I want to get my art started. It isn’t beating very well. I forget to take time to exercise it, to keep it healthy.
It isn’t due to lack of materials. I’ve got paint and canvas and decoupage goop and brushes and watercolor pencils and watercolor paper. The list goes on. Trust me, I’ve got stuff. I even have a cute little bin that looks a bit like a small attaché case that I’ve put the words “Art Attack” on it using my label maker. I figure if it is portable, then I’ll do it more. Nope. Rarely works.
I’ve seen books that I like the style of. A little bit of words, and a painting or three to a page. Sometimes they are travel books, sometimes they are children’s books. The illustrations are irregularly sized, mostly rectangles though. Some people can make watercolor look so simple.
I’ve decided that I’m making this too hard. Just like with writing, I need to set aside time to do this. Once a week? Once a day? Whatever I pick, I’m going to have to stick to it. If I wait for the muse, she’ll never come. Sometimes you have to go find her.
Part of the issue that I’m having is I like to be free with my art. I like to get immersed when I’m creating. I don’t want to have to suddenly stop and have to get ready to go to work. Art, when done well, is transformative. It is like a soul-journey. It is like getting stoned, but without the illegal part. So I don’t really want to work on my art first thing in the morning. But then I don’t have time when I get home, and the light is bad.
Another issue is that I don’t want to waste the materials. I want to use them well, to make good art. Paint and canvas can’t be re-used in the same way that beads can. You can’t move stuff around to make it look better in the way that you can with words, either. I feel a need to think it through and get it right. So instead of potentially making a mistake, I make nothing. Talk about wasting materials.
I need to follow my own advice. Something is better than nothing, and if I make up too many rules about this then I’ll never do it. If I think that it has to be perfect, to look like the illustrations in the books I enjoy, then I’ll never do it. So I have to commit to this, and just create. I need to create for the sake of creating, with no editing or self-censoring. I need to remember that it isn’t the end product that is the point, and to just enjoy the process.
There is nothing like drawing something to make you really SEE it. There is this concept called closure – we see what we think we are seeing, most of the time. We see what we expect to see. But when we slow down and try to draw something, we notice all the things we’ve missed. By making art, I learn to really use my eyes to see, not just to look.
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Category Archives: Creativity
Butterfly
I’ve noticed that I want to pin down words like butterflies. They come to me and I want to stop them, to hold them. I want to look at them again and again.
I’m doing it right now.
I write to understand. I write to discover. I write to remember.
I don’t want to lose a single idea. There are so many. The more I write, the more things I have to write about. It is a deep well. But then I’m afraid it isn’t deep. I’m afraid it will dry up and leave me stranded, holding this bucket, looking stupid, standing at this well.
I remember the story of Jesus standing at the well with the Samaritan woman, in John 4:1-26. She was an outsider, someone that Jews weren’t supposed to associate with. Jesus is all about that. Jesus is all about the outcast, the outsider. The leper. The menstruating woman. The tax collector.
He tells her about living water, water that will never run out. He is that water.
Maybe if I tap into that living water I’ll feel safe. I’ll feel like I’ll have an inexhaustible supply of words.
I have a feeling I’m only standing in the shallows right now. Knee deep, looking out at the ocean, breathing in the salt air, listening to the gulls.
I feel like I’d like to jump in, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of drowning. I’m afraid of losing myself. I’m afraid of it all being too much.
I catch words in my journal and I string them together in my blog. I feel like I’ve put out an antenna to God. Hey, I’m here! I’m listening! Give me what you’ve got. Talk to me.
I feel like if I stop listening then God will stop talking.
Well, deep down I know that God won’t stop talking, but I feel like I’ll stop being able to hear.
But butterflies are more beautiful when they are flying. And the truth that can be spoken isn’t the real truth. Truth can’t be pinned down, but you can point towards it.
I know my words aren’t everything, and that not many people read them. I know that I understand things more when I write. I’ve had a few people tell me that they understand things better when they read what I’ve written.
So I keep writing. I’m trying to find a better balance with my notebook though – to not be so obsessive about writing every thought down. Patience and faith are part of it I think.
