Saturday - Weekend on My Mind

It's not that I dislike going to work, owning my own business, meeting wonderfully creative people every day. It's that I would rather be more private, more insular, listening to my own internal Muse and less outside stimulus. But, Saturdays are always pleasant because it is a slightly shorter work day (closing the store at 5pm instead of 6pm) and because we have pasta from Bascali's Brick Oven for dinner. Ummmmm - Smoked Sausage Marinara with Rigitoni noodles. I wake up at 3:30 am (yes - that's my usual wake-up time) and I'm already looking forward to my pasta which I won't even get for another 15 hours! I guess it's no wonder that I'm overweight if I am thinking about food 15 hours ahead - LOL. But it's always good to have a goal and if the goal of pasta gets me through the next 15 hours, it's fine.

Next week is registration week for the Bead & Button Show. On Tuesday registration opens. I have culled through the catalog of upcoming classes and have decided what I feel will be good to learn that will contribute to my artwork, as well as what will work in with my physical schedule and my financial requirements. I'll be getting my classes nailed on Tuesday, and if you're planning on attending the show, you might also be on-line at the same time. My friend Poo and I were very unsure about whether or not we were going to attend, but we evaluated our finances and the value that we place in seeing our friends annually, and we decided that we could swing it. Now I'm starting to look forward to it and I hope I see many of you in Milwaukee in early June this year.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Work - NOT!

I'm a fan of Fan Fiction. At least within a Tolkien universe (big surprise there - LOL). And I have several authors that I've been reading extensively. So I had a new chapter alert for one of my favorite authors this morning, pulled it up on screen and read/saved it. I try to save the chapters for my fave authors because I'm one of these people who likes to re-read things time and time again. Then I wanted to enlarge the typeface for a section of text in the piece, so I tried to pull up the doc. Blank. Tried again. Blank. AARRGGHHHH!!! I decided to pull up some other chapters. No problem with some, big problem with others. Whatz up??? So I went into a file listing mode. Turns out that every doc I have stored with bits in the 20's stored an empty page. Most pages should be between 40 and 60. I now have the "joy" of going through each author and each document, chapter by chapter (some of these books have more than 150 chapters) and make sure that each one has transferred properly. Oh well, PATIENCE is the word for the year, right? This process should teach me some - LOL.

On a brighter note (although the above wasn't a dark note, just more work added to my plate), I received two wonderful last-days Holiday gifts yesterday. My BFF Sharon sent a wonderfully funny "Trouble with Tribbles" holiday ornament. It's really hilarious. The battery driven ornament dumps a load of Tribbles onto Captain Kirk's head. I'll have to show it to VerLaine before I store it in my special holiday ornaments closet. And I received three wonderful books from my darling Sister in Austin, Texas. A blank journal/sketchbook, a humerous book called "I Can't Be Good All The Time" and a wonderful book by John Howe on sketching and painting Dragons. I have his earlier book on fantasy art and found it incredibly helpful to my own art. I know I'll learn a lot from this one. Yippee!!!

Normal is Not Bad

There is something relaxing and functional about routine. As human beings, and I make an assumption that most of you reading this qualify as human beings, we have a tendency to build personal routines and structures. Those structures and routines get built to encompass our jobs, chores, friends, routes, and - unfortunately - relationships. We push all of our daily life into the "box". It is hard, and it is frightening, to step outside of our routines. After all - that is stepping into virgin territory and that territory might be firm ground or it might be quicksand. But that is the territory that creative thinking comes from. That is the territory that the creative and/or artistic person tries to operate from. Walking off that path or out of that box is essential to the creative life. However, be very aware that going from your "box" into new territories can also build new pathways that then become an actual part of your comfort zone - your box, your routine. Then you have to recognize those new boundaries step off the path at a new juncture.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, since I'm trying to get inventory together for sale and want a unified look, right now my box walls are firmly in place and my feet are going off the path in very small steps only. The only new path that I have been exploring has been that fountain that I mentioned a day or so ago. I'm not too sure that it will work as a fountain - a bit larger than my usual projects and I don't have the long-term time to be able to devote to a larger project right now. But there are some aspects of that mental project that might be worth exploring on a smaller and more portable scale. Hmmmmm....I'm going to try and walk a new path with this tendril of an idea. Why don't you try to also push past the edges of your creative path into some new areas today and see what new paths you can start to create.

