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I seem to get enthusiasms - I’m not sure what else to call them-where all of a sudden I have a new interest that I have to learn all about. And then I’ll go into overload mode where I absorb everything about the subject that I can find and I’ll try it until I’m relatively confident about it… Then I’ll go on to the next one or cycle back to a new phase of one of my other hobbies. I can’t seem to fully concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

Right now I’m reading up on writing. It was the one thing that I’ve been meaning to get around to “someday” that I hadn’t done much about. So I’ve been writing and I’ve been reading. I always read but it’s is a bit more directed when I’m trying to learn about something. I request books from the library, download workshops, read online articles, listen to podcasts… Basically fill up my brain with anything about the subject I can find.

My brain’s almost at the overflow point - that’s when I can take all these ideas and techniques and know-how and start connecting them together and trying new things.

It’s quite fun actually but I have to admit I’ve been neglecting my clay… But that’s ok. It’s time will come around again once the writing is more stable.

I was walking in the woods a couple weeks ago, around the loop that goes through the nature preserve–the same loop I’ve done many times before. Sometimes I go one way and sometimes I go the other but it’s always the same loop. It’s a nice little place, a hidden green world in the back of a very proper housing development. Looking at the slope of the land, and the enormous rocks left by ancient glaciers I can see why they didn’t build here.

This particular day, I took a small offshoot to the main loop. I’d been that way before, it doesn’t go very far, just down to a stream where the old beam bridge had been cut away because it was unsafe and the preserve doesn’t continue on the other side. I knew where it went. But that day, I noticed something, just the tiny hint of other feet wearing a path–not quite a trail at all–going off along the stream.

And I followed it.

As I came up over the rise a medium sized brown shape scuttled away, into the water or along the bank, I’m not sure. I saw a swampy pond, ghostly drowned trees sticking out of it and blackbirds crying the alarm over head. I startled a pair of mallards and then a great blue heron took off, landing further down the shore.

I sat there for quite awhile, watching the blackbirds and listening to the woodpecker in an old dead pine. Then I followed the bank for awhile, got my shoes muddy and saw a goose sitting quiet, almost dead, on a rock in the middle of the pond. I came back another day, just to be sure she wasn’t dead–she was that still. She had moved on her nest but was still faithfully keeping her eggs warm.

I had a wonderful afternoon that day and spent another hour wandering the woods and exploring, making my own path wherever I wanted to go.

I took a FranklinCovey based time management class at work the other day (voluntarily I might add). I’d taken it once before, a few years ago, and gotten alot out of it. Not so much on managing minutes or forcing myself to get more done in less time–although it could help with that too–as focusing on what’s important in my life, whether it’s at work or personal, and making sure I get the important things done first.

You also get a really nice day planner at the class

There was a short little exercise that hit me. We paired up and the instructor had us introduce ourselves as we were ten years ago (just out of college, just married, etc) then as we will be ten years from now. That’s the part that hit me. There are a few dreams and idle plans that I’ve had in the back of my mind just percolating… because there’s plenty of time, I can always get to them later… But do I want to wait till later? If later isn’t now, when is it? It may turn out to be never.

So part of the class was thinking about our goals and values–where we want to be–then breaking it down and figuring out how to get there. I took one of my deferred, back of the mind, dreams and did just that. I have more goals but I’m going to concentrate on just this one for at least a month or two. Then I can see where I am, if it’s something I want to do and continue, and whether there are any other things that I want to add.

So now, off to learn how to hang-glide Ok, maybe I won’t follow that particular childhood dream but who knows?

It seems like I can’t concentrate well on more than one thing at a time. I don’t just mean multi-tasking for simple tasks, although it did take me a little while when I was a kid to figure out how to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time.

If I have something challenging me at work, (as I have recently - in a good way since I get to learn some new technology) it seems to take up alot of my mental energy… When I get home I’m less likely to work on my own website or dig out my clay and try something new and ambitious. When things are a little more routine and I need a challenge, I start working on my own projects with renewed enthusiasm.

I think it works out fairly well though… As long as I don’t try to artificially force too much into my life. That’s when my art and hobbies become stress and work instead of an escape.

Not to say I haven’t been doing anything lately though I’ve done another round of fused glass, made my first PMC piece in the new kiln, then broke it while touching it up just a little more, then ordered some oil paste and fixed it… I also tried the glass powder freeze and fuse technique which allows you to make glass pieces from silicone molds. So I have been happily creative, I just haven’t been prolific. I will try to take some pictures and post on some of my attempts because there are some really interesting techniques.

But since I’m not forcing myself to get things done, I can’t promise exactly when that will be

Ok, I admit it. I am a procrastinator.

Admission is the first step to a cure, isn’t it? It usually isn’t too bad being a procrastinator. An approaching deadline inspires me to buckle down and finally make that masterpiece (hopefully!) that’s been lurking in the back of my head.