Blogging about blogging
You have to be a little arrogant to write a blog. You have to honestly think that you have something to say that other people should read. You have to be a little brave and a little foolish and you have to not care what others think. You have to write for yourself. You have to write for your own sanity.
You have no way of knowing what your audience wants to hear. I’ve written about religion, creativity, getting healthy, women’s issues. I’ve written poetry and compiled lists of books. I’ve gotten new followers after each different thing and thought, if this is what you think this blog is about you are going to be very surprised.
Sometimes I think new people follow me because they have one of those blogs where they get money for each person who clicks on their page, and they want to lure me into doing that. I don’t have any respect for these people and their blogs. They aren’t using their blogs to inform or educate or inspire. They aren’t using their powers for good. I think they are wasting time and talent, and I think that is a shame.
I carry around a notebook all the time. I’m forever getting ideas for topics. If I am at a loss for what to write I just turn to a page and my outline is there. Sometimes I free-write and the ideas I’ve already jotted down are folded into the mix.
Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with ideas that seem so radical and revolutionary that I have to scribble them down before I lose them. Sometimes I’ll be interrupted as I’m writing and I’m concerned that I’ll forget what I was saying.
I started this blog to explain my jewelry. Sometimes I don’t think in words. Sometimes I try to express myself in beads. I can get harmony and rhythm and pattern with beads as well as words. But with beads I have to explain myself. People don’t know the background of the beads. They don’t know the history. So when I’m sharing the story of a necklace that is significant, it is important to give the background story.
I couldn’t figure out how to attach pictures at first. What is the point of talking about beads and jewelry if I can’t show pictures of beads or jewelry? So I just started writing. I planned on at least one post a week, with a goal of three times a week. When Lent came, I made posting a minimum of three times a week part of my discipline. In order to do that I had to make time. I realized I was spending about an hour every morning on Facebook. I was mindlessly using it the same way I used to mindlessly watch TV. So I now write before I open up Facebook, and I find it all works out.
Mindful use of time is really important to me. I don’t know if I would have found this so important if my parents hadn’t died so young, but they did, and I do, so there you are.
I now spend at least an hour writing every morning. I write at lunch. I write when my husband is driving us places. My Kindle is my favorite tool for this. It is terrible for editing but it is fabulous for raw writing. I can then email it to myself and edit appropriately at home.
I now post on average once a day, often more. I have a huge backlog of half-written ideas and even more jottings in my notebooks of other ideas. I feel that it would be nice to have the time to write up all that I have. I also realize that having actual life experiences gives more flavor to what I write. I also realize that if left to my own devices I rarely complete projects. I need deadlines and limits. I need to be yelled at for an hour at the Y to get in my exercise for the day.
Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll run out of ideas. Sometimes I’m concerned that I share the best things first, so if I were to be in an accident I wouldn’t have kept the best for myself.
Sometimes I think nobody is actually reading this and it isn’t going to make a difference at all.
I know that writing is helping me think more clearly.
I know that writing is an important part of my plan to make myself better.
I started posting as notes on Facebook. Then I realized that I wanted to share some of what I’d said with people who weren’t my friends there. I had to create a blog or remember to cut and paste and email each person each piece. Honestly I’m too lazy for that.
There has been a weird side effect of starting a blog. I’m actually surprised that strangers are interested in my words. I’m stunned to see the statistics here, of where everybody is reading from. Romania. Ghana. Zimbabwe. Qatar. The Philippines. Australia. My words are travelling the world.
This is weird and beautiful and amazing.
I hope you get something useful out of my words. I hope you are inspired and encouraged and comforted. I hope you share your talents, whatever they are, with the world. I hope you find you are not alone. I hope you start that project and keep on going until the end.
Supplies – to paint or not to paint
I have so many unused art supplies it isn’t even funny. I have canvas, paint, and image transfer tools. I have books on how to do new techniques. I have fabric and beads. I have stamps and magazines for collage.
And sometimes they just sit around because I’m afraid of messing it up. I’m afraid of using it wrong and wasting the materials. I have to admit that I’d rather do nothing than do something.
Beads are a little more forgiving. I can restring them if they don’t work out the way I planned. But paint and canvas and collage? Not at all. Once it is used, it is used. That is money wasted if it doesn’t work out. But I’m wasting money by not using it either.
