Jewelers Carnival - Rituals

Every month a group of jewelers participate in a Carnival blog. Although I am not a member of that group of jewelers, I usually find their topics of interest and often will explore them on my own blog because the topics make me think. This month's topic is:

Rituals- Do you have a particular process that helps you to tap into your creativity, complete projects on time or any other ritualistic habits?

Reading through my friend Tonya's blog, it seems that she has a lot of things that help her to settle down and create her artwork. She is a wonderful artist and a creative person who also operates a shop full-time. Those of us who operate our own businesses know that the 40-hour weeks of most people translate into 60-80 hour weeks for us. That doesn't leave a lot of time for personal art expression. In addition, we have families who also require time and effort and the larger world that just won't go away. We get sliced and diced into so many pieces that it's difficult to pull things together to create art. Rituals can often help to pull those pieces together faster and focus with more clarity.

Looking at my home and store studio spaces, things are in a total disaster mode after the holiday season. I have projects that I was working on until the last minute that still have detrius on my workbench. Since I need to anneal some copper within the next few days, I will have to clean some of this up before I fire up the torch. As for my home studio - I just got a shipment of some new enamel colors, some oil for enamel painting, and a few additional supplies (as well as some awesome books). I don't have the room for my enamels, so something has to be done. I need shelf space for my enamels and enamel supplies so that they are not sitting on top of my workspace for my painting, etc. My DH said he wanted to build something for my space, but that hasn't happened yet. I'm SO tempted to take a look at Ikea and see if I can afford something that will work for me. So....Cleaning my space would have to be my first step towards a ritual before I can work (although a sketchpad and pencils can be operated anywhere without any rituals).

I DO make sure to thank my Muse and the Singer who Created the Universe as many times as I can each day. My life, my art, my creativy all spring from that LOVE. I am SO grateful for that itch in my fingers that comes through in art. And I think about projects as many times as I can each day. Often by just thinking about a current project I can work through the steps and eliminate possible problems or fine-tune my approach to allow a more successful result. Deadlines are extremely helpful to help me keep my focus. Projects without deadlines tend to drag on. Projects with deadlines are focused, pointed, and usually successful.

So...what would your own answer be to the Carnival blog question? Think about it and maybe incorporate a ritual or two into your artistic life to help kickstart your next project.