It's the terrible Monday again! I found myself up early today. I got some dishes done, trash collected and taken out and even half cleaned out my car before running errands, getting lunch and then getting to the studio for my summer sculpture class. It seems that lately I have been productive and what I would consider strange hours for me. I have never been a morning person, but I have seen the earlier hours of the morning regularly for the past three weeks or so. Normally once I get home at the end of my day I flop into my chair and don't move much until it's time for me to go to bed but I apparently got bit by the "get off your ass and get shit done" bug and have found myself doing domestic chores, art, and all sorts of things at night. (I'm pretty sure my downstairs neighbors are going to get sick of my late night cleaning sprees soon enough)
Is it the impending end of summer that has my internal voice screaming at me to get as much done as possible so that I can look back and say, "look at all the stuff I did!" Or is it the fact that I am leaving town on Wednesday night, off to see family and all of a sudden all the things that I have been ignoring MUST BE DONE! Either way, I am enjoying the fruits of my labors and hope that the drive keeps on driving so that I can get even more done before the end of the summer.
So that was the hurry up part. The waiting part is sometimes the worst part of the process. For my students, the waiting seems to take forever and in that time they forget everything they were doing, all inspiration flies out the window, distraction sets in and any progress comes to a screeching, horrifying halt. Luckily in my summer class we haven't had to much of that problem because I set it up that they had multiple projects going so they always have something to switch to during the "waiting" time. Waiting for glue to dry, waiting for plaster to set, waiting for... whatever.
As for me, the waiting has become a strange, sometimes wonderful time in between when I can sit back and evaluate, ruminate on options, look forward to the next step or the next project, write a blog post, eat a snack without getting it on my art, or my art on it... It seems that the waiting time becomes precious time for me to stop for a few minutes and appreciate what has come before and what is to come in any situation. Productive time sprinkled with a little waiting is working well just now.
Lessons learned:
1- I have to pay attention to my instincts. They are more often right than they are wrong.
2- Blue... definitely blue.
3- Take a deep breath, then another... then another. Everything will make more sense.
4- Photograph everything!
5- I HATE doing the dishes!! But I love it when everything is nice and neat and clean.
Art thoughts:
Watching students go through the process of ideation, creation, struggle, problem solving, and finally success is one of the best parts of my job. I have found that I am more connected to, and sometimes more proud of the students who have to struggle to get to where they want to be than I am of those who come in with talent where things come easy to them. The ones who struggle a bit, who "fail" but learn from what happens and have the courage to try again almost always go farther, experiment more and develop much more than others. Watching their journey is fascinating and honestly pretty darn fabulous. Bravo to those of you who are courageous enough to fail, learn and try again.
Conundrum questions:
Is there actually any "Failure" in the creative process??
Can you be productive even if you don't actually do anything?
What gets you going? Up and moving? Being productive? Excited about a project?
Until we Conundrum again friend!
Cheerio!
Is it the impending end of summer that has my internal voice screaming at me to get as much done as possible so that I can look back and say, "look at all the stuff I did!" Or is it the fact that I am leaving town on Wednesday night, off to see family and all of a sudden all the things that I have been ignoring MUST BE DONE! Either way, I am enjoying the fruits of my labors and hope that the drive keeps on driving so that I can get even more done before the end of the summer.
So that was the hurry up part. The waiting part is sometimes the worst part of the process. For my students, the waiting seems to take forever and in that time they forget everything they were doing, all inspiration flies out the window, distraction sets in and any progress comes to a screeching, horrifying halt. Luckily in my summer class we haven't had to much of that problem because I set it up that they had multiple projects going so they always have something to switch to during the "waiting" time. Waiting for glue to dry, waiting for plaster to set, waiting for... whatever.
As for me, the waiting has become a strange, sometimes wonderful time in between when I can sit back and evaluate, ruminate on options, look forward to the next step or the next project, write a blog post, eat a snack without getting it on my art, or my art on it... It seems that the waiting time becomes precious time for me to stop for a few minutes and appreciate what has come before and what is to come in any situation. Productive time sprinkled with a little waiting is working well just now.
Lessons learned:
1- I have to pay attention to my instincts. They are more often right than they are wrong.
2- Blue... definitely blue.
3- Take a deep breath, then another... then another. Everything will make more sense.
4- Photograph everything!
5- I HATE doing the dishes!! But I love it when everything is nice and neat and clean.
Art thoughts:
Watching students go through the process of ideation, creation, struggle, problem solving, and finally success is one of the best parts of my job. I have found that I am more connected to, and sometimes more proud of the students who have to struggle to get to where they want to be than I am of those who come in with talent where things come easy to them. The ones who struggle a bit, who "fail" but learn from what happens and have the courage to try again almost always go farther, experiment more and develop much more than others. Watching their journey is fascinating and honestly pretty darn fabulous. Bravo to those of you who are courageous enough to fail, learn and try again.
Conundrum questions:
Is there actually any "Failure" in the creative process??
Can you be productive even if you don't actually do anything?
What gets you going? Up and moving? Being productive? Excited about a project?
Until we Conundrum again friend!
Cheerio!