I’m trying to change my mind on this. I’m trying to see it as process, not product. Working on a piece is a process. Every failed attempt is a learning event. Everything I learn from trying something new will end up in teaching me how to do it “right”.
I want everything I make to be perfect. I’m not very good at giving myself second chances and do-overs. I’ve found the way through this with writing. I’m OK with the idea of writing about the same subject from different angles. I’m OK about using the same idea or concept in different pieces.
But that isn’t as easy with artwork. Some pieces are permanent. I could make copies of things and use them, but somehow that lacks legitimacy. There is a risk in using the real thing. There is something about that risk, that legitimacy, that I crave. Yet that is also the very thing that I fear.
Cycle (On taking time off for yourself)
This being human is cyclical.
We aren’t awake all the time. We aren’t creative all the time. We aren’t at our best all the time.
When we “fall off the wagon” of our plans – exercise, diet, or any creative goal, we feel like we are failures. And it is very hard to get back on that wagon and get going again.
But it is essential to allow for these times of rest and reflection.
Just like a seed has to spend time in the dark to begin to sprout and grow towards the light, our lives need times of inwardness and quiet.
This is very hard. Perhaps it is a guilt thing that our society puts on us. We think we should always be active and moving and growing. We think we should always be working on our book or painting or exercising.
But this simply does not mesh with nature. Every creature has to sleep. Every plant has periods of growth and decay. We have simply to look around us at the natural world to realize we are fighting against what truly is.
We like to think we are above nature. We have done a pretty good job of separating ourselves from it. We live in houses where we can have light anywhere and anytime. We can adjust the temperature to anything we want to suit our needs or our whim. We have created things to eat that do not resemble anything in nature.
So of course we don’t know about the natural cycles. We think we are more than nature. We forget ourselves when we do this. We set ourselves up for failure.
When we wind down and stop going to the Y or start eating fried foods again and we gain some of our weight back we tend to beat ourselves up for it. We think we are failures. We don’t notice that we’ve only gained back 5 pounds when in total we’ve lost 50.
When we wind down and stop creating we tend to think the same thing. Whether it is painting or drawing or sewing or writing or beading, we sometimes have a tendency to notice all the blank canvases or raw materials than see the finished work.
There is certainly a danger in taking time out. There is a danger in that lull, that slowing. There is the danger that you’ll stay there, doing nothing. There is a danger that you’ll stay in the dark and never sprout.
Inwardly, we all know this. We may not be able to speak it out loud. But that feeling drives us to get over our “slow” times or “no” times as fast as possible because we are afraid we’ll be stuck there.
But then we may burn out. If we constantly work ourselves we will wear out. We need down time. We need slow time.
Scheduling it helps. Entering into it intentionally helps. Being patient with yourself helps. Consider it a Sabbath for yourself. It is a time out, a time off. If you plan for it then it is easier to accept. It is like scheduled maintenance for your soul. Don’t wait until the carburetor of your creativity breaks down.
Writing and the Word.
The more you pay attention to the results, the more you aren’t paying attention to the now. People need to hear what you have to say, but the more you think about how you are going to present it, the less you are actually presenting it.
Don’t worry about the title of the book or how you are going to manage the book tour. Just write the book. And how do you write a book? Word by word, line by line. If you look at the hugeness of the idea of a book, you’ll never get started. If you start to wonder if “hugeness” is really a word, you might not even get to the next paragraph.
I find it helpful to work in other mediums as well, such as painting, collage, and beading. Any creative exercise is the same. You can learn something about the process of creating while doing anything creative. Whatever you work on, it will almost never end up the way you planned. Often that is a good thing. Whatever the medium you will learn patience and practice and process.
Let the Spirit of the Creator work through you. We are merely vessels. We aren’t the life-giving nourishment within. We are just a way to hold it.
What if someone needs water, and you bring it to them? Do you bring them a glass or a bucket? Or perhaps they need a sippy cup. Or just a handful? They need water to live, but bringing it to them in a way that they can’t handle isn’t fair or helpful. They can’t drink from a firehose. Perhaps they can handle a garden hose, but then they would feel like you don’t care.
