Goals and Reaching Them

I live my life by deadlines and goals.  Essentially, deadlines are set by outside forces and goals are set by me.  I succeed in many deadlines, my goals, however, tend to be a bit less successful.  For instance, I have had a goal of dropping these extra pounds for more than seven years - hasn't happened yet.  My goal for yesterday was cleaning.  And I did clean.  I got most of the den cleaned up, three loads of laundry done, changed the sheets on the bed, and did the grocery shopping.  The fact that I also went to Dick Blick and treated myself to a new portable watercolors pallette with colors and some new brushes, and to Barnes and Noble for a magazine and a book don't really count towards my goal.  Unless they count towards the goal of making myself happy - one of those "always" goals that most of us have and should have.  If I take that as a goal, then yes - I succeeded again - LOL.  But the den still needs more cleaning and the vaccuuming still needs to be done before Sharon arrives in two weeks...

A montage of Andy Goldsworthy artwork.
SO amazing in conception and execution!

I mentioned that I purchased a book.  That's not unusual for me - I love books and have 1000's of them (quite literally, 1000's).  I have been captured by the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy.  It literally stops me in place and makes me breathless.  He makes nature art - very temporary, very transitional, very temporal.  The works often don't last for 24 hours.  They are meant to return to nature and they both celebrate and worship nature in the making and the falling.  Some of his work seems VERY permanent, but even those are made from completely natural materials and will have an end-point, just not as immediate as some of his smaller works.  I got his book "Passages" a few months ago and it quickly became an inspiration to me.  I got his book "Time" yesterday  I can't wait to start working my way through his visions in this one.  He is a truly gifted artist and I recommend his work to anyone reading this blog.  Live creatively today - I will :-)