Art and craft and writing and time
I've been looking for creative outlets the last couple of months, things that are deliberately not writing, because writing is really loaded for me right now. There is no way I will not write fiction again, but right now it's so freighted with stuff for me that it's just on hold. I've turned my attentions to painting and making jewelry.
The jewelry-making is part outlet and part experiment. I've made jewelry for years. I sold stuff on Etsy for a while. This year, I decided to participate in my company's annual holiday craft fair, so I'm busily manufacturing pieces for sale. I need a lot of stock, most of which I know I won't sell. But the table must look full and it must sparkle. I've already made something like 25 pairs of earrings--I need a lot more. I've made only two necklaces and four bracelets. Given how soon the fair is, I've got to step it up. Today is for some of that. What I've learned is that though I love the process of making jewelry, like any creative endeavor, now that I have to do it, I'm not enjoying it quite as a much, even though each and every piece is a learning experience in one way or another. With one piece I find I wrap wire a little more neatly and efficiently. With another I discover a better way to hold the piece while I draw a needle through a bead so as to save my hands in the work. Today needs to be a marathon of manufacturing. Whether I do it here or, perhaps, at the Wayward Coffeehouse, where there would be company without company (as one gets in a coffeehouse), the work must be done.
I have gone through periods of my life doing visual art in one fashion or another. One of the things I decided earlier this fall was that I wanted a decidedly non-verbal outlet that might allow me to process some emotional stuff at the same time as I was being creative. I signed up for a class called "expressive painting," which is basically doing abstract art. The first session was enormously satisfying and resulted (as I have written about here) in lots of dreaming. The second class resulted in more of the same. Bonus: I'm really enjoying what I'm doing there. Whenever I've done artwork, it has tended to be figurative. This business of just laying the paint on the canvas without a plan, playing with brushes and sponges and my fingers in the paint has so far proven really cathartic--which is exactly what I wanted. I woke up yesterday with an idea for a pencil drawing; I need to get out my paper and pencils and make an attempt there. This has never happened before.
So between these two efforts, there's something going on. Contrary to my usual habit, I'm trying not to think too hard about any of it; I'm trying to just be with it, to just let it happen without too much contemplation. I'm so good at getting in my own way. I don't want that to happen here.
The jewelry-making is part outlet and part experiment. I've made jewelry for years. I sold stuff on Etsy for a while. This year, I decided to participate in my company's annual holiday craft fair, so I'm busily manufacturing pieces for sale. I need a lot of stock, most of which I know I won't sell. But the table must look full and it must sparkle. I've already made something like 25 pairs of earrings--I need a lot more. I've made only two necklaces and four bracelets. Given how soon the fair is, I've got to step it up. Today is for some of that. What I've learned is that though I love the process of making jewelry, like any creative endeavor, now that I have to do it, I'm not enjoying it quite as a much, even though each and every piece is a learning experience in one way or another. With one piece I find I wrap wire a little more neatly and efficiently. With another I discover a better way to hold the piece while I draw a needle through a bead so as to save my hands in the work. Today needs to be a marathon of manufacturing. Whether I do it here or, perhaps, at the Wayward Coffeehouse, where there would be company without company (as one gets in a coffeehouse), the work must be done.
I have gone through periods of my life doing visual art in one fashion or another. One of the things I decided earlier this fall was that I wanted a decidedly non-verbal outlet that might allow me to process some emotional stuff at the same time as I was being creative. I signed up for a class called "expressive painting," which is basically doing abstract art. The first session was enormously satisfying and resulted (as I have written about here) in lots of dreaming. The second class resulted in more of the same. Bonus: I'm really enjoying what I'm doing there. Whenever I've done artwork, it has tended to be figurative. This business of just laying the paint on the canvas without a plan, playing with brushes and sponges and my fingers in the paint has so far proven really cathartic--which is exactly what I wanted. I woke up yesterday with an idea for a pencil drawing; I need to get out my paper and pencils and make an attempt there. This has never happened before.
So between these two efforts, there's something going on. Contrary to my usual habit, I'm trying not to think too hard about any of it; I'm trying to just be with it, to just let it happen without too much contemplation. I'm so good at getting in my own way. I don't want that to happen here.