I would highly recommend not reading this post as you will get nothing out of it beyond a short little time suck and a tiny peek into my good natured ranting- and run on sentences. I launched into taking my blog seriously on June first (you know, a whopping 13 days ago. ) I wrote my intentions in my sketchbook. To post at least 2x a week, preferably 3x. I prepared for this launch by prewriting 30 blogs so if I had a hard week, which I knew the first 2 would be, with kids finishing up school and summer vacation starting, I could just pull up one of the prewritten pieces. brilliant right?! I know this isn’t really interesting to anyone but I promised to write and those prewritten posts are locked tightly up in my netbook which has decided not to accept ac power and the battery is down to 3 minutes left… but I made a promise to myself and i intend to keep it. so here i am attempting to type on my husbands android tablet which bumps me all around the page mid sentence – something to do with being a touch screen and using a keyboard… anyway, boring as this all is – unless you have the nerve to laugh at me (no worries, I do it all the time) I AM writing. I have very little to say as I have been spending all my time working on figuring out whats important to do for my business and that would be even less interesting to read than this post of blunders. lets just leave it at I’m making the effort but things just aren’t going my way. yet.
Blaze Your Own Trail
Blaze your own Trail
I remember an experiment my 2nd grade teacher did with the class to demonstrate why writing precise instructions is important. The teacher sat at the front of the class with all the supplies needed to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He chose a student to go sit behind the freestanding coat rack and give directions on how to make the sandwich. The kid giving instructions couldn’t see the teacher.
The instructions began. ‘Take out 2 pieces of bread’. The teacher looked around confused, tried grabbing a piece of bread without opening the bag then said, ‘I can’t’. the kid behind the screen said ‘open the bag’ so the teacher shrugged, ripped the bag open and took out two pieces of bread. The kid said ‘put the peanut butter on one slice’. So the teacher set the jar of peanut butter on a slice of bread…. It continued like this.
I’ve been reading a lot of books lately about business and how to make it work. This memory was a good reminder for me that reading is great but we have to find our own way. We can’t just do what someone tells us to do and expect success. We’ll make different assumptions. We won’t get the same results. We have different experiences and may miss a little nuance that makes all the difference. Read all you want, but blaze your own trail.
How did you flex your Creative Muscle today?
Everywhere you look you’re reminded that exercising is important to keep your body strong. The same goes for your creativity. The more you use it the stronger it becomes! I challenge you to be creative everyday. You are creative every day without trying but this week pay attention to what you are naturally doing creatively and you will be amazed at how many creative things you just do without working at it.
Today my creative brain had to work overtime. I made a mistake on a piece I’m working on for a show opening next month. It consists of 5 panels spanning 10 feet. I took one of the panels and lobbed off the top to make it 28″ I’d add 2″ tabs to the top for hanging and all would be good in the world. Except the first panel in the batch has a giant bird whose head comes up to 29 inches. can’t cut that off!… I needed a solution.
I put my little brain on it, reminding myself things usually turn out more interesting if I make a mistake and have to work out a creative solution. I enjoy that part of my creative adventures – fortunately because i have an impulsive side that just wants to do bold stuff without necessarily taking in all the little details…
I came up with a solution that involves staggering tabs and lots of fussy measuring and cutting carefully. I really like this solution for hanging, it’s much more dynamic and interesting than a solid sleeve.
pictures on the finished tabs coming as soon as they are all sewn!
Something’s fishy in the studio
I’m working on a new style of wall art, fabric art, art quilt… I just can’t decide what to call it. Any thoughts out there. If I say quilt people think bed, if I say anything else a light fog appears in front of their face… Fabric painting? I don’t think so… The delimma, you’d think I could find something more interesting to obsess over.
Come back for regular, more exciting posts. I’ve committed to writing regularly and you are sure to enjoy the process of me finding my voice, watching my blog evolve from unfocused dribble to brilliant creative inspiration! (big grin)
a roll of the dice
I’m always looking for new ways to challenge my mind and inspire out of the box thinking. Today my daughter and I invented a new game. We went to the library with a couple of 10 sided dice. Each of us rolled a die 3 times writing down the numbers in order (10 became 0). Then we hit the stacks looking for a book in that section.