Do you use your best stemware, or do you use a plastic cup from Taco Bell? The water is the same. They need the water to live. But how you present it makes a huge difference.
Some might feel that they aren’t worthy to use the stemware. It is handcut lead crystal. It is from Waterford, Ireland. They are afraid they will drop it. They are afraid they will chip it.
Then there are those who feel insulted if you serve them water in a plastic cup from a fast-food restaurant. “Don’t you know who I am?”
The same is true of giving people the truth. They might not be ready to receive what you are ready to give. They might not like how you are serving it to them.
You can’t please everyone. Serve the water. They need it. You can make it easier or harder but you still won’t reach everyone. Write what you want to write, the way you want to write. Some will get it. Some won’t. That is ok.
On writing.
I’ve always heard that if you want to be a writer, just write.
While this is true, it makes it seem so simple. And it is that simple. Yet it is very hard. Anybody can write. Not everybody can write well. What makes a good writer is a lot of practice and not a lot of self-editing at the beginning.
We think we should be able to write well without any work. We are surrounded by language all the time. We talk in complete sentences (mostly). We are able to make ourselves understood. But writing is a skill that has to be learned and practiced. It doesn’t come naturally.
It is a lot like running a marathon. It isn’t something you just go do. It requires training, and the right mindset, and the right equipment.
I have a degree in English, with a concentration in writing. This doesn’t help me at all. What helps me is that I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I’ve written in a journal for most of my life. The only time I stopped writing was when my parents died, and at that point I switched to beads as my creative outlet. I strung together beads like I did words. Each bead was symbolic of an idea. I still work with beads even though I’ve gone back to writing. It is refreshing to not use words all the time.
Julia Cameron tells us in “The Artist’s Way” to write three pages every morning. This is very helpful. Write three pages of whatever. It is your warmup. Write about the weather, or how scratchy your pen is, or how much sleep you didn’t get. It doesn’t have to be wonderful, and it probably won’t be. Morning pages aren’t for public distribution. Morning pages are to get things going. You may come up with something fabulous or a seed of a blog post from morning pages, but don’t worry if you don’t.
Carry a notebook with you at all times. Become a sifter, a picker. Ideas will come to you and your job as a writer is to catch them and save them. Anne Lamott says ” Carry a pen with you everywhere, or else God will give me all these insights and images that were supposed to go to you.” This way, when you are ready to write, you already have the ideas captured. It is then simple to string them together into paragraphs and pages.
This took me a long time to figure this one out – divide the notebook in sections. Put a topic at the top of each page as it comes to you. Fill in the pages as more of that topic comes. This way you aren’t flipping the notebook pages back and forth trying to find similar notes when it is time to write.
Margaret Guenther in “Holy Listening” tells us that it is OK to cover the same topic. You won’t ever exhaust certain topics, and by approaching them from different angles on different days, you’ll find out different things. Go ahead and write what you have to say now, knowing that you might have other things to say about it later. You won’t ever have it all in one place. Write anyway.
It takes a pretty high level of self esteem to write when you know other people are reading it. It means you think that you have something worthy of being heard. Here’s the important part – everybody has something worth being heard. Every single person’s voice is important. Use yours. I’m giving you permission. Even if you think it is just silly rambles, write anyway. Somebody will get something from it. The more you write, the better you’ll get at it too.
Do something rather than nothing. Your post might not be as wonderful as you think it should be. It might be OK, but not stellar. It is better to post it and move on than to not post it at all. I’m always surprised when people say that they really liked something that I thought wasn’t my best.
Whatever you write, it will look pretty ugly at the beginning. Nobody writes perfectly composed pieces at the beginning. This is true at the beginning of writing in general, and writing each piece. Let go of the self-criticism and just keep working.
Begin at the beginning. (on writing, and any other creative exercise)
When you first start to write, it is not the time to edit. Don’t even slow down to check quotes or references. Just write. Write big and loose. Go wherever you feel called to. Jot down any idea that comes to you, even if it seems unrelated. The fact that the idea came to you while you were writing on that subject means it is connected somehow. It might be leading you somewhere really good.
I start with something I call seeds. Any idea can be a seed. Any idea can be the start to something great. I have a lot of them. I carry a small notebook with me at work so that whenever I have an idea I can jot it down. Those seeds then form the basis of what I start with when I have time to write.
