Art and...

Organization.

I want to talk about this topic in January, because after the holidays, which forces a break in the momentum of our previous year, it's time to regroup. And that is what I THINK I've been doing, although maybe I'm just continuing to disrupt my momentum. How much time do we need to regroup, and when does it turn into procrastination?

I told the UA last week that first and foremost this year, it's about doing the work. Making art. So what did I do? I spent all of last week organizing the studio. First, I looked back at last year's goals, and wrote up a list for 2008. I made up a daily schedule. I made up a weekly schedule. So far, so good. Then, I went through my notebook and my file cabinet. What I found during this process, to my nauseation (hey, I made up a word!) was the same notes, over and over. It seems I write alot about what I want to do. And then I write about it some more... Then maybe some more notes in a different notebook, outlining the same ideas...

It really brought me up short. The ideas are good ones (with a few stupid ones too, the ones that sounded good at 4am) but now it's time to DO. Stop taking notes and organizing notes, and talking about the notes and MAKE ART.

Hmmmm....

What are your organization rituals at this time of year? And do they help you, or keep you from doing other things?

Snowed-in Studio

A quick trip out to the studio ended when I got buried up to my faux-leopard-skin-pillbox hat!

Subscribe to this Blog

One of my "goals" for this year is to understand the whole blogging world better. So I spent alot of time on the Feedburner site this morning, reading about feeds...

and I still don't totally get it.

But what I did figure out is, they're a good thing, and I want you to be able to subscribe if you want to. So I added the widget (tiny orange logo thingie at top right) that, if you choose to click on it, will subscribe you. And I put back the email subscription option, only this time, not so ugly. If you're confused about this, go to Feedburner's article, Feeds 101. It gives you some basic information about feeds, which will leave you only slightly less confused.

Then, come back and subscribe!

Virtual Reception Comes Full Circle

Here's the post I meant to sit down and write this morning:

Before starting into my 2008 blog posts, with all that wonderful "focusing", etc. I want to come full circle with my Virtual Open Studio. Carrie Cahill Mulligan was one of the winners, and nicely posted photos of her wearing the earrings here. Thank you Carrie! (And thank you for the "artisan jewelry" moniker; I like it!) The other pair is somewhere in Paris, possibly en route to Bangkok. I'm international!

The Fabulous World of Computers

Go ahead; ask Bruce. He's the owner of Charter Advertising/Design, the last design job I had before having kids. He'll tell you: computers are NOT my "thing". (And that's rather an understatement.) So why on earth do I torture myself by getting on this vile piece of equipment, first thing in the morning?

Well, I love blogging. There's that. The problem lies in the technical aspects. I tried, just now, to add a "widget" to this blog, and ended by teetering on the verge of angrily throwing the monitor out into the two feet of newly-fallen snow outside.


But I didn't; I have MUCH more restraint than that (see earlier blog post about abstaining from chocolate for TWO WHOLE DAYS). What I did succeed in doing, was deleting the Feedburner box where you could subscribe. This was not working and was ugly. And the last thing a former designer wants on her blog is something ugly. So that's gone. If you want to subscribe (which doesn't seem to be an issue for anybody) you'll have to figure out how to use the stupid widget that is, even now, NOT installed on the page. Unless you use the Technorati widget, which I did successfully install. Can y'all just use that? Or do I need another widget? (Picture, here, a woman on the verge of tears, crumpled in a ball under her computer desk.)

Maybe I'll try again after some breakfast, because NONE of this is remotely related to what I planned on posting today!

Challenges and Chocolate Deprivation Don't Mix

Somebody once told me that you can rid yourself of chocolate cravings if you just stop eating it for a couple of days. This is true. I challenged myself to NOT eat chocolate and did so for two whole days. Amazing! And I didn't crave it! But everyone got a little grumpy around here (I'm being extremely generous in my use of that word) and I made a conscious decision: I WANTED it. And then I ate some. Everyone was still grumpy. But it helped ME.



The moral of this story is not that it's good to stop eating chocolate, because that would be silly! The moral is this: challenging ourselves is empowering. I plan on challenging myself this year: to work "smarter" (thanks, Carole!) be more focused, and to just plain do more art. Which leads me to... (I know, bad segue, but I've been up since about 4 am...)



Blog news for 2008:



POSSIBLE LAUNCH OF A NEW BLOG (in addition to this...I know, I'm a nutcase...):

This will showcase my new work. I'm going to be revisiting my earlier 2D work that I never had time to fully explore. I'm really excited about this, as I got a chance to see some of that earlier work recently (it had sold) and found I was still excited by the possibilities they represented. So stay tuned for more information on that, later this month.



CHANGES TO THIS BLOG:

Next week I'm venturing into a more focused approach to this blog, with a 12 month series of sorts . The Plan is: each month I'll have a general focus on an art-related topic, although I won't be posting exclusively on that. As I write this, I'm thinking: "done to DEATH!" But we'll see how it goes. I've promised myself that I'm going to start trusting my instincts a little more. And Instinct said, "Great idea!"

If it doesn't work, I'll scrap it, and you can just pretend we never had this conversation, 'kay?

Schedules are Meant for Breaking

Yesterday, I set up a schedule of sorts for myself...at least for the next few months while my husband has his mid-week days off, and the temperatures are hovering around 0 degrees in the early mornings. My intention is to utilize my time better by being better organized...

To that end, I'm going to try to blog only on certain days, and today is not one of them. But I did post here today... I guess that blows the whole plan... oh well.