 |
| previous months work....yikes...yes a lot of tiny work |
the adventures of navigating creativity ... finding what works for me on any given day
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Dear Jane Quilt Club
I belong to this Dear Jane Quilt Club which if you don't know much about Dear Jane Quilts, google it.... cause basically it's a 200+ block quilt all of which are 4 1/2 inches square with a triangle border made in 1863 by Jane A. Stickle. The club will have been meeting for four years when it's all said and done with a quilt show at the end. Each month we get worksheets for 4 to 5 blocks to work on for that month. I joined when the club was about a year and a half into it... so needless to say I have had some catching up to do!
This past week's progress
:
This past week's progress
New Year, new experiment!
Hope you all had a nice beginning to your new year. I had a houseful over the break and somewhere in the midst of all the hub-bub an epiphany of how to handle my creative life came to me. And so I begin to explain my idea.
I hit this wall constantly with my creative life. First, I have a lot of creative pursuits. Second, the focus on one thing at a time, although I get the gist of it, scheduling a month, a few weeks, whatever for just that sole intent is too boring. Third, there's my old life and schedule which didn't allow for as much creative time as I have now. Fourth, the make a schedule route...just looking at an hour by hour planner can send me over the edge! And there's the "oh, am I or am I not in the mood to do said craft". Ugh. My head hits the door of frustration a few times, I sink to despair and nothing much gets done, while I'm waiting for that inspiration to strike. Not a fantastic place to be for sure. Then to add to it all, some around me do not function like me, they are more regimented, enjoy their work, don't understand why I can't be/do it like them. OK, well, let's see...what can I glean from their mode of operation? They are good at scheduling. So am I, just not related to my creative pursuits (or so it seemed). They look at things from a math point of view. OK, could use that. And so I started adjusting my approach to my problem. People aren't going to change that much. If they haven't given me the answer in 30 plus years, or understood how I work, I doubt that will change much. And it's not somebody else's problem anyway. But I am not too proud in some ways, to know when I'm stuck to ask for help....it's just the help wasn't in a way that profited me.
But let's take the scheduling aspect. Is there a way to look at this differently that won't send me over the edge? I started to think, what info or data do I need in order to get my head around some kind of scheduling that I can handle? First, I made a graph-like spreadsheet and labeled my interests that keep popping up in my head wanting attention. To me they are almost like kids, each going: "look at me", "take care of me", "I need your time". So ignoring them was out of the question. Next, was attaching some percentage of my time that each needed and that I needed to suffice as oxygen to me...in other words, how much oxygen/time do I need to spend on each category or several categories that will replenish me, keep these kids happy, keep my creative juices reaching in a positive direction? (I must make a note here: OxYGEn in my book is what i have to have to live, feel refreshed, be me. So excluding creativity and beauty and color in my life is a sure fire way to get depressed quick!)
Here's the spreadsheet, notice that some of the columns are longer than others. Also, what occurred to me was why not schedule things like college courses where you meet so many times a week for this course or that. Here I substituted creative pursuits for courses. This weekly schedule does not denote hours spent on those activities, only that I get to that pursuit sometime that day. (Btw: if you are short on wall space as I am in my residence with a ton of windows, fold part of the spreadsheet as I did here and tape on the back of a door.) And the spreadsheet is not a checklist for me; it's an ongoing list of pursuits and projects. Scratching them off, although, that's good, for me it's working on the projects. I work on a project, as long as it wants to be worked on. A lot get finished, some are in stages but I try to keep moving on the next exciting one that intrigues me, excites me, that ideas are popping like popcorn and making me happy, the colors or shapes have a promising puzzle to work out, there's a new skill to learn...whatever...you get the point.
Looking up at the top photo, I realized my priorities had shifted. I had a lot of quilt ideas, both art quilts and simpler quick projects, I had a LOT of books of various subjects...which I really liked that new trend in my life--research, new topics, fun reads, the gamut, and then there were those little crafting projects that never seem to be gotten to and those out of season ones as well. OK, some of my categories are not all year long. I scrapbook in the winter and don't in the summer. I garden in the spring and some in the summer and fall and don't in the winter. Trends were emerging :-) Happy dance!!! We're getting somewhere. That college course schedule popped into my head and my response was, "I can handle that". Plus, the idea of a college approach sounded completely interesting to me. It implied a deeper focus on projects, research, problem solving and the time necessary to do just that...YEA things I love to do!!!
