Skip to content

Archive for

Jul 17

6 Comments

Cathy: Art is play

I know that Keri Smith’s Wreck this Journal has already been recommended on this site, but I feel compelled to endorse it as well. What a fantastic reminder that art is not perfection, as museums and literary and music critics would like us to think. I have a lifetime struggle with the idea that what I’m working on has to be perfect. This is probably my greatest obstacle to completing my myriad larger projects.

Upon reading Miranda’s blog entry, the Cecil Vortex interview, and going to Keri’s blogs, I received a wonderful kick in the head, and promptly ordered the book from Amazon.com. The excitement ran through me like electricity when I opened the mailbox to find a neat cardboard box. I ripped it open, flipped through the book, reading this page then that randomly, and began following instructions. Each page may advertise itself as a place for destruction, but really they are invitations to play. And really, isn’t that what all art is? It shouldn’t feel like going to the office.

And that is what happened for me at some point in working on my youth novel. In the beginning, I was all excited, the ideas were popping, I sang and made silly sounds while typing. As I approached page 40, something of the play part went out and I found myself trying to make plot lines work. I asked how am I going to get from here…to there. I knew where I wanted it to go, but not how to get there and something in the writing process died — the creative part. So I shelved it without really meaning to and without ever letting it go in the back of my mind. Then life hit with the proverbial load of poo. Oh, it was all good, and troubling, and hard and fun, but it was a lot of distraction from the writing. Then I felt it was a chore to get back to it.

Well, now, with Wreck in hand, and back in a playful spirit of my own, not for baby or big boys, I am excited again about writing what ultimately is, I hope, going to be a fun book for 9-12 year olds to read. I have relocated a couple of versions of the manuscript with notes and outlines, and the USB version, too. I’m ready to sing, dance my fingers on the keyboard, make leaps and bounds, and play with the writing. Wish me luck and joy! And don’t be afraid to play and let your art/work be imperfect, too. Color outside the lines and see what comes of it.

Jul 16

4 Comments

7/16 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Last week’s prompt — “My mother’s house” — was tough, but I’m so glad we used it, because otherwise I never would have read or seen the memorable work that came in, including Kelly Warren‘s stunningly beautiful submission. She literally gave me goosebumps and moved me to tears. Kelly is this week’s winner — congratulations, Kelly! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is en route. Simply due to its length, Kelly’s piece appears last, after the jump. New prompt is after the jump too — a comparatively accessible theme that hopefully translates to visual artists and jewelry designers, too, at least in colors 🙂

Cathy Coley writes: “My mother’s house included my father’s gardens, and his love of that was indelibly passed to me. My main creative endeavor may be writing, but the first I took seriously was photography, and some of those first photos were of his garden. These are of my gardens. I’m a bit rusty and haven’t really gotten into playing around with digital photos yet. I do miss a dark room.”

Cathy's garden

Cathy's garden 2

From Cathy Jennings:

i sit in my mother’s house.
i am small
eating beef stroganoff or spaghetti or fried eggs.
she smells nice.
she knits me hats and sweaters.
she sews me dresses.
she gives me paint and paper.
did she know where this would lead?
i sit in a different house.
i am grown.
i miss the beef stroganoff but i can make the spaghetti and fried eggs.
sometimes my son smells nice.
i am learning how to knit so i can make him hats and socks and sweaters.
i give him paint, paper and clay.
my son helps me reach back to her house
while standing in my own.
loving my son shows me how much i was loved.
does he know where this will lead?

From me (Miranda): I started with a haiku, but immediately realized that the concise format was just too spare for what I wanted to write. So I moved to an old favorite, the ultra-challenging (for me) Spenserian Sonnet. I love the riddle of syllable count, a specific rhyming order, and iambic pentameter.  It’s kind of like a really hard crossword puzzle!

My Mother’s House
The pitted, dusty road that curves uphill
runs past the fallen beaver dam and pond
to where a sandy driveway follows still
and opens to my mother’s house beyond.
Red clapboards show behind each ferny frond
where gangly pines cast shade and dappled light;
indoors a barking poodle dog in blond
protects his mistress dear with ready bite.
For her, a life of solitude is right
and long defines the company she keeps
the dog and art and blooms are heart’s delight;
a multitude of cats in hairy heaps.
The house is strong, but not as strong as she,
who shares her heart and self and days with me.

