Tag: life

Tumeny words

PiaChit Chat

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I’m painting today and I’m determined to keep at it even if there are loud phone conversations upstairs, lunch requests and various pet related incidents. I started out with something easy, filling in the poppy shapes I did months ago (I think I’m going to have a look at real poppies before I move on 😉 ), but I also want to get a sketch done which has lived in my head for a long time. I bet it’s blocking the way for others!

sketchWhy am I persisting with a medium that seems so difficult for me? (not new, I did paint quite a lot many years ago) I actually wrote a 3000 word blog post on that over the weekend, it’s not even done yet and I don’t think I’ll ever publish it. But the short version is: A because it keeps knocking, B that I suspect the things which are easy at first may not be the ones where you ultimately excel, and C I have to get over my story of how I need perfect surroundings before I can begin. At the very least I should tell it differently.

See, in just over 200 words! That was some kickass editing if you ask me.

Right, egg sandwiches done and on my part eaten, back to work. While waiting for the others to dry I’ve hauled out one of the used canvasses I “inherited”. At first I tried to work with the lines and colour there, but it’s not working even if I see some kind of forest scene in my head. But nevermind, today’s exercise is simply: keep at it. That’s my only ambition. All day, only the necessary breaks when somebody is either hungry or needs to pee. After all, it’s not Molly’s fault that I’m an idjit. (‘m allowed to blog while I eat egg sandwiches)

I think I may have answered my colour question from last week. I keep wanting to mix in clean colours with the black and olive, I even happily dipped away in phtalo blue when I thought I’d reached for the ultramarine…

Limitations

PiaChit Chat

operaOur chat on my mad colour schemes made me think of this old draft that I began a year ago. The talk turned more towards doing a variety of things, which we’ve also discussed before, rather than what I intended: a wide variety of styles. (actually I’ve now realized that my colour issues are all about the yarn, but more about that on Wednesday).

Frances mentioned how in her experience artists and crafters fall into two categories, the ones who do things by the book and have a limited repertoire, but do it well, and the ones that just want to experiment because they get excited about it all.

I see it mostly in my photo blog I guess, since I have too little time to produce all the paintings and textiles that I think up. I’ve been trying to find something new and different for each day’s post, which is the complete opposite of making an exhibition for instance, where you’d want a common thread either on the colour side or the method used or the topic. You just don’t put a photoreal seascape next to an abstract in red and gold unless you’re a very happy amateur (or very famous possibly). Most people develop a style when they’ve been at it long enough.

Question is, if I ever will, when I keep flirting with all sorts of things? Or is that, in fact, the only way to find it? There are some things I don’t do much, such as portraits and cities; nature, weather and animals are at least a reasonably constant inspiration. So is that narrow enough? Some really awesome photographers do nothing but mountains all their lives – but I just can’t ignore all the other pretties. MotherOwl, Raquel and I have been talking about working in a spiral, both in practical terms as well as personally, and if that is what comes naturally, don’t fight it. But can you tame it?!

Otoh I do want to be proud of what I’m making, and guess this is where I stumble. I spoke to Dre about mastery vs. project completion, and I think I want the skill more right now, than a collection of finished canvases (I haven’t got anywhere to store them anyway!) – but eventually I do want to have something to show for myself. You may have noticed it on the blog, I fling all sorts of ideas at you and show the materials but then you never hear of it again.

So if I want to keep doing all the things, why do I also keep coming back to feeling like I need some kind of plan? Birdie thinks it’s probably wise to make certain choices, my next thought is, perhaps my choices would sort themselves once I had a chance to work a little bit with everything and some ideas would end up exhausting themselves pretty quick? How are you to know which ones burn the brightest as long as they’re only in your head? Just beware the lure of new things, they can become a form of procrastination when you are addicted to learning as I am. Sometimes I even know that they are, but I let them take up a bit of space anyway. This kind of awareness I’d like to cultivate and act on more.

I was going to try out another way of getting the painterly juices flowing: Putting myself in a box. The idea is, if you limit your options, you are forced to find a solution and work on it, instead of being overwhelmed by all the choices in the entire universe. Paint only horses for a year. I just never get around to it. A way to limit yourself is not by topic or colour, but by medium. No drawing, collage, watercolour, stamping, just acrylics. And simply not even look at what everybody else is doing with those other media. As Birdie has also mentioned, things like Pinterest is truly a blessing in disguise. You can spend all day looking at pretty things and not MAKE a single one.

I don’t know if it’s in my nature to stay in a box at all for any length of time, or if I’m simply avoiding the long haul out of sheer laziness. See? Now we’re back to talking THINGS, not styles. How did that happen?!