I started Thursday of this week. Followed through on Friday. OK, capital letters may start falling off here.... just letting you know. Turned out friday's quilting time got really involved to the point that I didn't get to blogging or crafting that day. Skipped classes? So here I am blogging on sunday. Making up a missed class time.?. Looks that way. :-)
Need to mention here two books I'm reading that are very helpful on the subject matter above: Creative Confidence, Unleashing The Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley. Super interesting book, look at pages 115 to 122 ...very reaffirming for me today and related to what I wrote above. Also, Manage Your Day to Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus &Sharpen Your Creative Mind, by Joycelyn K. Glei. I'm up to page 34 on Jocelyn Glei's book.
I hit this wall constantly with my creative life. First, I have a lot of creative pursuits. Second, the focus on one thing at a time, although I get the gist of it, scheduling a month, a few weeks, whatever for just that sole intent is too boring. Third, there's my old life and schedule which didn't allow for as much creative time as I have now. Fourth, the make a schedule route...just looking at an hour by hour planner can send me over the edge! And there's the "oh, am I or am I not in the mood to do said craft". Ugh. My head hits the door of frustration a few times, I sink to despair and nothing much gets done, while I'm waiting for that inspiration to strike. Not a fantastic place to be for sure. Then to add to it all, some around me do not function like me, they are more regimented, enjoy their work, don't understand why I can't be/do it like them. OK, well, let's see...what can I glean from their mode of operation? They are good at scheduling. So am I, just not related to my creative pursuits (or so it seemed). They look at things from a math point of view. OK, could use that. And so I started adjusting my approach to my problem. People aren't going to change that much. If they haven't given me the answer in 30 plus years, or understood how I work, I doubt that will change much. And it's not somebody else's problem anyway. But I am not too proud in some ways, to know when I'm stuck to ask for help....it's just the help wasn't in a way that profited me.
But let's take the scheduling aspect. Is there a way to look at this differently that won't send me over the edge? I started to think, what info or data do I need in order to get my head around some kind of scheduling that I can handle? First, I made a graph-like spreadsheet and labeled my interests that keep popping up in my head wanting attention. To me they are almost like kids, each going: "look at me", "take care of me", "I need your time". So ignoring them was out of the question. Next, was attaching some percentage of my time that each needed and that I needed to suffice as oxygen to me...in other words, how much oxygen/time do I need to spend on each category or several categories that will replenish me, keep these kids happy, keep my creative juices reaching in a positive direction? (I must make a note here: OxYGEn in my book is what i have to have to live, feel refreshed, be me. So excluding creativity and beauty and color in my life is a sure fire way to get depressed quick!)
Here's the spreadsheet, notice that some of the columns are longer than others. Also, what occurred to me was why not schedule things like college courses where you meet so many times a week for this course or that. Here I substituted creative pursuits for courses. This weekly schedule does not denote hours spent on those activities, only that I get to that pursuit sometime that day. (Btw: if you are short on wall space as I am in my residence with a ton of windows, fold part of the spreadsheet as I did here and tape on the back of a door.) And the spreadsheet is not a checklist for me; it's an ongoing list of pursuits and projects. Scratching them off, although, that's good, for me it's working on the projects. I work on a project, as long as it wants to be worked on. A lot get finished, some are in stages but I try to keep moving on the next exciting one that intrigues me, excites me, that ideas are popping like popcorn and making me happy, the colors or shapes have a promising puzzle to work out, there's a new skill to learn...whatever...you get the point.Looking up at the top photo, I realized my priorities had shifted. I had a lot of quilt ideas, both art quilts and simpler quick projects, I had a LOT of books of various subjects...which I really liked that new trend in my life--research, new topics, fun reads, the gamut, and then there were those little crafting projects that never seem to be gotten to and those out of season ones as well. OK, some of my categories are not all year long. I scrapbook in the winter and don't in the summer. I garden in the spring and some in the summer and fall and don't in the winter. Trends were emerging :-) Happy dance!!! We're getting somewhere. That college course schedule popped into my head and my response was, "I can handle that". Plus, the idea of a college approach sounded completely interesting to me. It implied a deeper focus on projects, research, problem solving and the time necessary to do just that...YEA things I love to do!!!
I started Thursday of this week. Followed through on Friday. OK, capital letters may start falling off here.... just letting you know. Turned out friday's quilting time got really involved to the point that I didn't get to blogging or crafting that day. Skipped classes? So here I am blogging on sunday. Making up a missed class time.?. Looks that way. :-)
Need to mention here two books I'm reading that are very helpful on the subject matter above: Creative Confidence, Unleashing The Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley. Super interesting book, look at pages 115 to 122 ...very reaffirming for me today and related to what I wrote above. Also, Manage Your Day to Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus &Sharpen Your Creative Mind, by Joycelyn K. Glei. I'm up to page 34 on Jocelyn Glei's book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)