Moving on to Plan C

Today I made up for dodging housework yesterday, though I had an ulterior motive.  The mom in me is hosting yet another party here tomorrow, providing an opportunity for all the kids going to Europe with the German teacher during spring break (five each from two different schools) to get to know each other prior to meeting up at the airport for departure.  I was determined to find my lost (incomplete) art journal while I cleaned. 

I found more than I bargained for - old chocolate.  Thinking the journal may have been tucked under a cushion of one of the sofas (having been last spotted in the living room), I lifted the cushions, knowing I'd be sure to find something scary along with the usual treasure of coins and maybe a pen or pencil.  What I found were two full-sized candy bars in one sofa, along with a few other remnants of Halloween.   Now I'm trying to figure out how someone unwittingly managed to get TWO big, fat candy bars under a couch cushion without realizing it, or what goober thought this would be a nifty hiding place and just forgot to retrieve their loot.  When I picked up my son from high school today and told him about the gruesome discovery, he lit up like a Christmas tree and asked with great excitement in his voice, if I had brought them with me.  Seriously?  Did I bring the butt-imprinted, likely months-old candy bars in the car on a hot day to offer as a snack?  What's more gross?  Finding logs of candy in the furniture, or having someone eagerly anticipate the snack?  As predicted, my son made a beeline for the candy when we got home and (gag) ate one of the bars.  Now I'm just curious.  Will my 26 year old daughter, the world's #1 chocolate addict, lunge for the other candy bar?  Now it's just a freakish experiment in bizarre human behavior and addiction.

Anyway, I looked absolutely everywhere for the journal for hours.  The house is ridiculously clean, but there was no journal.   As I was about to throw in the towel (followed by a fit of frustration), I found it!  One last look inside the books that had recently been moved to the studio revealed the journal tucked in for safekeeping, I assume.  Whew!  Now I can get to work and finish the pages before I ship it off to my sister for the final step in our swap.

The figurative project I'm working on continues to make me think harder than I want to think.  After working on it for a while and then setting it aside, I really took a long and hard look to see if I could figure out what was making me most nuts about it.  Primarily, it looked too much like a shepherd with the ever-so-wrong fiber mixed in with the wire.  After plucking out all of the fiber, I knew I had a lot more wire to add to fill the empty space.  I have no finished look in mind.  I just know I don't like what I see and start changing it.  Several hours, a few coats of paint, several feet of copper wire and some faux-gold leaf later, I was a bit more satisfied.  I worked without thinking much, just letting it happen.  My husband was happy to hear that I'd spent such a good chunk of time in the studio and I was eager to show him the product of the hours committed to trying to improve the piece. 

This was Plan A in progress.  The stand and dowel are simply "holders" while I work, not intended to be part of the finished project.

The first words out of his mouth were, "Oooh!  Mardi Gras!"  Sigh.  This was not what I expected.  As I look at it, I understand his comment.  Now what?  It's NOT supposed to look like anything mardi gras.  Here's the before and after.  It's time to move to Plan C.

This is the current state of affairs for this piece.  The photo is messy, taken on the studio desk in frustration and without the proper and tidy backdrop.  I'll have to work on that.  Again, the dowel and stand are just to support it while I work.

While I allow myself to get frustrated at times and critique more than create, it really felt good to just make something.  Rereading the quote I posted recently, I am reminded that I'm not at this to create a masterpiece.  I'm creating for the joy of creating, learning as I go (things like don't have the big garage door open while working with leafing foil, especially if it's windy) and trying new techniques.  I won't get any better if I don't try and try again.  Regardless of the finished product, getting my hands dirty and playing again matter more than whether or not I need to move on to Plan C or D or even W.  I have succeeded just a bit in quieting my inner critic.  She's whispering as opposed to yelling.  I'll take what I can get.

Trial and Error

Yesterday I managed to dodge afternoon housework, pretending I didn't see the woolly mammoths begging to be vacuumed, and got into the garage for a little studio time.  It's still hard for me to call it a studio as it still feels so foreign.  My efforts at organizing when the studio was in the house have all been undone with supplies now wherever they'll fit as opposed to their proper place.  I've tried replicating the storage as it was indoors, but have had limited success.  Every day feels like a scavenger hunt, but I resist spending time trying to bring more order to a chaotic and temporary work space, knowing I'd end up doing more organizing than creating.

