Recently my work to creative balance has been tough, finding the time to do the art and projects I truly want to do has been a struggle. Though there are things I have found and introduced into my work life that allow me to be creative there is a big difference between that creativity and other ways I would use creativity in my personal life. I often day dream of creative endevours I wish I had time for, and when I do have the time I often would rather just rest and reset my life and my house in order to feel ready to work yet again. The constant cycle. The issue seems to have an easy solution, quit my job and focus my time and energy on outlets more creative and stimulating for me. But I love my job, and that is certainly not an option I want to choose. So I must find another solution that involves both at the same time so I do not find myself day dreaming of driving a far distance and spending a few weeks in personal isolation without informing those around me. As fun and juicy as that sounds to my little mind it is also not an option I have or am willing to choose. So how.....
First off I need some sort of mind reset, this usually works best for me in the form of cleaning, donating, and rearranging things in my personal space. Basically I have to start checking off the imaginary boxes in my head of things I have to do that I think of at the wrong time and then proptly forget in order to store "more important" information in my brain. These things include going through all of my clothing and donating and giving away as much as I can. I often dream of a time in my life where I have found my personal style and have pieces of clothing I love so much that they are actually wearing out due to use. But because my slight addiction to online shopping is a relevant thing in my life I have been working on doing to opposite for some time now, getting new things, not wearing them much and in turn not wearing them out. After that is taken care of the plan would then be to find things in my house that I use often but don't have a specfic space for a home, most likely in my newly found closet space. For example my large bag of quilts used for sitting on at beaches and picnic settings. The moving of furniture is normally also part of this process but I might skip it this time, I am still enjoying the layout of my house at the moment and don't think it's necessary. There is also a good amount of yarn and different textile things I have accumulated, the closet would also be a good spot for those.
So after all of the cleaning, donating, and rearranging is done, the next goal is to set aside time and space for me to do projects. I feel like this may be the hardest part. Time is precious for me and when I have the time but the creative spark is not there, the creativity will not happen. A good place for me to start is sending letters. Since a good friend of mine just moved across the country it makes sending a letter quite easy as often the hardest part is finding someone to send a letter to in the first place. Sending a letter is a very rewarding experience, the contents of the letter ideally has no rules and each letter sending ends the same, with a stamp to seal the deal. But the contents having no rules means whatever I am feeling up for in that moment works. I sent letters to my boyfriend while he was away and some letters were filled with art and fun and others were straight to the point, either way they made a perfectly fine letter.
Beyond just letter sending the goal would be to dive into a larger project, one I can really get behind and put some time into. About a 2 months ago I had started a large oil painting, and after spending a single day on it I didn't touch it again. I just couldn't get behind it, and even when I wanted to the time was not there for me to do so. In a way having this website for me is like a big painting that in time will hopefully turn into what I would like it to but in the mean time is sort of an escape and an exercise for my brain. Every time I find something new that is possible to incorporate it's like adding a new medium into the painting. And once I get bored of that medium and move on I may paint over certain parts so the speak and find a new direction to move in. As much as I love real life art making I do think that there is something special about making and creating things online and digitally. That is a big reason my go to creative outlet recently has been KidPix. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this job is making me spend actual time on my computer, which in turn makes digital art more approachable for me right now, or it could be because KidPix is incredibly fun. Most likely a mixture of the two.
Maybe part of the issue is that my idea of what art is and isn't is flawed and lacking perspective. I do believe that anything can be considered art, which is something that Patt Brennan taught me years ago while I filmed him for a school documentary. This is a link to an audio recording from that interview with some visuals. It is not the documentary from school, I don't have access to it anymore. https://youtu.be/lDGGEhWBv_I?si=LWA9Cg_rLuVluZJO Anyways I think he is right in what he says and that maybe I am looking and searching in the wrong places. I also tend to resort back to something Kevin has told me before which is something along the lines of "All there is to it is to do it" meaning if I want to change something I just need to change it, and doing art is a pretty easy thing to do if I want to do it considering the fact that I have at this point in time been sober for more than half of the year and that happened solely based on the fact that all there was to it was to do it. So basically I just figured it out, and you all will be seeing some more art from me soon. If you don't it's because I haven't put it on here, but trust me, it's still happening.
-Lillian
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