Read more

Jul 15

Betsy: Pitches/submissions wanted for my blogazine

Hi. I’m really happy with how my new blogazine, The BetsyG-Spot, is coming along. I’ve gotten great feedback on the quality of the essays, and I’ve published one wonderful essay by another writer, with another in the queue.

I welcome your pitches/submissions for my site. While I am not currently paying writers, the more readership the site builds the more likely I will be to pay writers in the future.

I take pitches for the Sex in the Suburbs feature. I recommend that you read what’s there already and also take a look at my Submissions page. As you’ll see, I don’t take stories about marital bliss (though I am really happy for you if you have that!), so if you are interested in writing something, dig deep and go somewhere you might not ordinarily go when you think about relationships. The subject doesn’t have to be dark—in fact, I really favor humor—but it does need to be personal and go somewhere unexpected.

The Wheel of Fortune feature is a bit more flexible, and I am willing to look at submissions of any length for it. Topics include Weird Things that Happen (an informal vignette is welcome here from any reader), Mind and Body, Media (reviews, points of view), Getting On (ack…this is really about aging), Nostalgia, and Random…with more topics to come. Really, humor should be at the fore, but a really great, true story or essay about something on the poignant end is also welcome.

In any case, I hope you’ll give it a read and pass it on to others you think might like this type of content. Growing a blog turns out to be a lot of work!

Jul 14

MacGyver Challenge: Clothes hangers

If you really want to stretch your creative powers into uncharted territory, consider ReadyMade magazine’s MacGyver Challenge. The idea is to turn something old and unwanted into something new and possibly useful, as in the MacGyver Luggage Challenge. For the new contest:

Hangers, no matter how dutifully we purge them, tend to multiply. Drawn to the dark corners of our closets (their favorite breeding ground), all sorts of species rapidly accumulate: gussied-up wire varieties clad in cardboard tubes and paper, molded plastic types in a rainbow of hues, wood-and-metal hybrids adorned with clips and hooks. Then they lurk, huddled at the end of the hanging bar in a tangled assemblage of triangular frames. Pending the future development of magical stasis-field closets, the influx will surely continue. What else can we do with them? The starchiest solution (made from any type of clothes hanger—the “no wire hangers, ever!” rule does not apply) wins a subscription and a ReadyMade T-shirt. {Deadline: July 21, 2008}

It turns out that some creatives — O Magazine included — are already using old pants hangers to display photographs.

Contest submission details here. I’m curious to see the results!

Jul 14

6 Comments

Brittany: Luxuries and Miracles

It’s 4:44 a.m. and I’ve been up for an hour. Writing. I’m probably going to end up sleepwalking through the rest of the day, but right now I am so blissed out I can hardly stand myself. The last few weeks have been so amazingly productive for me. It’s as if someone flipped my switch back on. Which is really unusual, since 1) I’m never productive in the summer, and 2) I have a toddler and an infant in the house. And yet lately, I’ve been able to sink so deeply into my writing that I forget where I am or what time it is. As a result, I finished my novel. It’s some kind of miracle. What a wonderful luxury to be able to tune out the world and retreat completely into my “writing head.” It happens so rarely anymore that I’m able to appreciate and savor every second of it. And to think I used to take it for granted.

We’ve never really talked about our husbands and the role they play in our creative process, but I think it’s important to mention, even though I find it difficult to describe what role that is. It’s easy to take them for granted too. My husband is an engineer, with zero interest in or appreciation for the type of writing I do. He’s at a complete loss when I ask him about a certain character’s tone and he doesn’t have a clue how one goes about querying an agent. On the one hand, I feel utterly and devastatingly alone in my writing. It is my thing. He doesn’t get it.

But on the other hand, he loved me enough to marry me, so he obviously has a deep appreciation for my writer’s view of the world, my turn of phrase, and the way I communicate with him. He puts up with my clutter and the mountains of paper that I generate. Leaves me in peace when I’m hard at work. Reminds me to eat when I loose track of time. Watches the boys. Supports me financially so that I can stay home and play novelist. Listens to my concerns and tells me everything will work out. Understands the importance of laptops and writing spaces, and if he doesn’t, he humors me anyway. Truly wants me to succeed.