So, I had looked at the deadlines for a couple contests in April and put them on the calendar months ago and put the dates in the back of my mind. One was the 4th and one was the 15th. And of course I completely switched them in my head so that I thought the one I really wanted to enter (Bead Dreams) was on the 15th - plenty of time! Except it isn’t - it’s the 4th. I realized when I turned the page for the calendar. Doh!

At least it’s an online entry so I can still send something in. It just won’t end up being the piece I was thinking of making if I’d had the extra ten days I thought I had. Oh well, now where’s that application to Procrastinator’s Anonymous? Maybe I’ll send it in sometime

I was reading Kathleen Dustin’s interview in Polymer Cafe yesterday and she made a comment about making art personal.

It made me wonder about my own. Is it personal? Usually I just think of something I want to make - an animal I want to sculpt, what I want it to look like, and then I make it… Is that personal? It doesn’t really sound like it when I put it that way.

But I think it is just the same. I almost always sculpt animals or something from nature. And I know EVERY artist is inspired by nature so while that may be my personal inspiration, it’s not very unique

But I’ve always loved animals. When I was a kid my family had a mini, hobby sort of farm. At one time or another we had ponies, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, geese… And there were swallows flitting in and out of the eaves in the barn, and deer and pheasants in the fields. I spent alot of time outside, making forts, exploring or just sitting in trees and thinking. I read alot too - one of my favorite books was by Jacques Cousteau and full of fascinating ocean life. The walls of my room didn’t need wallpaper - I had them covered in exotic animals and landscapes pulled from National Geographic.

So is my art personal? Yes, I think so. But I might be able to make it a bit more so by thinking about where it’s coming from. And maybe using some of those childhood memories and sculpting the ones that mean something to me. I’ve already sculpted the swallows… They’re beauty and freedom and effortless flight, and a touch of my childhood.

There are a number of different variations of the Taxas Caviar salsa recipe. If you like cilantro, you’ll like this. And don’t let the beans put you off… I almost never eat them but they’re great in this once they’re marinated in the salsa.

I make different variations but this latest one was:

Toss the following in a large bowl (this makes alot):

• 2 cans black-eyed peas (drained)
• 2 small cans Rotel tomatoes with mild chiles (drained)
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• 2 green peppers (chopped)
• 1/2 bottle zesty italian salad dressing (or substitute with your choice of oil and vinegar)
• 1 bunch of cilantro (chopped)
• tablespoon or so minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp coriander

Mix and refrigerate at least overnight. Serve with corn chip scoops.
WARNING - it’s addicting!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Texas-Caviar-I/Detail.aspx

http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv95.htm

Well, as usual, I’m not dead but there have been times I wished I was for the last few days… I’ve had the worst cold I’ve had in a really long time. Lately, I’ve been sleeping and reading and watching tv and that’s just about it. I haven’t touched my clay, and even took a couple days out of work.

But I did pick up a kid’s book on drawing anime and manga out of the library last week and I was having some fun with that. I started out by just tracing some of the drawings and exercises because it’s amazing how bad I am at drawing smooth lines. That got me started and I started getting a feel for how the drawings were done and did a couple of my own. I’m definitely not great at it but it was fun. A nice creative but not intense activity that I could do while my head was throbbing and my lungs were trying to cough themselves out my ears.

And I think I’m starting to feel better finally…

The more I read and the more I learn about being an “artist”, the more I realize there is no magic wand or mystical, inborn talent involved. (Yes, there are exceptions for child prodigies but I’m talking about the rest of us.)

I used to have a subconscious belief that people who could draw or paint were born with the knowledge and the vision. I knew it took practice to refine the talent, but I didn’t know it could also be learned. I didn’t know that it was legitimate to take a step by step approach (at least at first) without it being cheating. I didn’t know there were tricks and tips to “seeing” that help you to recreate what you see.

I’ve seen a couple things in books and videos, where at first I was shocked. “He traced the photograph onto his clay to start a relief?? I could do that!” For some reason, I thought you could just stare at something and make it look real, if you were a “real” artist. I never knew how much work it took to get to that point. And it gave me permission to try some shortcuts myself and decide which ones I liked.

The more I learn and the more I try, the more I realize that I still have a long way to go, but I also know I can get there.

I’ve never really tried to draw since the art classes we took in Junior High. But I dug out some pencils and gave it a try tonight. I was feeling a little too tired to tackle my frog sculpture. Which if you think about it is interesting - I was too tired to concentrate on sculpting but not too tired for something creative.

I think the difference is that I don’t expect to be good at drawing so there’s less pressure. As I’ve heard a couple places recently, I had “permission to suck” at drawing. But I do expect (or at least want) to be good at my sculpting so I end up putting more pressure on myself. I think I need to make myself a permission slip:

The bearer has permission to be imperfect, screw up and have fun making art.

So anyway I rather enjoyed drawing. I tried out the different types of pencils, played around a bit. Tried to make a quick drawing of my cat but she wouldn’t hold still… Made my own version of a drawing from a book (I’m not advocating copying but this was a throwaway just to figure out some line use). And I had fun.

I figure the more I draw, the more I’ll learn to see and that will help with my sculpting too.