Then is when I water the seeds. I take the time to add more words. I fill out the ideas. Sometimes my seeds are just a few lines, like four or five sentences. They are the basic ideas that I want to get across, but they aren’t filled out. I then take time to add to them so there is a logical connection between them. Then while I’m writing other ideas will come to me on that topic and I’ll add them. Sometimes I don’t know where these ideas are coming from, but I add them in anyway. This too is not the time to edit.
Once you feel like you are done, it is time to prune. Your seed has grown up into a big plant because of all the work you have done on it. Sometimes it has grown up too big and needs to be divided. Sometimes it is a bit messy and ugly looking because of typos or weird connections.
For me, there is a wave of energy that I feel when I’m adding to a piece, and when that wave dissipates I take the time to edit. Some sections work better than others. Some sections would work better being combined. Some sections need to be at the beginning, but I thought of them at the end. That is the joy of writing on a computer. It is really easy to edit.
I’m a big fan of writing longhand on paper because I don’t get distracted by the clicks of the keyboard on the computer and I don’t have to slow down to fix the weird autocorrect on the tablet. It is a lot more seamless. It goes faster. I think it is important that whatever tool you use to write, it doesn’t get in the way. You don’t think about it much, so you can concentrate on writing. But when I write on paper, I then have to type it up. I actually am envious of Neil Gaiman who has an assistant type up all his writing. The convenience of pre-writing on the computer or tablet is just too much to pass up so I’ve started doing that all the time. I’ve realized that I get about five hours during the week (in bits and pieces) at work that I am free to write. That is a lot of time.
Ideally, I’d get to write in several places at once. It would be nice to have three or four pieces I’m working on and be able to go to them wherever I am. I could start a topic at home on my computer, and then work on it a bit on my tablet at work, then finish it back at home on the computer. So far I’ve not found a way to do that. I don’t edit on the tablet because the last time I tried to cut and paste I lost three paragraphs forever. So I use it for raw writing. I then email what I’ve written to myself and I copy and paste it into a new Word document at home.
I usually have four or five different topics I’m working on at a time. Sometimes I’m more drawn to work on one. Sometimes I go to one because I don’t know what to write for the other ones yet. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m ready to write on one because I am too close to it. Sometimes I feel like the yetzer hara, (the “evil inclination” that is referred to in Jewish philosophy) is trying to keep me from writing about what needs to be written about. I really want to blast on the “prosperity gospel” but I feel blocked right now. The fact that I’ve named it might give me the energy to work on it later.
I have at least 60 seeds on my computer. If I don’t have an idea of what I want to write about in the morning, I’ll look at them and see if any are interesting today. I’m ok with the idea that some may never grow. Some end up being grafted together. Some I’ll work on for a bit and find it is going nowhere. I then leave it and will work on it another day. Or not. At least I’ve spent some time on it. Any writing is better than no writing, and what I’ve done doesn’t go away. I’m closer to finishing that piece now. Even if I never finish that one, the fact that I wrote at all will help me with the next piece. Discipline and consistency is part of it. The only way to be a writer is to write.
I don’t feel like I have to have a finished post every day. I have a goal of three posts a week so I do have to be diligent and actually finish something every now and then. That is part of the problem – I have a lot of seed-starts. Because of the writing I’m doing at work on breaks I have a lot of one and a half page starts. Right now I’m getting a lot of new ideas so I’m trying to gather them in so I don’t lose them. I feel like I’m saving up for a dry spell when no ideas come. Then I’ll have pieces to work on because I’ve saved them now. Maybe I won’t have a dry spell, and ideas will keep coming and I’ll just have an excess. Who knows? Maybe the excess of ideas is a trick from the “evil inclination” to keep me from finishing up other things. Maybe even writing about writing is an excuse to not work on something important.
Sometimes writing is like going on an adventure. Sometimes it is like driving down a road. You have an idea where you think you are going. So you get started with the name of the city in mind. You drive a little way and you see an interesting store you’ve never noticed. So you stop. You get sidetracked. There is an alleyway that calls to you. Or you see a billboard for an attraction you’ve never heard of. You may never get where you were headed but that isn’t always the point. If you are writing creatively it is ok. Now, if you have an assignment then you have to rein it in and not go wandering everywhere. You may end up writing two different things- the one for the class and another for fun.
