Down the Drain

It was bound to happen – writer’s block - of a sort.  Maybe I should call it “quilter’s block,” or “creative deficiency” instead, because I haven’t been producing anything lately…still have a number of ideas in the whirlpool of my brain, but I just can’t seem to get to my studio, to sit down for a chunk of time and DO – that includes writing.  It’s a vortex of torpitude, sucking me into oblivion – I want to get out, please…get the giant suction cup or something.

It’s not a lack of time – I actually have more time at the moment than I have ever had in my life, working part-time.  I think it’s really a matter of having too many things I want to do or having my fingers in too many pots.  It’s completely amazing how quickly the day goes by. 

 Let’s take today, for example: I started my day working on spirituality -  reading, meditating and/or praying at 5:45.  At 6:15 I made my coffee, gathered my son’s lunch and woke him up and then took him to school.  When I got back I opened my computer intending to write but discovered it had been hacked!  So I spent a couple of hours cleaning it up and changing passwords, etc. (Okay, yes, some time was spent cursing, too.)  After which I have to spend time picking up the house, doing laundry, running errands, etc.  By then it was around 11:00 – time for exercise.  After that, work in the yard.  (Yes I know it is January, but the weather is mild and there are so many weeds coming up in the yard it’s frightening – if I don’t start getting rid of them now by spring the entire fenced area will be a carpet of annoying, prickly invaders!)  Next, I desperately needed to get some financial work done for the chicken farm, so that took a couple of hours…time to pick up the lad from school.  (In my case, this takes at least 50 minutes because we live out in the country). 

When we get home I’m grubby and want to take a bath – yes, a bath because sometimes I like to soak. (But more often than that I shower – much quicker, admittedly.) Time to get dinner going.   I usually spend time with my boys in the evening, which I don’t in any way lament, but after we eat and clean up I’m damned if it isn’t 7:30 or later already.  At this time all I have the energy for is to read, write, surf the net, (yes, I admit, I might just play some Angry Birds on occasion…) but I don’t necessarily have the vigor necessary to create. And I observe a strict bedtime of 10-10:30 because I cannot function without sleep – just the way I’m made, unfortunately.  (Once I saw this Martha Stewart interview where she said she realized at some point that she needed very little sleep and would create deep into the night – I have been jealous of her ever since.)   Anyway, the day is gone and I had no time to make or do anything!  And this actually has been a slow day!  But everything just takes so much...time!!

I’m not complaining – I love my life and feel incredibly lucky.  I just realize that even when one seems to have some time, it gets easily filled up.  There's so much I want to do, and so little time in the day!  I know we all suffer from this enthusiasm, too.

  So…

 In my usual “Can do, Problem-Solving" fashion, (or dream-like, fantasy state, some extremely negative people who know me well might say) I’m formulating a PLAN:  The thing to do, I’m thinking, is designate certain days for certain things.   Have a routine that includes time for creativity, family time, exercise, chores, work - notice these are in order of interest - even time with friends - all of it scheduled on a daily, weekly, maybe even monthly basis. 

Okay, it’s hardly an original idea -  remember the old rhyme that went Monday, Washday - Tuesday-(what?)-day,and so forth? (Can’t actually remember any other day except Monday...) The point is, if one is going to create, then one must set aside time to do it. 

So I’m going to write up a little schedule for myself.  I’m going to make a list of things that must be done on a regular basis and then things that should be done at some point soon, and then of course, the things I really want to be doing.  Then I’m going to start, naturally, with the things I want to do and schedule them and try to fit in everything else!

Just kidding – wish I could do that, but I’ll be practical and prioritize.  I’ll force myself to adhere to this schedule rigorously for an entire month and report back on my progress and thoughts.  I can be disciplined, really I can - I just prefer to fly by the seat of my pants.  But that leads to well, refer to the top of the page, so I’ll just shut up and go make a schedule - time is flying, you know. 

Back in the Saddle?

            Finally!  I’m jumping back onto the writing and quilting bandwagon.  It’s been a very busy fall, and I just haven’t been able to get to either - too busy working .   (Hate it when being a grown-up interferes with my life.) 

