.  The point that most struck me with, yes, a bit of a jab was "Finish Something".  Ahhh...ya.  Ouch.  Well, I actually did finish a couple procastinated projects yesterday.  The first is this mini painting started early winter.  It was inspired by a night walk along snowy streets that became diamond strewn under street lamps.  Cold air made the sky so clear that stars poked through the black night like sharp needles.

This is something I call a Theme Box.  I've done several for others with various personalized themes but never finished this one for myself started about 4 or 5 years ago.  It's about how I see creativity.  The left side is a bead and wire chair sitting under a full moon  symbolizing being inspired.  That's the part of creativity that is effortless for me.  Next to the chair on the ground is a wire basket with collected "inspiration" symbolized by purple crystal beads.   On the right side, the part I didn't finish for years, is the other side of creativity...actually going somewhere with the inspiration and doing something with it.  There is a little ivy covered stone wall with a gateway.  Leading into and through the gateway is a swirling strand of "jewels", the "doing" part of art traveling to its destination.  Above is a silver frame (a dissembled broach) which is also about completion and a higher purpose and audience for creating.

Irony

  It's like goldy or silvery, but made of iron.  

  This is a crafted piece of domestic history I found at an antique place last month.  It's little hot plate to put an iron onto for cooling off.   The store owner was about 80 years old and the store itself is several gigantic warehouses full of old stuff on his farm property.  There are no price tags and the owner charges whatever he feels like.                                                     

 The irony of me buying this might be that I never iron in real life. I also have a mother who irons everything.  When one of my kids was small and visiting their grandmother who was ironing, they asked why she was pressing down on clothes with that thing.              

  

The Making of S. W.

    Lately I've been reading through 1.5 inches of "The Making of Star Wars" with a Foreword by Peter Jackson.  It's an extremely detailed journal and scrapbook of so much behind-the-scenes stuff that it's both intrigueing and exhausting to peruse.

   In the beginning, George Lucas, who did not like writing scripts, made himself spend 8 hours a day at his writing desk no matter what happened.  He said, "It's a terrible way to live.  But I do it; I sit down and do it.  It's the only way I can force myself to write." He wrote the script for the first year and even after that details continued to change.  "I find rewriting no more or less difficult than writing." He said.   Far into production, a main film character was still called Luke Starkiller until his name was changed to Skywalker.

   George Lucas then struggled to get a contract to make the movie.  The "Making of" book chronicles more hassles and discouragements than one could imagine throughout the entire production.  George's health progressively broke down and at one point he went to the hospital with a suspected heart attack.   It wasn't all blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes, but a lot more than most viewers of the final product could picture without having been through it.  There were, however, lighter, serendipitous and even humorous moments too like this one:

   pg. 159 Filming in Tunisia - The Lucasfilm production met with the Zeffirelli film team 

        "Operated by remote control, R-2 D2 had to trundle off camera and disappear behind a sand dune, but the remote control failed to stop the robot and he wandered onto the set of Jesus of Nazareth."