Finding the Place





 Where do you create? What happens when you open the door to your creative space? Do you enter a place where your art flows to completion or a place where you are met by the obligations of unfinished projects?

How easy it is to listen to a new creative muse, and then stall or get sidetracked into other projects! How do you organize your creative flow?

I am a great lover of trays and flat baskets. I have ELFA systems with wire drawers in my studio. I use them to house projects in process, as well as the tools and materials of my work. This frees up the white counter space so I can easily find room to start something new or finish something waiting.

Sometimes the key to finding a place to work consists mre in finding a place to store the stuff in your studio than in finding a counter space. 

A few questions to ponder when planning your studio:

Do you prefer uncluttered places or places filled with inspiring objects?

Do you need a large work surface or a small one?

Is natural light important to you, or do you use artificial lighting?

Do you need absolute privacy and control over your environment or can you work in a commonly shared space?

The door to your creativity is not always the physical door to a studio.

To Resolve or Not to Resolve.

New Year's Resolutions!

How quickly we promise ourselves the impossible!

Not every one can live up to the commitments they resolve to achieve. There are many promises we make ourselves which end in disappointment and feelings of failure.

How many New Year's Journals have I started, with all good intentions, which fizzled out somewhere in February!

This year, I am not going to be unrealistic with my self. I am going to commit to carrying my portable art supplies with me every day, and also toting a sketchbook or three along with them. If the mood strikes me, I commit that I will listen to my muse and take the time there and then to make something in the sketchbooks. But I will not beat my self over the head if I do not. It is an open-ended kind of commitment. I will make the opportunities possible by keeping my tools and materials at hand, but if I do not use them, I will not grieve or feel guilty.

There is a place in the learning experience where a Drawing a Day (do do do look up the website) is essential. And even the act of daily recording thoughts and ideas has its place in the maturing of the creative artist. But to be a slave to it....to allow it to fill me with guilt...that serves no creative purpose.

A new year which is created by an arbitrary cultural calendar can be meaningless except to measure the passing of time.

Let us arise from the tyranny of daily exercises if they tyrannise us.

Listen to your muse instead.