           Naturally, now that things are starting to calm down, I’m looking around at my studio and I’ve realized that at the moment I have little desire to finish my current  work-in-progress, which has been patiently and quietly hanging on the wall, just waiting for me to come and help it fulfill its wall-hanging destiny.  I look at it and yeah, I still like it, and I want to finish it – oh, someday.    But I’d much rather start the new project that came into my head just yesterday.

            So I have this little drama going on inside my head. The practical (I’ll call it German) side of me thinks, “Now Carrie, you need to finish the one you started; you don’t want to have a bunch of unfinished projects, then you aren’t really accomplishing anything.  You can just finish this one and you’ll have something to look forward to starting after.  Just sit down and start working and you’ll get excited about it again…”  

 “Hmm,” I tell myself, “maybe I’m right.”    

            Suddenly in barges the other part of my brain (I’ll call it the ‘Not German’ or NG for short) .   “Oh come on, do what you feel like doing – art isn’t work, it’s art.  Go ahead and start the next project while you’re inspired!   You’ll finish the other one too, you know you will…eventually.   But look, you need something that will get you back into the creative groove, something  right now – this isn’t about being practical, this is about carpe diem!” 

“Hmm,” I think to myself, “I might have a point there, too.” 

            I hate it when that happens.  The battle between art and practical rages inside me all the time.   I’ve never been able to give in fully to either side.  I would actually love to just do what I feel like doing and not worry about it, but there’s that horrible super-ego that has a really large mouth that always has to have its say.  Whom do I listen to?  Who is right?  It’s quite a battle going on in my brain, and it happens often.   

            Suddenly I’ve had it.  “Stuff a cork in it, me!  Stop acting like this is some momentous decision and DO SOMETHING! “  I yell into my head.   Calmer, I make my decision, realizing that it doesn't really matter one way or another what I do, not only in this particular instance, but perhaps ever.  Aaah - that puts it all into perspective, doesn't it?   

            The choice is, of course, obvious to anyone who likes to create.  I’ll start the new one.   (To be honest, I already spent a few hours on the design yesterday, but feeling a little guilty when I glanced at the forlorn and unfinished project on the wall, I didn’t make any cuts yet – does it count if I haven’t actually actually started yet? ) 

            Anyway, to offset my guilt at being so undisciplined,  I will also confess that I also have no real idea how to put this new project together yet.  The sketch is great, but how I’m actually going to get it put together is another story…HA!  My practical side is now laughing in a rather undignified manner at my NG side.  Guess that’s what I exactly what I deserve for constantly talking to and then listening to my - selves.   

So, my thoughts/feelings on the Houston quilt show - finally.  I loved it, as always.  Every year I am excited, inspired, amazed, and I learn so very much.  It's easy to be a critic, I suppose, but I can hardly find anything at that show that I don't think is amazing (guess I'm still easily amused, as one of my college friends put it) Although at one point, I did overhear a comment that someone was "disappointed" in the winners - huh?  Is that possible?  How could one not be totally bowled over at the dedication, creativity, and amazing detailed work that went into those quilts, even if it isn't exactly something one might do oneself.  I don't get that comment at all.  I will say that I was annoyed at some of the quilts that somehow did NOT win a prize - hard to understand.  I guess there's no accounting for judging!

 I am going to share some of the amazing quilts I saw here and make some comments.  Many of them don't translate to pictures quite as well as they should, but here goes:

Quilt, Interrupted

       I apologize for being so intermittant lately where this blog is concerned, but I am currently suffering from “quiltis interruptus.”  Since attending the quilt show in Houston and being inspired by many new and exciting ideas,  I have, sadly, not had time to work on, think about, or deal with anything remotely having to do with art. 

       And yes, it is making me crabby.  But what’s a girl/wife/mother/chicken farmer/working gal to do? 
        I keep waiting for things to settle down so I can set a schedule to work on my art, but there is no end in sight – hell, now it’s the holiday season, and we all know that means we have to decorate, shop, bake, clean, plan, wrap, socialize (all of which are fun, but they do take time). 
        I have the evenings free most of the time, but I admit that I seem to be picking up the daylight savings-time blahs – I’m really tired at night - lately all I seem to have energy for in the evenings are sedentary pursuits; if I’m lucky and it’s not past 8:30 when I sit down, I might be able to read, watch television, or search the internet without falling asleep, but even doing a crossword puzzle can be too taxing for my brain – last night I drifted off on 22 across!   So anything requiring concentration, patience, and/or problem-solving is definitely out.    