I had a dream recently where I was in a theater, and to get to my seat I had to go through a passage so narrow it seemed impossible to squeeze through and not get stuck (in fact it got tighter as I tried, that’s a recurring dream theme). So I wandered around trying other routes, eventually ending up at a row of seats but my ticket number was not on any of them! When I woke up it was still very vivid, and I began to wonder if I really should have chosen the option of fighting my way through the tight door, and what the result would have been. (all the while my darker side suggested this was proof that I simply don’t have a place in the theater of life, but I’m choosing to ignore that interpretation) If this had happened in real life – what would I have done? If I had slowed down, examined the tight space instead of rejecting it? Would I have given up on finding my seat altogether or walked through every single one, checking them? Just sat down until someone else claimed that particular chair?

Perhaps it will solve itself, as I mentioned last week and above, if I have the luxury of working on 25 skyscapes without setting back everything else for 3 years. Could be just the massive backlog clamouring for attention. This week is vacation, which means I have to be available to make or supervise house repairs and stuff. And, you know, talk. I have high hopes for next week…. 😉

And I’d like to point out, I AM having fun and I’m not worried. I just think a lot. And I want to optimize my time. 🙂 As well as go with the flow….

I think I’ll have to go though all the old posts and comments and write myself a summary instead of bringing this up repeatedly. It ties in pretty well with my Focus/Intention keyword too!

Incidentally, yesterday as I was done walking the dog and shopping after my garden adventure, I had to have a nap and then to wake up again sat myself to browse the book I won from Quinn McDonald “Inner Hero”. My recent pains had been keeping me from concentrating on it, but they’re on a break for now, most of them. I quote from the introduction:

“Most comments your inner critic makes will encourage you to start something new, take a break or get serious about your lack of talent or creativity by swiitching from one medium to another (I don’t know if that’s the only reason one switches, though)….This book is about sitting down with your inner critic and calmly listening, deciding on your truth and then replying to your inner critic with a strong voice of conviction that honors your creativity….. [it] assumes your creative cup is not full. (well, ahem…) If your creative cup is already full, then one more idea, one more project will cause it to overflow and lose content…. I wrote the book for anyone who strikes sparks of light and wants to fan sparks into a flame.”

Not much of anything

PiaChit Chat

A couple of weeks ago I had a million things I wanted to write about, words and ideas were in a queue. In fact I was on such a roll that I thought I could take a break and not be stopped!

Well baahaa. Come Monday and my head was completely empty. That was Monday before last. It appears that if I don’t go with the flow, the flow goes on without me and when I look up, the view is different. Right now, my brain is doing textiles, no words. Apparently I have no say in the matter. I’m doing a lot of things, they’re just not what I thought I’d be doing. I’ve not even been reading anything.

Ok, I do know what happened – last week I had some really bad headaches. And these happened. I guess I should have known that would throw my focus.

Emil Leo
So we took your seat, you weren’t using it!

I hope I can get back to what I wanted to say on Focus and Intention. Or perhaps what I had to say wasn’t all that important and I was therefore saved by circumstances. 😉

I do keep up the Bullet Journal. It’s not a planner, although it has dates and lists in it, I see it more as a suggestion. I write things down as I think of them and they may get done sooner or later. An upgrade from my previous napkin/post-it/envelope note system. And that works pretty well for emptying my head, I even remember to write down some of my design ideas.

I also work pretty hard on not postponing the little things. Yes, the wash room is cold, but you can go pick up the laundry, it takes 15 seconds. Yes, you can put that crochet hook back where it belongs NOW and not just leave it where you’re standing. All those things that are a tiny bit inconvenient right now but won’t kill you. I even finally whipped out the new sewing machine that I got ages ago when I broke my old one mending horse blankets. I simply could not face it if there was issues with the thread tension or something and I’d have to fiddle for ages and not get it quite right. With some things, I can do that dance forever if I feel out of my league. Well I made myself do it and while not as good a machine as the old one, it does, in fact, sew.

Now I’m in a bit of trouble because I’ve also run out of photos for my other blog. I could use some similar shots and whatnot, but we’ll see if I can keep it up. No painting has happened here since before xmas break, that’s the one thing I need the most quiet and the longest time to wind myself up to, and I just don’t seem to get it very often. So I have to dive into the old photo archives again. Because weather. Yuck. Why didn’t I spend all autumn making huge ponchos and hoods and cowls and sweaters from super bulky yarn on size 10 mm needles? Facemasks. Don’t get me started on the mud, at least we seem to get a short break from that now.