Wednesday On My Mind

It's Wednesday - Studio Day. I need to run all over town this morning buying supplies for the store, and then need to print out 80 brochures and registration sheets for my Beading For A Cure bead packages. I'll talk more about BFAC as February approaches, but I'm getting the beads packed for shipping this week and next. After I am finished printing out all of the paperwork, I can start working on my newest enamel pieces. My fingers are already itching to get involved in the glass and throw some things into the kiln. I can hardly wait to get some creative work underway again that's in a different media than my pencil and paper.

Possibilities - things that have popped into my mind for possible later creation? Among the projects that have come this week are a fountain, a night light, a medallion, a series of sigils, a pattern of embroidery (and I'm NOT really much of an embroidery person). And that's just in the past 7 days or so. One of these days I'll actually have time to explore some of these ideas - work on bringing some of them past the thought stage, into the possible design stage, and maybe even into the process stage. In the meantime, I thank my Muse for allowing my thoughts to branch into paths previously unseen and come up with more fodder for my Studio Wednesdays. Pilamaya Iluvatar.

Word for the Year

I am very fortunate because I have the opportunity to meet so many artists in my daily life. One whom I've met several times over many years is Tonya Davidson. Tonya runs a small store, just like I do, and she is an artist who also wants to establish her own personal identity away from her store, just like I do. She's younger than I am, and very pretty, and sharp as a tack. It's always a joy to learn something from her, even if it is something that I don't want to take to my personal life. Today she gave me a great gift - a word.

Tonya posts a blog http://tonyadavidson.com/ (not regularly, but perhaps that will now improve). On that blog she makes commentary and personal/business growth ideas and methodology. I subscribed to her blog many months ago in the hopes that reading her suggestions might help my store and my personal business grow. Her postings have been irregular, even non-existant. But over the past few days, she's been posting like crazy. And it's been goo. Today she posted about resolutions. How making New Year's Resolutions usually lead to failure, but that she read about making a resolution for a word of the year instead of a list of resolutions. She read about this on another blog by Christine Kane http://christinekane.com/blog/resolution-revolution-a-better-way-to-start-your-year/ . She resolved to use the word consistency (perhaps that is why she has been posting more often). I seem to have that word fully anchored in my life. But I know what I need.

PATIENCE

So, my goal is Patience. My word is Patience. I seem to have no problem addressing this in my art, but in my daily life?.....Well, let's just say it needs a bit of work. What word will you choose? Check out Christine's list, maybe add a few of your own, and choose one to conquer in '09.

Sleep Deprivation

When I was a college student I suffered from insomnia. I went to counseling, took drugs, etc. It was a serious problem. I learned the various techniques that had to be used to be successful. Techniques such as only going to bed when you were ready to go to sleep. Giving it 20 minutes and then getting up for 1/2 hour before trying again. Using the bed only for sleep, not reading or other activities. Yadda, yadda, yadda, etc. Last night, nothing was working. I fell asleep numerous times while watching TV between 8pm and 10pm, but when I turned off the light at 10pm ready to go to sleep for real - I couldn't. I tried until 10:45, then got up and read until midnight. Finally I had success at midnight. Why would this matter? For most of you it probably wouldn't make any real difference to your day. For me, however, since I get up at 3:30 am - not falling asleep until midnight meant that I only got 3-1/2 hours of sleeep. I'm a wreck.

On a positive note, being exceptionally tired like this might mean that I will be more open to the ideas and desires that the Creator and/or my Muse may want to place in my way. My internal dialog will be less able to place barriers between their music and my own all-too grounded brain. So some good creativity may come of this. May you be open to the inspirations of your own Muse today.