Sometimes the answer is within the asking. Sometimes just by writing the question you will hear the answer. That is the most magical part about writing. When done right, writing is like praying. You write, and you hear the answer. You learn from writing. You end up in places you never thought you’d go, and all from the comfort of your favorite writing chair.
How do you know when you are finished? Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you’ll want to keep working on a piece over and over until you feel it is perfect. It won’t ever be perfect. It will be what it is right now. Sometimes it is good to just stop and let it go. You may have more to say on that topic later. Then write some more – but not on that piece. Start fresh. But just write.
By the way – the same rules apply for any creative exercise. Painting, beading, embroidery – the same is true. Just start. And then keep going. Or to quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – “’Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’”
Waking up.
When I’m trying to wake up in the morning I often will rub my arms and legs. This is what midwives and nurses do to babies to get them to start breathing on their own just after they are born. Perhaps we all need that – to wake up. We need to know that we are independent beings. We need to awaken fully into who we are. But sometimes we need someone to do it to us. We need some external stimulus to attain some momentum. I’m trying to do that here, to myself, and to you. I’m trying to wake us up.
We spend so much of our lives asleep. Every day is the same. We get up, eat the same cereal from a cardboard box, dress in our collared cotton shirt and pressed slacks, and drive the same route to work. It is like we are machines rather than human beings. It actually is a good sign if we start thinking “Is this all there is? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my days?” This means we are starting the process of waking up.
But sometimes we don’t even think that. Every day we walk the same, think the same, act the same. Each day leads into another day until there are no more days. Then we wonder what happened to our lives. What happened is that we didn’t pay attention. We were sleepwalking.
I saw a video narrated by Alan Watts that said that it is important to be who you are. It is important to do what you love instead of worrying about money. If you do what you do because that is what you are expected to do, then you will be miserable your entire life. But there seems to be a catch here. We can’t pay the bills by painting a check. We can’t feed ourselves with beaded fruit. These things might be beautiful but they don’t sell themselves. And what about health insurance? That is very expensive if you are self-employed. I read about a comic book artist who discovered that she had epilepsy. She couldn’t afford the medicines for it. So there was a fund set up for her to raise the money. This seems like a nice idea, but what about the next person, and the next?
How is this different from standing on the street corner with a hat out? I would love to bead and paint and collage and write all day long and not worry about the electric bill or the mortgage. It would be great if I could just start a Kickstarter campaign to make sure my grocery bill was covered. But this sounds too much like panhandling. Isn’t this rude of me to expect everybody else to take care of me? If we all quit our jobs and start living the lives we want then how is anything going to get done? And who is to say you can’t have a fulfilling life being an electrician or an accountant?
Perhaps I’m still lying in bed, rubbing my arms and legs. Perhaps I’ve not come up with the momentum yet to get up and go, and try out this whole new life. Right now I shoehorn in my other life. I bead at night, after work. I paint in the mornings before work, when there is good light and my husband isn’t home. I write in the mornings and keep a notebook with me at work all the time just in case an idea wanders along.
I have a business card from a guy I met at a coffeehouse. He advertises himself as a gardener and a translator. I have to admit I was kind of jealous. What an amazing life to live off the grid. He isn’t hooked into the machine of what we call “normal”. He is doing his own thing. I admire folks like that, and I envy them. I know people who are able to support themselves by being drummers or blacksmiths. They are their own bosses. I like that kind of energy, that kind of chutzpah. I think it is wonderful to be able to be the person you were made to be instead of a cog in the machine.
But then I started to think about it. I have business cards too. They advertise my jewelry page called Beaded Retort on Etsy. It doesn’t get much traffic but it is something, and something is better than nothing. Soon I’ll have new ones that give the address for my blog. Perhaps this business card I got is the same. Perhaps he has a “real job” and the card is for who he really is.
