Great quote from the latest episode of “Once Upon a Time”:
You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic. – Jefferson/Mad Hatter
I’ve been trying to figure out the reason that the projects I started in October stalled out after only a few weeks of effort. If I’m brutally honest, the reasons boil down to one simple word: fear.
Here’s a TED Talk titled “Why you will fail to have a great career” that pretty much says it all:
I’ve been working on an affirmation for the last week having to do with focus and discipline in all aspects of my life. Maybe I need to just stand in front of a mirror for a few hours and say “Go for it, Kid!”
I didn’t get around to the art room yesterday — more paid work than I expected to have to do. I did make some time today. I managed to clear the clutter from the work table and sort some more stuff for recycle and freecycle. The supply shelves are still a mess and there are several boxes of stuff on the floor to go thru, but I do have some actual work space available now. Plus I can see more clearly what boxes and items I have to use.
Here’s the cleared table:
photo by D'Marie - 2011
I even managed to start painting one of the boxes seen above. Unfortunately, I haven’t touched my paints in so long that some of them are dried up and unusable now. I’ll have to do a thorough inventory and then start replacing them when I can.
For now, I’m just excited to have some work space and some painting started.
A few weeks ago I started a project to reorganize all my art supplies. I made some headway the first day — clearing out five drawers of stuff, throwing away or recycling a bunch of supplies that no longer hold inspiration, and organizing found objects into categories.
Then I got distracted by work, television, and acquiring new art supplies. The result is that my work table has looked like this for the last few weeks:
photo by D'Marie - October 2011
Then there’s the bookcase and paper sorter that sit directly to the right of this:
photo by D'Marie - October 2011
The sad thing is that I do have several projects I want to start, but I have to get through all of this and get it organized before I can get started on them.
I am through most of the pressing stuff for work for the week, so the plan is to take some time tomorrow afternoon to tackle the organization and then get started on the preparation and base for at least one of the new projects.
I’ll try to take more pictures during the organization process, or at least post an “after” photo or two to prove that I got it done. I just wish I could skip the whole “chaos” part and just magically get to the “order” part of life.
Here’s another quote from Alan Arkins An Improvised Life:
It is our nature to be creative. Not being creative is an aberration.
That may be the single quote I’ve been looking for to inspire me — at least until I get to a place where I can be my own inspiration.
It’s just more proof that I need to trust my intuition and my connection to the Universe. I didn’t go to the library on Saturday looking for memoirs of creative people. I just saw several on the shelf and grabbed them without much thought and without even reading the book flaps. I just brought them home and started reading — and found myself in the middle of some intense spiritual and creative philosophy.
Good stuff.
For me, every activity I engage in has to contain the possibility of internal growth: otherwise it ends up as either “making a living” or “passing the time” — two ways of going through life that feel to me like a living death.
– Alan Arkin, an improvised life
Yesterday, J and I went to Tucson for an excursion. The only planned activities were visiting our favorite bookstore, stopping at an art supply store or two and getting lunch at the local vegan restaurant. We were on a schedule, since J had to be to bed early in order to be at work at 3:30 a.m.
I felt bad about not buying anything at Antigone Books. Usually we buy at least one or two books when we visit. J introduced me to one of the owners and we chatted for awhile. I browsed around for awhile, but nothing jumped out at me as needed. I’m focused on gathering ideas and materials for my next batch of artwork and there wasn’t anything at the store that matched that.
Before we left the house, J did a search for art supply stores and found one called Sacred Grounds Trading Post. According to the website, it’s been there since October 2005 and provides supplies for Native artisans as well as selling finished artwork and crafts. We had hoped that J could find some materials for use in two new staffs he’s promised to make for friends. However, I was the one who ended up buying — several feathers, some beads, and a couple of organizers. We both noted other things they keep in stock that may be useful in the future. It’s a great little store and we chatted with the Assistant Manager, Tomasa, for quite awhile.
Lunch was at Lovin Spoonfuls, the sole vegan restaurant in Tucson and a place we’ve eaten at virtually every time we’ve driven down there. The owner is an amazing woman who has created some really good faux meat products that I used to love eating. Now that I’m gluten-free, those aren’t available to me, as most are wheat-based. They do have some good veggie burgers, yummy soy ice cream deserts and a really good gluten-free bread for the burgers and sandwiches. There’s also a vegan bakery case — but again, the cakes and pies aren’t available for a gluten-free diet.
Another great find was Third Eye Arts, a metaphysical store on 4th Ave. They weren’t open when we were downtown before lunch so we made a trip back afterward to check them out. In addition to finding some nice candles and charm-like symbols to use in my artwork, J made a connection with a potential client — which is great because we’d love to have Kitchen Shaman offering cooking classes in Tucson and other parts of Arizona as well as the Phoenix Valley.
All in all it was a productive and enjoyable — if short — visit to J’s former hometown. There was some talk about how happy J would be to move back to Tucson and idle wondering about whether or not I could do my job from there — given that I work nearly 100% of the time from home. We had considered moving to Tucson five years ago. At the time the cost of living there was pretty high while salaries for both of our jobs were low. Now we both have jobs (J could probably transfer within the same company) and housing costs are probably lower — since rentals dropped all over the state after the real estate crash. But, there’s only one vegan/vegetarian restaurant (as opposed to six here with a seventh opening very close to our home soon) and all our friends are here — even if we don’t have much of an opportunity to spend time with them.
I doubt we’ll be moving anytime soon — though we’ll probably make more of an effort to drive down there more than once a year.
“There is much to be done; therefore we must proceed slowly.”
– Buddha
I’ve had a bunch of blogs over the past decade. Some were for a specific purpose while others were more general in nature. If you hunt around the web, you may find the blogs I abandoned or neglected. There are even a few blogs still active, though I don’t update them on a regular schedule.
I’m not sure what this blog will turn out to be. I plan to cover my experiments with various art forms, insights into my daily life, philosophical and spiritual ramblings, and perhaps an opinion or two on movies, television or other forms of popular culture. I know the Universe tends to laugh when mere mortals make plans, so I make no promises about content or frequency of posting. I’m just going to proceed slowly and use the blog to figure out where it is that I’m going.