       I know I’m not the only one who suffers from this disease.  We all have things we want to work on that we simply cannot get to at times – it’s called LAAG (Life As a Grown-Up).   And sometimes, let's face it, it sucks.  As my friend Karen put it the other day “I find it can be quite boring at times to be an adult.  In fact, Peter Pan is my idol.”  

         If only my mother hadn’t taught me to be so damned responsible ! (Yes, once again it’s all her fault - she haunts me even from the grave - it's her voice I hear in my head telling me "Do the right thing...take care of your responsibilities...no one ever said it was going to be easy.)  It's enough to make me want to fly away to Neverland myself sometimes!

     Well Tinkerbell, it’s okay if we can’t fit it all in right now.  I know I’ll find the time and energy to get back to art soon.  How do I know this?  Because it’s an important part of my life and as such, I will make it happen.  It’s almost a matter of commitment and discipline - even if at first I have to drag myself kicking and screaming up the stairs and chain myself to the leg of my work table, I know that once I get back to work, the energy and ideas with be there.  I think we all go through periods where we have less creative motivation and/or time, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care, it just means we have other things that are more pressing.

        Soon, when the desire to create overcomes my lassitude, I will get up and get busy again.  Until then, keep tuning in – writing is a pretty sedentary activity, too…although right now I do feel a nap coming on…

Of Mice and Men

              I had the best of intentions: On day one  I was to look at the art; on day two, look at the shops, decide what items I want to purchase and weed out what I could not afford, and on the third day make my purchases.  All might have gone as planned except we ended up tweaking our strategy a little: We decided that instead of viewing all the art at once (It really was quite overwhelming – actually exhausting -  and we felt we couldn’t do them all justice)  we would go back and forth between the shopping booths and the art.  Admire the art for a couple of hours, look at the booths for a couple of hours…take a break and eat, then do it again.  Still, it was working; I didn’t buy anything on the first day, and I only bought one item on the second day.  I had seen most, but not all of the shopping booths by the end of the second day, and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to buy from what I had seen, so I felt safe on the third day. 

            Little did I know that I was to experience a new phenomena  – one that I will call, the big finale.  On that third day, after I had coolly made my planned purchases, I discovered the Vogue booth, with hundreds of beautiful, colorful batik fabrics for half of what they normally go for!  I felt I would have been a fool to resist buying them, even though I had spent my allotment already.  “Okay,” I told myself, “You’ve spent your sum, but this really is a bargain!  Besides, I know I will use these fabrics!”   So I went ahead and bought them.  Later, we came across a booth we had missed with some of the most interesting designs I had seen in quite some time.  People were in a fabric frenzy in there– flipping through the stacks like they were dealing cards…even grabbing fabric from each other, and I knew that if I didn’t buy some of it, it would be gone, so, weakened  as I was from allowing myself to fall off the fabric wagon, I got that, too.  And that was it – I had taken my finger out of the dike and the material sprang forth.   

            The next day was Saturday, and we only had a few hours at the show before we had to leave.  We still hadn’t seen all the art, so we planned on viewing, and then leaving.   But then I got inspired by some of the pieces I had seen, and we still had two hours, so I decided I wanted to look for specific colors, and  suddenly we passed by the hand-dyes I am such a sucker for,  and the colors were so rich, and I was leaving soon, so I bought some of them, and then I (stupidly) visited the Vogue booth again with their darn half-priced fabrics -  and in the exact colors I was looking for, too…I ended up spending twice the amount I had planned.  I even had to go to the ATM to get more cash for food and incidentals. 

I’m so ashamed!**

            I’m also a little disappointed in myself because I did not remain entirely present and aware, which was my spiritual goal.  I know that I didn’t need to buy all I did;  I already have enough for many future projects, darn it,  but once the end was near, that part of me that is pure emotion took over and the result was, well, fabric gluttony.   I didn’t want to gain any fabric weight this year, but I piled the pounds on at the end.  Damn.