We often work really hard at running away from who we are. We anesthetize ourselves from life – drugs, sleep, food, alcohol, too much television. I remember when I smoked pot all the time I was trying to stop experiencing how unsatisfying my life was. I smoked, and everything seemed better. But while I was smoking I wasn’t doing anything to fix my circumstances. When I came to, I was still in a miserable relationship. I was still in a tiny apartment that cost too much and had scary neighbors who yelled at each other and peeped in my windows. I was still working for a boss who alternated between being a bully and a tyrant. So I smoked some more. I finally decided to get a house, and realized that in order to do that I’d have to at least cut back on my smoking. It is hard to fill out legal paperwork while stoned. It is hard to get motivated to pack while messed up. TV sounds good. Eating sounds good. Napping sounds good. None of those things were pushing me forward – they were holding me back. They were keeping me in that pit. They weren’t generating any forward momentum.
I have a tattoo that is very helpful. I’d read a book called “Body Type” by Ina Saltz. It is all about tattoos that are words and they are often done in interesting typefaces. I decided to get my own example to add to my collection. But if I’m going to get a tattoo with words, what should they say? I decided to go with the quote from Lao Tsu – “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” While looking it up to verify the words, I found a different translation that I liked even better. “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” It begins right here. Right now. Just thinking about it, you have already begun. This helped me with my momentum problem. Perhaps it will help you.
Sometimes I feel that I’m just spinning in circles, trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. You’d figure at 44 I might already know the answer to that. The comedian Paula Poundstone said that adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up so they themselves can get ideas. “Fireman? Yeah – I’d forgotten that! That sounds like a great idea!” This is funny and sad all at the same time.
I recently went through an exercise to try to help me winnow out what direction I’m going in. I had to name five different big things I’ve done in my life and then describe how I was able to achieve them. It didn’t matter what the things were – it mattered that they were important to me and that I saw them as landmarks. It also didn’t matter how I achieved them so much as being able to describe the steps. When it came to the end of the exercise I was asked what would be my ideal job. I felt cheated. I felt that this exercise was supposed to tell me what the answer is. This way I was doing all the work. “Physician, heal thyself” indeed.
I have a lot of things I’d like to be when I grow up. None of them involve being famous or rich. All of them involve being helpful but in a backstage kind of way. I want to wake people up. I want to help people become who they were created by God to be. Part of me wants to be something I’m calling an “art facilitator.” I’d like to provide art supplies to people who have a hard time communicating and let them learn how to express themselves in ways that don’t use words. I’d like to teach people that they are worthy of love and that their opinion matters. I’d like to be a peacemaker. I’d like to build bridges between cultures and religions. I’d like to know how to be helpful to people in crisis. I’d like to get across the idea of prevention rather than cure.
I’m somewhere at the intersection of artist and nutritionist and personal trainer. I’m something of a shaman and a paladin. I don’t know what this translates to in a way that means I can be self-supporting. I still have my day job.
I’m still not there, but I’m learning to be OK with that.
Hitchhiker art.
Sometimes if you are waiting for the muse to pick you up and take you away to the magical world of “ART”, you are going to be standing on the side of the road a long time. Sometimes you need to just start walking on your own. This applies to anything creative – writing, painting, beading, music – anything that involves that magical alchemy of time and inspiration and work.
Sometimes where you end up isn’t where you thought you were going to go. Sometimes you’ll end up making something that is totally not what you planned on making. Sometimes what you planned to make isn’t possible. Art isn’t about the end product, really. Art is about the process. It isn’t about getting there, it is about getting on the road and enjoying the trip.
We all have different requirements to get prepared to work on art. Sometimes my favorite time making art is when all the materials are free or nearly free. I don’t feel so bad about working with them. When I have a really expensive string of beads or a large canvas or fancy paper I hesitate to use it. This is sometimes illogical. I’ve already bought it – so by not using it I’m actually being wasteful. But I feel like I need to make the best thing ever, so I hesitate.
It isn’t so bad with beads. If I don’t like it then I can always break it apart and remake it. I’m learning that words are similar. I can cut and paste them. I can start on a theme and work on it until it just doesn’t seem to go any further.
Sometimes I think of writing as if I have seeds. I plant them and give them a little time and work and see if they grow. Then when they have gotten big, I go back and prune them by trimming out the bits that don’t work towards the whole. Sometimes the seeds don’t grow at all.