Come to think of it, I’m not doing too well in the quote department either. Do I really have to start writing more bad poetry to fill in?! I mean, it’s not like I can give up on the project less than half a year in… Can I?

I’m thinking of weaving things but I can’t show you the inside of my head. (I should be making more colour sketches, so I don’t forget) So many preparations, warping tapestry looms takes days when you get tired. And make mistakes. I’ve learned tonnes already. But I don’t know what to show you to make this post a little interesting. What would you like to see?

(And then I was saved by Pat Tyler. Off to play with orbs! I see collage-mandala potential here.)

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orb02

How about pain?

PiaChit Chat

I wrote this post some time ago, then decided to save it for next month when my keyword is “Health”. Today I have one of my blinding headaches again, though, so obviously these thoughts surfaced once more as I’m going to have to admit I won’t be reading or writing anything much for a little while.

Incidentally I’m ALSO contemplating not writing so much in general, as I can see how I use blog time where I could otherwise have doodle time. So I may actually try that out for a while, as part of this month’s keyword “intention/focus”. More on that in my status report at the end of the month I think. On to today’s topic:

We’ve talked about Resistance in the form of procrastination, fear, interruptions, lack of energy, lack of ideas etc. There’s another form of resistance I’d like to ask you about – physical pain.

headache monsterThe one thing that disturbs me the most is my body. Headaches, stomach pains, fatigue, even hunger or cold. I. Can. Not. Concentrate. I’ve succesfully overcome most of my backaches (as in, they’re gone), my continually sore right thumb is a nuisance but not stopping me as such apart from the things it obviously can’t do. But the others – I can’t seem to beat them. I’m floored and useless every single time. When I wake up at 4 am for instance and get the brilliant idea of getting up to write down my thoughts instead of ruminating, I end up just sitting here shivering and unable to think as well as I did under the covers, since the house is only about 15-18 C at night. (I guess I need to have a set of really warm clothes in my office or the bathroom for such occasions. Something that doesn’t itch 😉 )

Can you do your work through physical pain or discomfort? Both the light rumble and the cold sweating, headsplitting kind. Mind you, there’s nothing actually wrong with me – it’s really over the top over nothing. At a frequency that would get you fired from virtually any normal job (as if I’d want one, LOL).

Not ok. Some people tell me I should be nice to my body and coddle it like it was a beloved infant. Please. I can’t stop the world every time the baby wants its way, which is me on my bum doing nothing, ever. It hates exercise. With a vengeance *. It wants sugar – lots. The way I see it, I have a body, it’s not what I am. I have to keep telling it off constantly. But I obviously need to do something different to make it cooperate with me and not with Resistance. I’m pretending to going along with the fatigue, but the rest is not going too well on the acceptance front.

Can somebody give me a crash course on body language, pls? I’m dead serious, I need to figure this out, and it’s proving to be a tough nut for me (Such as the water issue). I’ve been reading about reprogramming your brain circuits, “carving new tracks” so to speak, to replace old thought patterns, and I do believe it’s possible. I somehow need to change the story I’m telling about the body itself. I’m going to look into the philosophies behind Reconnective healing et al, but I’m interested in hearing if and how you manage to work through various types of discomfort that are not really “dangerous” as such.

Seems to me it would be a great skill if you could choose to not pay attention to these things, after having established that you’re not about to croak? Being comfortable with discomfort.

Or, as one author put it, who’s driving the bus?

Do different people have different levels of tolerance or body perception, is this simply an HSP thing?? Such as the professional athlete who keeps running with a broken rib. Can you change it or is it one of the hardwired parts of your brain/personality? If you can change it – how about other traits such as my need for alone time to center and concentrate? Could I make myself less noise and interruption sensitive? I know I’m probably reinforcing it by telling this story again and again, to justify my demand and to change the habits of other people, but could I do the opposite or is that too deep? I mean, basically I don’t want to have to be around people all day every day, so my inability is in fact a great excuse, but the theory is interesting anyway. Or is the problem in reality that I keep telling the story of interruptions (and pain), thereby cementing the event as well as my anger about it? This is a more esoteric variety, but curious nevertheless.

stdfract

* As an aside, I’ve invented a new sleeping pill. Whenever I feel that it’s one of those nights that will take me hours to fall asleep, I think about running. I feel the gravel under my feet, I see the trees and the light, I smell the air, I feel light and athletic (I actually night-dream of running so lightly sometimes, so I know how it feels). And BOOM, within 5 minutes or so of starting this fantasy I sleep like a log. That’s how much my body hates exercise, LOL.