The figurative piece I'm currently working on is making me a little nuts.  I am taking one step forward, then two steps back every time I sit down to work on it.  My friend Debbie's cyber voice is whispering in my mind, reminding me to just let go and see what happens.  When I start working on a piece, I don't have any preconceived notion of the final outcome - no sketches, no mental picture of the finished piece - and so I wing it as I go.  This piece sat for a long time, and one afternoon I just picked it up and started adding to it.  Now, it looks like it.  I add wire, remove baubles, add paint, rub off paint...I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel right.  When I look through art magazines or books, I find myself mentally criticizing assemblage work in particular that appears to have just been created by throwing stuff together until the artist figured it was time to stop.  That's what I'm afraid this is beginning to look like.  Sigh.

This is when the business of being self-taught bites me in the caboose as I realize how much I haven't learned.  I work on this piece and worry about how it will be finished, how it should be displayed when complete.  What kind of stand should I build?  How can I hide the inside/under the skirt?  Is it supposed to be a skirt?  I hadn't intended it to look like a skirt or dress.  The face appears masculine, but the garb suggests feminine.  Arghhhhhh!

On the mom front, I am finding my two worlds colliding these days.  I brought the art journal I'm working on into the house to show the family what I'm working on when I'm squirreled away for hours.  Where is it now?  Who knows.  Someone has moved it and no one takes credit nor remembers having seen it recently.  Really?  I need GPS tracking on everything that is mine.  More sighs. 

So today I'll take another whack at the figurative piece and try to shut down my over-thinking brain.  Maybe something miraculous will happen and it will look less like a craft project and more like art.

Success Short Lived

I chuckled when I looked at the date of my last post.  My success was short lived, not having been back in the studio since.  It really is hard getting out there because it IS a garage, after all.  It's a nice space, but every time I'm out there I think about something I need in the house.  When I'm in the house, I think of stuff I need that's in the garage.  A bathroom, a sink and a mini fridge would be great in the garage (and is not going to happen).  My bookshelf with all of my artsy reference books is still in the indoor studio/now daughter's room, but I suppose that's good.  Too often I peruse the books for inspiration (note to self: remember the quote from the artist that says we need to just get out there and do it and stop waiting for the inspiration bolt of lightening).

The other issue I have to deal with is a tricky one - how do I manage solicitors?  Some guy actually came to the house trying to sell me meat, MEAT, from a fancifully decorated refrigerated truck.   It didn't take me long to get rid of him, assuring him that I'm not a vegetarian, but I would never, ever, ever buy meat from a truck and nothing he could say would change my mind.  But what a pain in the patootie to have to deal with this stuff.  I need a sign on an easel that reads, "I'm at work here.  No soliciting!  Chatterboxes interested in art are welcome."  Well, something along that line, but more clever.  Clearly I need to work on the concept.

Today is the big, stupid football game that most of America is slobbering over, so uninterrupted art time shouldn't be a problem.  While I will be doing some cooking and turning the kitchen into a meatball factory, I intend to work on my art journal and have some tunes cranking and will NOT fold any laundry or clean any floors today.  Before I get started, I'm going to glance at a couple of the blogs I follow for my daily dose of inspiration (Mary, I'm thinking of you!) and previous notes of encouragement and advice from my best artsy friend Deb. 

Let's get messy!

Success at Last!!!

I am patting myself pretty hard on the back tonight, having worked in the studio from 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m., taking a brief break for lunch and to pick up weasels from school and distribute them to their respective homes.  At long last, I made real progress on the project that has been nagging at me since before the holidays.

The project is an art journal, inspired by the most awesome Teesha Moore and her YouTube videos on the subject.  I ordered the watercolor papers and other supplies last summer (not that I procrastinate or anything) and started talking about working on the project after my sister returned to Minnesota after a summer visit.  She finished hers right away.  I kept trying to find fantastic papers, more creative inspiration, and the perfect paints.  Needless to say, that was just dumb.  After moaning this week about not getting anything done, I did as I promised myself and just went out there.  I moved my scanner and my fancy newish printer out there and got to work, scanning fabric and printing those images to use the paper for the edge of the journal pages.  Using the papers I made in a monoprinting class a couple of years ago, I scanned those pups as well and then tweaked the colors, creating multiple versions so I don't have to whack up the original.


While I still have to create the collage images in the middle of the pages, here are a few pictures of the journal with it's pages completely lined with borders.  Woohoo!