I have many potential posts saved on my computer that are just a few lines. When I go back to look at them they just don’t seem to have any life to them. Then I’ll come across another piece that I’ve worked on before but didn’t finish. I’ll work on it a little more. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it isn’t ready yet. I’m learning to be OK with that.
I’m telling you this in the same way a magician tells you their secrets. There is no magic, and it isn’t easy. Nothing comes out perfect the first time. Anything good requires work, and lots of it.
Painting is different. You can’t reuse paint. I’d love to be a great painter. I’d love to be able to just paint what I see and have it look like a photograph. I’d love to be able to paint alien worlds to go with the fantasy words I write about. Right now I content myself with mixing paint into new and beautiful (to me) colors directly on the canvas. Nobody sees it. I’m practicing. I’m learning how the paint works. I’m giving myself permission to play. And that is important.
Kindergarteners don’t need permission to paint, and they don’t need instruction. Well – OK, they need some instruction. Paint on the paper, not on your friend. Don’t eat the paint. But other than that, they create with a true and clear heart. They paint for the joy of it. I think it is a good idea for all of us to reclaim that joy. Just start creating. Don’t worry about the finished product. If you worry about the finish line, you may never get past the starting line.
Not everything has to be awesome. It is good to get in the habit of making stuff. Paint. Bead. Sketch. Noodle around on a musical instrument. If you don’t work on your art, you will get rusty. Rusty things don’t work. It is a reciprocal thing. You get inspired and you make art. But you also make art to get inspired.
Sometimes I resent the time I’m at work. My favorite time to create is when I have a lot of free time and a lot of natural light. I like art to be unscheduled, and to let it flow where and when it will. If I have to keep looking at the clock (such as when it is a morning right before work), I will often lose my train of thought. Then I’m left stranded by the muse, back on the side of the road again.
I have some free time in the evening to make art. But I don’t have natural light then. No matter what they say about natural-light floor lamps, they aren’t the same. It helps to see the colors in natural light to know if they go together. But – let’s be honest. How many people are going to wear my jewelry outside? So really, I should design jewelry in fluorescent light (ugh!) because that is where it will be worn.
Sometimes I have to realize that I’m making up excuses to not work on my art.
Sometimes the inspiration only lasts for a little while. I have had a few trays of three-quarter finished jewelry projects lying around for a while. Sometimes it helps me to just pick those up on the abandoned-by-the-muse days and see if I can figure out where I was going. Sometimes they make good roadmaps, and I can follow the idea. Sometimes it doesn’t matter where I was going on that day. I can pick out the trail and go where it is leading me today instead.
Sometimes I will put out a few ideas to get an idea going. I’ve got the points along the way laid out, but I don’t know how to connect between them. Think of it as a physical journey. I know I want to go to Monteagle, TN and to Atlanta, GA, but I’m not sure how I’m going to get from one to another, for instance. I do that with beads and with writing. I’ll have a few major beads out in a saucer or I’ll have a few sentences typed up, with large spaces between them. I’ll go back later and fill them in. Or I’ll delete them.
Making art and road trips are a lot alike. Sometimes you don’t end up going to all the places you thought you were going to go. But you still have to go. So even if you get stuck on the side of the road, just go. Start walking. Don’t sit there and wonder what happened.
What do you need to feel creative? Comfy clothes? Music? Incense? Set the space. Light a candle. Make a clean space in front of you, dedicated to your art. Read a book on a new technique. Use your non-dominant hand. Go to an art museum – or read a magazine with lots of pictures that have nothing to do with art. Art inspires art – but it also can inspire comparison. “I’ll never be that good!” or “She got famous for THAT?” Ignore those thoughts. Make Your Own Art. However, it is OK to read other people’s roadmaps. There are plenty of craft books, magazines, online blogs, and websites. It is also OK to be totally random and go in circles. You don’t have to GO anywhere. You just have to go.
Really good art requires work. Isaac Asimov wrote every day. So did Robert Parker. Treat art as a job. Don’t wait for it – go out and find it. And keep on going, every day. It won’t be fabulous every day. And what you think is just so-so, someone else will think is wonderful. What you think is perfect, someone else won’t get. So just make art. What are you reading this for? You could be creating!
betsybeadhead 
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