All of these things make my writing life possible, and are little luxuries and miracles too.

Jul 11

7 Comments

Breakfast with Miranda

There are several weeks’ worth of Friday Breakfast interviews in the works, but being summertime, the wonderful women I’ve lined up were all just a little too busy to complete their interviews in time for posting this week. Yesterday at lunch, I mentioned this dilemma to my colleague, Marie, in hopes of choosing one of the other article options I had in mind. But before I could even enumerate those ideas, Marie promptly suggested that I feature myself for Breakfast in order to fill the gap if nothing else came through. This seemed a little self-serving—and I wasn’t sure that I actually met my own criteria for an interview subject, but the continuity appealed, and so here I am: Interviewing myself (hopefully not a new low in navel-gazing). Thanks for humoring me, and please stay tuned for our forthcoming interviews.

miranda
CC: Please give us an intro to who you are, what you do, and your family headcount.
MHH: I am a part-time freelance writer and editor. My business partner and I work under the umbrella of Pen and Press, a communications consulting company—and we both work from our homes. On the personal front, I am married and have five children, ages 17, 14, 12, 3, and 2 months old. We have a Newfoundland dog, although I am really more of a cat person. Meow.

CC: Tell us about your writing life. Any other creative pursuits?
MHH: I am one of those typical writers who has read books and written stories since early childhood. I love books. They are practically sacred objects to me. The smell of a book; the weight of a book in my hands—let’s just say that I’ll never be an e-book convert.

I have published nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry. At present I have two main projects in the works. One is a novel set in Cornwall, England, during World War II—loosely based on the circumstances that led to my mother’s birth. At 200 pages, I’ve shelved that manuscript for the moment in favor of my nonfiction project. That manuscript is about—surprise, surprise—creative mothers: how to keep the creative self alive during the intensive years of motherhood. About 18 months ago, in the midst of my own struggles, I decided to seek out successful, creative women and try to identify the “secrets” of their success. After two dozen interviews, I had (amazingly, to me) found clear commonalities among those who were most satisfied with their creative lives. These findings became the premise of the book, which is about halfway complete today.

nomadic office

I’m delighted to say that an agent in New York is currently shopping my book proposal to the handful of editors who may be interested in my project. If, in the end, we have no takers, I will probably self-publish. I feel I owe it to all the women I’ve interviewed, and to everyone else who told me “Yes! Yes! I need your book!” And of course, the reason that I started writing my book in the first place was so that I would be able to read it myself!

I also like to paint, draw, and make things (I’ve been into birds’ nests of late). I really enjoy digital photography—I have a good camera, but I’m still learning the basics. I wish I was a good knitter, but all I can do is the straight “knit” stitch. Since I don’t know how to cast off, I once knit a mohair scarf that ended up being ten feet long before my mother finally knit a finished edge for me.

CC: What prompted you to start a blog?
MHH: I started Creative Construction because I wanted to build a community of women who share similar experiences of creativity and motherhood. I wanted to explore the ideas in my book and find more women to interview. I wanted to create a place where I would be held accountable to my stated intentions. This blog has served all those purposes and many, many more.

favorite spot

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
MHH: At present, I work on a portable table (hospital-room style) in my living room. This is where I sit for my two days of freelance work every week (when a sitter comes to my house), and where I squeeze in a little more work on the off days, write my daily haiku, pay bills, and basically manage everything in my existence (I am heavily Outlook dependent). I used to work in office space above our garage, but that large room serves many purposes and I ultimately gave it up to the teenagers. I still have a desk up there, but I never use it. My very favorite place to be, however, is in bed. I love to read in bed, sketch in bed, journal in bed, work on my laptop in bed. I could pretty much live in my bed, if I had the option.

CC: Do you have a schedule for your creative work?
MHH: No. I want one, desperately. The last time that I experienced prolific output was before my 3-year-old was born. My older kids were all in school, so I had school hours to myself. I developed a routine of working on my novel for three hours every morning, and then doing my “work work” (the stuff I get paid for). It felt great to do the “important” work first, rather than trying to shoehorn it into the edges later on, which of course never happens. It will be a while before I have those “mothers hours” again, however. I’ve also tried getting in an hour every evening, or using a daily word-count quota. For me, any of those devices lead to more writing than just leaving it all to chance.

