this sunday, as every sunday, i enjoyed the weekly offering of brain pickings insight into creative living. below i feature quotes from gretchen rubin that struck me as particularly wise and instructive.
Day by day, we build our lives, and day by day, we can take steps toward making real the magnificent creations of our imaginations.
You’re much more likely to spot surprising relationships and to see fresh connections among ideas, if your mind is constantly humming with issues related to your work. When I’m deep in a project, everything I experience seems to relate to it in a way that’s absolutely exhilarating.
By contrast, working sporadically makes it hard to keep your focus. It’s easy to become blocked, confused, or distracted, or to forget what you were aiming to accomplish. …
Step by step, you make your way forward. That’s why practices such as daily writing exercises or keeping a daily blog can be so helpful.
You see yourself do the work, which shows you that you can do the work. Progress is reassuring and inspiring.
Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly. The entire world becomes more interesting. That’s critical, because I have a voracious need for material, and as I become hyperaware of potential fodder, ideas pour in.
while i've been on my leave of absence and i'm asked what i'm doing with my time i hesitate sometimes to say, 'um…i'm making patterns in a book i made, or drawing letters in a visual journal. i write at the kitchen table every morning while i drink my coffee. i go for walks in the neighborhood. um…that's what i'm doing.'
these things aren't lofty and don't sound important, but i know that to me they are both grounding and elevating. both.
having the chance to make creative work in my visual journals on a daily basis is like turning the burner on under my kettle to high, and finally letting it come to a boil. something i can't sustain when i'm working. and when that kettle boils the ideas come. and when the ideas come i dream of a life that is always like this.
and when i'm not doing journal work i'm being fed a constant stream of wonderous ideas and inspirations through books and articles and videos. and all of these things together are driving the current of the creative river that lives just under the surface of my life. and this feels HUGE.
in keeping with things that inspire, this weekend i read joan didion's long ago thoughts about keeping a notebook { HERE. }
and i watched someone sketch.
amen.
I love your visual journals Mary Ann – so inspiring.
I need to make some too – I realize it might be in my next life – lol
everything is a choice – I just don´t have time enough. Wish I could aford a leave of absence too
i think that your journal work is beautiful… it’s so artistic and sure beats staring at a computer screen all day (something i get sucked in to on my weekends off).
This post couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m going into my last ‘normal’ work week before I cut down my hours starting next week. Three day work weeks, four day weekends here I come!
But I can so relate to what you’re saying about explaining what you do with your time. I get the questions too. Around here the first assumption about my decision to work less so I can spend more time on art, is that people think I want to start making a living with my art, you know, make it my job. But that’s just not the case.
I basically want my version of what you’re describing, since that is already how I spend my days off and I love it. How do I explain that all I want to do is go on more long hikes, take even more pictures, read yet more books and spend even more time in my studio than I already do? It seems so quiet and uneventful and unambitious doesn’t it? But it’s the only thing that keeps me happy. In the end it’s not about how I want to make a living, it’s about how I want to live!
I want to tell you I love your incredible talent for living and hope you will continue to express it the way you have so far, you’re an inspiration to us all! Thank you.
PS Your small and big book are just drool worthy! 😉
….wait. Did that video just say CLIMAX AMISH?……..
Love this post , perfection. And the pages and photos of? Heaven! Xo
Wonderful, wonderful commentary from Gretchen and then beautiful the way you related it to your last several months. So much of what we do as artists (especially mixed media/journal types) is hard to explain to the “lay” person out there. But it’s so true that the more regularly we are allowed to create over time
is what fills the imagination to overflowing and there are more ideas than we know what to do with – though it’s sure fun trying to figure it out!
Erin in Morro Bay
Same as Monica above (RETIRED) and people want to know what I DO in retirement. Nuthin’ much is my articulate answer. I spent 35 classroom years running around like a crazy person making lists for home, classroom and self that needed to get done. I have now perfected the art of doing nothing but puttering and I love it. I earned it. Coming up on one full year and I still have to remind myself that this is MY LIFE. Not summer break.
Enjoyed this post. 🙂
LOVE this post so much Mary Ann, I’ve been tossing such thoughts around for I don’t know how long and never quite making sense of them and as I read the quotes and your words, I found myself saying YES out loud to no one but myself and feeling the excitement rise through the ash and rubble that sometimes sits heavily on my mind, on days when I feel this creative ‘work/play’ has no relevance against the often stark realities of my life but then I find myself knowing, deeply knowing that without these creative anchors and strong holds; I’d probably have sunk long ago that or have been committed to the loony bin, not that I’m not a little bit loony; VBG, but the every day task of picking up a paint brush, capturing moments and thoughts to paper in some way, the cutting and the gluing, without that I might as well be spinning out of control in space. All that creative ‘prayer’ keeps me connected to the world’s heart, to my heart and that is what allows me to maintain every other aspect of my life and I can give back who I am fully and without regret to my daughters, my DH. Art evens out the playing field like nothing else can for me. As always dear one, you ROCK. Thanks for this day’s offerings. xxxoooxxx
Thanks for that. As a retiree people always want to know how i stay busy. I don’t I’m piddling & twiddling around in my room, facetiously known as my studio,working on little items of creativity that give me pleasure. lucky me, I feel like the idle rich!
Your “amen” felt connected to a Frederick Buechner quote I found on Twitter (@Fred_Buechner) today, and used in my visual journal today (on a needing to be completed page entitled “Rituals.”)
“Ritual
A WEDDING. A HANDSHAKE. A kiss. A coronation. A parade. A dance. A meal. A graduation. A Mass. A ritual is the performance of an intuition, the rehearsal of a dream, the playing of a game.
A sacrament is the breaking through of the sacred into the profane; a ritual is the ceremonial acting out of the profane in order to show forth its sacredness.
A sacrament is God offering his holiness to men; a ritual is men raising up the holiness of their humanity to God.
-Originally published in Wishful Thinking”
Enjoy! Amen.