 

I know, I really do need a better camera, photography lessons and cleaner carpet.

Inspiration Eludes Me

I've landed, once again, with both feet firmly planted in the Land of Doing Nothing.  I don't like it here.  This week I happily signed on to a fun project, committing to making and delivering a handcrafted something to five people in 2012.  Creativity continues to elude me as my brain swims with half ideas, partial ideas, or the sound track from an annoying television commercial I can't get out of my head.  Searching for inspiration, I cruised through some of my studio books, I looked through my old sketch books, fumbled through a pile of fabric, and even stooped to Googling for art/creativity prompts.

In my fruitless search for a miraculous prod to my imagination, I found a blog quote that proved to offer yet another smack of reality and good food for thought.  The comment was attributed by the blogger to painter Chuck Close.  The message was that artists shouldn't sit around waiting for inspiration, but just get going.  "Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.  If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work.  All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.  Things occur to you.  If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens.  But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction.  Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case."

Will I ever make progress?  Do prolific artists just get in there, get their hands dirty and make art?  Clearly I am failing at the most basic level.  I still find myself mopping and vacuuming instead of sewing or painting.  I promise myself I'm going to schedule studio time, then I don't do it.  I just sit with brain freeze, something I've fussed about too many times.  I've grown weary of my own complaints.

Tonight, I paused while writing to put studio time on the calendar, blocking noon to 3 p.m. on every week day.  I have to be flexible when school lets out early and disrupts the schedule, but I'm going to give it a try.  If I don't start taking serious steps to make art a priority, it will never, ever be a priority and I'll spend the rest of my life voicing the same complaints.  I should make myself the ugliest hat on the planet and force myself to wear it in public every time I fuss about not making art.  Ouch.  OK, never mind.  Maybe I'll start with wearing mismatched socks ;-)

Sleep, A Waste of Time

I've struggled with insomnia for years.  For a long time, I freaked out about the lack of sleep, sure I'd be seeing pink dalmatians or some other circus oddity at some point in time when everyone else should be waking up and going to work.  After a number of years of lack of sleep, I really started to think about what it cost me.  Anything substantial?  I figured time spent sleeping is time wasted.   The hours that I spend awake (at least the hours that span the period of time one would normally snooze) can include stuff that "normal" people miss.   Some nights I find myself listening to the most amazing cacophony of coyotes in the gulley behind our house.  Of course I can't resist hollering at them and competing.  The neighbors are surely convinced I'm bonkers ;-)  Sometimes I read (always the most ridiculous pulp fiction), and sometimes I watch the most silly television programming.  Some nights I go outside to our big deck and marvel at the stars and planets.  It is awesome and I can't believe how many people ignore this stuff.  While we can't see much with the light pollution (living TOO close to Los Angeles), I can catch the occasional meteor and feel like I just won some big prize.  I'm such a cheap date.

Life could be worse.  Not being able to fall asleep easily or stay asleep isn't a terrible thing.  Insomniacs such as myself see so much of life that everyone else sleeps through - the owls hooting, the old movie, the kitty that wants to play...it's all better than the alternative, no???

One Sad Kitty

A long time ago I swore I wouldn't be one of those people that blogged about their cats.  Once or twice I have, because heaven knows I have one or two totally whacky cats that do provide for some amusing tales.  But tonight I just feel really sad for Charlotte and feel the need to share.  OK, I've had a little wine, both white AND red, but I can't help it.  This poor kitty has been a wreck from the get-go.  We adopted her when she was eight weeks old.  She was one of a litter (have I shared this before?) that a bunch of young adolescent boys found, plotting a game where they'd each place a kitten in the street and the "owner" of the surviving kitten won.  Seriously?!?  Savages!  Someone saw them, rescued the kittens, and thus we have Charlotte.  In addition to the trauma of her early days, she suffers from some whacky allergy, it seems, to grains in cat food.  That's what the vet thinks.  So every couple of months  the lining of her mouth inflames as if someone had taken sandpaper to it, at which point I take her in for shots to reduce the inflammation and pain.  There's not much warning other than sudden seclusion and reduction in visits to the food bowl.  It makes me so sad.  Tonight is the first time since we adopted her some three or four years ago that she has appeared on the sofa.  I'm happy she wants  to be close, but sad that I can't help her tonight.  I'd say a visit to the vet is in order for tomorrow.  Time to whip out the catnip, poor kitty.