Choices, Time, and life just a bit out of control.

Well, all right, a LOT out of control. What IS this thing called control, and do I even want it?

Too many choices, too many opportunities, and an embarrassment of riches! 

I still feel the urge to journal and paint...

I love learning, and I am a sucker for books...but I have way, way more than I'll ever be able to read, on a wide variety of subjects. 

And then there are the online courses and classes and videos and groups and seminars and docu-series and workshops and webinars and membership programs and "summits" that capture my interest or curiosity...

I am currently in two membership programs and managed to pass on another one yesterday, a supporter of two Patreons with lots of wonderful offerings I am behind on, taking a class in February that requires preparation NOW (and it's fun and fascinating so of couse I make time!), finishing up a course I was behind in, and signed up for gnomonworkshops.com for a month or two to learn some new techniques for sculpting...

...and of course there are my own projects. The sewing, the character dolls, cooking, fermenting, herbalism, tinctures, journaling, painting, meditation, qi gong, tai chi, healing modalities...

This is Faeana Fawkes, who appeared in my imagination last summer and would NOT let go...

Who knew Faeana would bring so many more along with her?!  She was the result of a meditation or a shamanic journey after 3 years of foxes appearing in my life.

She was followed by a number of others, including these two soft-sculpture stuffed foxy girls, Joyful and her sister Studious. 

And then there's sewing for myself...

 
And Joseph...

He loves his warm, cozy short robe...

 

And eco-dyeing, one of the courses I'll be taking...there's a Daily Om one, too (and another Daily Om that Joseph would like to take together)...

I AM getting better at hitting delete delete delete DELETE on lists and offerings and courses, and even book temptations, and  I'm unsubscribing right, left, and center (how DID I get on so many mailing lists?!?), but even so...my poor brain feels like a bit of tasty snack food with a bunch of seagulls gathering to nibble it madly (and noisily!) to bits.  

Awake before five this morning trying to think WHICH of the many things to do...and here it is mid-morning and I've accomplished very little.  Paralyzed by choices...and by the internet...

I can't count the times I have aimed for more focus, stillness, attention, Presence...

"Be here now," Ram Dass entreated us, many years ago.  But where is here...?

Nurturing Creativity

Playing with carving my own print blocks

I suppose we all have the occasional dry period when nothing seems exciting, when we just don't feel like picking up a brush, when we're tired or overwhelmed.  And in fact I have a whole post in the pipeline that will be a follow-up to this one, addressing those things that kill creativity--or at least inhibit it to the point of entropy.

And honestly, when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, what inspires us--what nurtures that mischievous and elusive muse--is as individual as we are.

Often, what works for me is to make a list--well, two of them really.  One list of those things that feed my soul, and one of the things that definitely do NOT.  I have done this little exercise time and again through the years...it helps me take compass readings and make sure I'm still on course, as well as where I need to jettison some cargo or turn the wheel a bit to starboard.

Who wouldn't wish to see a few more of those stars like silvery eyes in a velvet sky, eh? (And yes, of course my sailor husband would remind me that starboard isn't up--work with me here, all right? I'm sailing this imaginary sloop...)

I've been doing a lot of jettisoning, lately.  Simplifying, getting rid of excess Stuff--belongings, ideas, occupations, imaginary or outworn obligations.

Making room for Creativity.  For life.

For we ARE creative beings.  That's what we do. Whether we create a piece of art, a symphony, a happy child, a balanced budget, a good meal or order out of chaos, we are fulfilling that urge. I once wrote an article suggesting that that is what we have most in common with the Creator; I still believe that, and I'm more grateful than ever, 25 years later.

Dip pens cut from feathers or sticks

So.  What nurtures creativity?  What inspires me?

Here's my list--this week.  Make your own.  They may be quite similar, they may be entirely different, but they must be honest, straight from the heart. 