We ran into a couple of issues – I rolled a number without any books in it, I rolled another with 3 books about family law and decided it would freak my husband out if I started reading about family law. He’s definitely a keeper, I don’t want to raise any questions in his mind. I invented the game, I can change the rules. My daughter rolled a section that was 5 shelves of books. They were good books but that was a lot to choose from so she rolled one more time for the first number after the decimal point. That narrowed the choices down to less than a shelf.
After we selected the first book we repeated the process again for a second book. We each checked our books out and headed home to take a look at them. This weekend we’ll create art inspired by the two books.
It was fun getting random books and exploring sections of the library we haven’t looked in before. Here’s the funny part… my daughter came home with a book about space and another about extreme birds (the longest beak, the deepest diver…) I can think of a million different ideas combining these two books. I on the other hand have come home with a book about archaeologists searching for Eden and a book about learning to speak Swahili! I’m just not getting the vision. I have a couple of days to think about it and find some way to connect the two.
Those Darn Unfinished Objects
I set myself up for an ugly February. I like to set an intention for the month, something to focus on. I have a two person show coming up in July and not a big enough body of work. I thought a good plan would be to finish up any unfinished art that I have lying around. That would quickly produce some work to hang. So I set my intention as finishing up UFO’s (unfinished objects). I allowed that whatever I didn’t finish by February 28th just doesn’t get finished, gets put away again or repurposed. No pressure right?
I am feeling so much pressure. I’ve hung all the ufos or laid them out in my studio. I’ve stared at them all month trying to figure out how to finish them. Each piece has a story or reason why I created it. A couple of them still hold some interest for me but I’m afraid I’m really excited about the new body / style of work I’m brewing in my mind and I’m having a hard time finishing up old stuff. So I agonize and torture myself. I hate that I’ve put so much work into these pieces and now I don’t even care about them. I tell myself when I finish the old I can start the new. Why do we do this?
As a means to distract myself from actually getting anything done I search the internet, go to the library, cook new food… In my desperate attempts to procrastinate I came across an article by Jen Daly (in Quilters Newsletter June/July 2012) about making peace with your UFOs. She listed her quilts and said why they were unfinished.
So I decided to look at my pieces and think about WHY I didn’t finish them instead of HOW I could finish them. Some of them were unfinished because I thought they were finished but didn’t love them. Some were unfinished because some bright shiny thing came up and drew my attention away from them, and others I was just plain stumped on.
I worried, as Jen did about the waste of time, fabric and brain cells that went into them. I started to feel guilty about starting a new project when they were unfinished. Then Jen goes on to remind me that in making these pieces I learned new skills and made discoveries that I brought forward to my future art. Maybe I need to call these finished projects after all. Maybe all they were just meant to be were lessons, not works of art. Maybe its time to cut them up or hang them for what they are. Maybe I should give or – gulp – throw them away. Do I really need that pile of nagging stress in my studio? Tomorrow is February 28th. I have a frog to finish and 2 pieces to set aside to turn into covers for notebooks – easy repurposes that I can sell on Etsy. Good bye old junk! Good bye unfinished stress. I’m moving on!
Writing about Business
I’ve been thinking about the wisdom in my writing about business for you
unsuspecting readers. I’m so very right brained… As you can see I’m a
new blogger and am trying to find my ‘voice’. I thought I wanted to share
my journey and help other right brainers find their way in this crazy
business world but my head is spinning more often than not. I can think
of 50 things I’d rather focus on weekly. I’ve decided it would be more
beneficial if I occassionally linked you up with a site that appears to
know what they are talking about.
That being said- I have a great link for starting your own business that I
wish I had had when I started mine… this site has links for start up
business and also some great free tutorials for learning bookkeeping
(which I will be spending the next few months studying).
http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/ really, check it out!
I think Mondays will be a creative warm up day in the future…
February’s mission
How does this happen? I’m going through my studio gathering up all the quilts that are unfinished, ones I thought were finished but now I don’t think so and the ones I ought to toss but have decided to cut up and repurpose instead. The pile is substantially large. Am I such a scatterbrain? Maybe I am so inspired that I have to start each new project so I won’t lose sight of it.
Currently I’m wondering if I’m going to have to pick both kids up at their bus stops because a couple of moose have taken up residence close to the driveway.
Yep, definetly scatterbrained.
February’s mission – finish and repurpose this pile!
Madame Zalina
Anyone want to hear their fortune? a young lady from my stash of quilts.