            My only consolation is that I already have ideas and designs in mind for every purchase that I made  - does that make it all better?  Probably not, but it makes me feel better, anyway.   

So for this year, I must give myself a failing grade (A, for avarice), but next year, I’m still striving for a Z (for Zen!)

**Not really, because I really am so excited and inspired by the stuff I got, but I should be - really!

Propoganda Perspective

My son recently did a report on George Orwell for his the English class.  He read one of Orwell’s essays on language and how it can be used to mislead the masses.  It got me thinking about the Houston Quilt Festival, which I will be happily attending next week.  I realized that attending the show can have some Orwellian consequences that are either completely unintended OR – they are diabolically designed by some evil geniuses who are trying to control me, you and everyone else who attends. 

One of the reasons I love to go to the festival is to see and be inspired by the astounding creativity of the artists.  Often I come home so excited that before I say hello to my family I am at my desk, busily working on my next project inspired by something I saw or some amazing fabric I came across.

But - there is danger lurking in the seemingly innocent rows of inspiration - it is the danger of thing-a-ma-bobs, doo-dads, and hootchies.  You know – it’s all the stuff that you see in the merchant section of the show. These items that seem so delightful in the glow of post-quilt viewings are often in reality items that you never actually use and can’t remember how to work once you get home.  The people in the booths cleverly demonstrate their ease of use, tell that they can simplify and save time and how they allow you to make the amazing creations they have on display,  and you actually believe you must have one or you’ll never be inspired again, but the truth is it’s really just the warm afterglow of viewing great art influencing your judgement - you may not truly be interested in making that particular type of quilt and the handy ” whatsit”  you need to make it will, in all probability, sit in your studio for years until you come across it one day and really cannot remember what it is or how to use it.  See what I mean about being mislead?  You are in actuality being influenced by the beauty of the creations you have viewed to buy a bunch of crap you don’t actually want!

I'm not saying all the gadgets or tools sold at the quilt show are useless; I’m sure all of them were invented in good faith and some of them really are handy, no doubt.  I’m just saying that it is good to be a little more scientific and less emotional when deciding what to actually purchase, especially after looking at the quilts on display.  I speak not in a preachy manner, but from experience.  I have been a victim of afterglow several times myself, and my mother, bless her enthusiastic soul, was one of the worst suckers for gadgets I ever saw.  Periodically I would help her clean out her studio and we often found items still in their original packaging (albeit covered with dust) and when I would question her about it, she either couldn’t remember buying it, or said “Oh yeah – I was going to use that to make that one quilt – oh I can’t remember, but it was really cool – just put it back, I’ll get to it later…” But of course, there was always some other new thingy, and most of them still sit dust-covered (now in my studio as Mother is no longer with us),  or have fallen off the shelf and broken, never to be used at all.    

This year I am on a short budget due to the fact that we are embarking on a new business venture (see my other blog:: cotton-pickingchickenblogger.blogspot.com), so I have devised a plan.  First, I am going to set myself a budget and take the amount in cash only. I am making a list of items to look for based on some designs I have planned beforehand, as well.   I will not even bring my credit card, so I cannot be tempted to use it.  On day one I will view the quilts, and view the quilts only.  The next day I will go through the booths and make lists of the booth numbers and what I think is interesting or what I want to buy (which is always a long list) as well as the price.  I will go over the list that night and see what exorbitant number I come up with and whittle it down to a more realistic amount, and on the third day I shall visit the booths again and make my actual purchases.  That way I won’t overspend or waste any money on things I will not use.  I’m going to stick to this plan no matter what.   I refuse to purchase another item I don’t really need just because of quilting propaganda.

Having said all that, of course I will be open to new innovations and ideas – part of the purpose of attending the festival is to get new inspiration, so I need to be a little spontaneous, right?  I'm not against being excited, I am merely attempting to NOT be mislead by the propoganda of the amazing art I will be viewing!  I'm trying to walk the line of inspiration frenzy and cool, clear-headed consumerism (which does NOT run in my family).  I’ll let you know how that goes when I get back – wish me self-control, okay?

Sorry I haven't written in the last couple of weeks - been busy with my new chicken farming venture and my new part-time job!  I'll have a post completed tomorrow, though, so stay tuned!