• An open mind
• Paying attention
• Meditation
• Listening to what really matters to me
• The light on my sleeping husband's face
• Quiet
• Time
• Books
• Textures
• Joseph's hands
• Flavors
• Play
• New places
• Old ones...heart homes, near and far--places that have touched me
• Music
• Rest
• A new tool--a new pigment, a fountain pen that's smooth of nib, a vegetable peeler, whatever!
• Paper I love to work on
• Beauty
• Nature
• Light
• Color
• Learning
• New ideas
• Reviving old ones that work 
• Taking time for me (if I give it all away, I have nothing left for any of us)
• Honesty
  
• Friends who "get it"  (Get what, you say?  Well, that's as individual as we are, as well.)
• Art--seeing what others have done or are doing can spark a conflagration
• Rembrandt sketches, Vermeer's chiaroscuro, Winslow Homer's watercolors...
• A new direction (the stamps above were my balance from too many weeks of the same kind of thing)
• A different medium--almost but not quite the same as above
• The grace and antics of cats
• A quiet chat with an old friend
• A new discipline
• Old photos
• Time for memory
• Interaction with others...for me, sparingly, but still...
• A quote that speaks to me
• That One Perfect Word--you know, the one that strikes the ear and makes everything different  
• The sure and certain knowledge that there is no one right way when it comes to creativity

A friend's recent art on used teabags inspired these two...thank you, Palma.

My own technique was different...but her work let me take off from there!

And once I have my list?  I do more of that.  Whatever it is, whatever I have time for.  What bubbles to the top, what serendipity throws my way.  What insists I pay attention.

Synchronicity.

This.

Now.

Life, Creativity and Work

I'm a self-employed artist, a freelancer and have been for 30+ years--and I've discovered over those years a sometimes deadening tendency to turn almost anything creative into Work.  Not just painting or writing--but pottery, jewelry making, sewing, cooking, you name it.  Being broke for a substantial period of time has a tendency to do that to you.

I will admit that I'm a lousy employee.  I got fired from my first real job--after 8 months that had to be almost as miserable for them as it was for me!  I didn't fit in well...and I have almost no patience with make-work, arbitrary rules, or, face it, office politics.  Not just at that first job, but my subsequent ones as well.  Self-employment was a godsend!  It's tough, sometimes (thank God the 14-hour-days seem to be relegated to my past!), but at least I have no one to blame but myself for my slave-driver "boss."

Mind you, I have to work; it's part of me.  Bills must be paid, and although that is considerably easier than it was after my first husband died in 1997 without retirement or savings, still...I feel the need to work.  It's good for the soul.  I need to feel that I'm contributing--and that I have that freedom of choice.  I am independent, and it feels good.  Productive.

My beloved husband Joseph takes wonderful care of our finances now, and I will admit it IS a relief not to feel the need to say yes to every single opportunity that comes down the pike.

A HUGE relief. 

But still I do have to watch myself and my tendency to take on too much, to spread myself too thin, to say yes to things that really aren't me (I'm getting better with that one, and learning all the time!)  I have to make sure that at least some of my art (all right, most of it, in my journal) is simply response to my life.  Expressing my own personal vision.  Recording and responding and paying my respects to this gift I've been given--this Life.

I say that a lot to other people, because it's important to me.  To any artist.

And two of my favorite books reinforce that need, that truth--Nick Meglin's wonderful classic Drawing From Within, and a newer book by Mary Whyte, An Artist's Way of Seeing.  Neither are how-to books.  Both are pure inspiration, treatises on seeing and responding authentically, through the lens of our own experience.  Neither tell how to deal with perspective, what color to use for that distant hill, what brush or pen or magic pencil or brand of pigment to buy.

Because truly, that's irrelevant.  Basically, really, it is.  We don't learn to really produce our own expressive art by copying someone else, or by following rules.  We may be stifled by those approaches, in fact!  There is no magic tool...beyond your own soul, your own artist's eye, your discerning brain.  Your heart.

And no, I'm not saying anything goes.  I am saying I have to respond to my life.  That's why, when I write an art book or teach a class, I MUCH prefer to say "I chose this color because it expressed what I was after. I love a big juicy brush. I decided I wanted to change this or that..." instead of take this brush and dip in in that color and make this mark.  (Shoot me now!  Do not even SUGGEST I should say things like that.)

I like to encourage my students to respond to what they see or feel.  Choose a subject that speaks to them. Learn to really see.  And see the why, as well.  Why do we respond the way we do, why does that scene speak to us, why do we suddenly see the way the light bounces off that bird's wing, or the lavender or jade in that shadow?  Why do we notice some small thing that someone else might overlook?  What does it remind us of?  Why does it elicit an emotional response, and just what IS that response? 

Really, what else is even worth painting?  Dear God I hate to give assignments, yes I do.

And you know what else? I don't give a rat's patoot what the Color of the Year is.  I don't care what's selling in NY or Taos.  Those things aren't me, and there's no way I could paint them authentically.  Any works I'd produce under those circumstances might be technically adequate, but they'd be soulless.

Frankly, I'm too old for that.  Time's too short.  I'm going to live, thank you very much!