I’m trying to be easy on myself right now and give in to life with a newborn and four other children. My reality defies having a schedule. Come September, things will be a little different (I think) and I will add more structure into my life.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
MHH: I struggle most with simply having enough minutes in the day to do all the things I need and want to do. I’m also grappling with having a house on the market and other woes, having an infant on my lap while I work, and trying to figure out how to manage it all. Certainly, exercising and getting back in shape are serious challenges for me right now.

CC: How much does guilt factor in your life?
MHH: I’m sad to say that I often feel guilty about most everything, because I don’t measure up to the expectations I set for myself—expectations that others around me describe as unrealistically high. The focalpoint: I routinely feel guilty about not being the mother I want to be, even though my shortcomings are in part due to having a large number of children and not having enough time as I need. I do make a conscious point of connecting personally with each child every day. That may sound ridiculous to some people, miranda avec infantsbut when you work, and have teenagers coming and going at all hours with friends in tow, a preschooler, and a newborn who’s glued to your chest 24/7, the old bumper sticker “have you hugged your child today” doesn’t actually seem so irrelevant. I also prepare a decent, home-cooked meal about five days a week. We all eat as a family (everyone who’s at home, that is), which always feel like an accomplishment. When I have time to cook, it feels creative and nurturing. When the baby is hungry, the preschooler is having a meltdown, and a teenager needs a ride somewhere, cooking becomes a stressful chore (more guilt).

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
MHH: I’m a visual person and I love going to museums and browsing through home decorating magazines. I also like dipping into poetry. Breathing deeply outdoors. Nothing inspires me more, however, than being in the presence of other people who are making their dreams into reality.

CC: What are your top five favorite blogs?
MHH: In my Google Reader, I actually subscribe to 48 blogs, and I read them all. I read the blogs of everyone who posts here at Creative Construction, and I keep tabs on many things that might be relevant to the readers here. I also subscribe to a bunch of design blogs that provide a feast of eye candy, and a handful that offer domestic inspiration. If I were forced to pick five non-CC bloggers, they would be:

(OK, so that was more than five…)

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
MHH: I am not a very self-indulgent person. I don’t even like this question. Who came up with these damn questions, anyway? (I suppose a more reasonable response is that I spend too much money on clothes for myself.)

CC: What are you reading right now?
MHH: At present I’m reading Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. It’s magical realism. The plot and characters are interesting thus far, but I need literary depth and a little poetry woven into the prose. I also started reading Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson, which Lisa of Bluestalking Reader reviewed. It promises to be everything that Garden Spells is not.

CC: What advice would you offer to other mothers struggling to be more creative?
MHH: Now this is a question that I can’t answer. Actually, I have a whole lot of advice to offer—advice gleaned from the experiences of the many women I’ve interviewed—but if I spill it all here, I won’t have much left to entice a publisher! So you’ll have to help me keep the faith in this project, which all of you have contributed to in wonderful ways.

Jul 10

4 Comments

Alana: The Original Women Writers

I’ve been feeling a little daunted of late. Giving up my high flying career to look after my girls seems to have morphed into a full-time child-rearing job, combined with a (very) part-time writing career, swamped by the domestic drudgery of housekeeper, cook, cleaner and general slave to everyone else’s wishes.

As I fight a losing battle for some time to call my own (having long given up on a room of my own, a desk of my own, a moment of my own), I’m afraid writing has taken the biggest hit. As I lie under the duvet desperately grasping another ten minutes of rest I console myself that I’m not leaping out of bed earlier than my sleeping angels to write, by the fact that I’m a (now pregnant with my third) hectic mother of two under three and exhaustion has won the day. I pat myself on the back for getting through the day without causing anyone any actual physical harm, and meeting my magazine deadlines. I shrug my shoulders at the long list of writing I should / could / would be doing if only I had the time / childcare / energy – my blog (once daily, then weekly, now sporadic), other blogs, my diary, my novel.

But now I must confess to being shamed. I’m reading a book called Can Any Mother Help Me, about a group of women in the 1930’s who were stressed and bored and isolated from marriage and motherhood. In those days you gave up your job when you married and raising a handful of kids by yourself was the norm. One day a lonely woman wrote an ad in The Nursery Times asking if any other mother could help her. She was desperately lonely and isolated, and needed creative interaction. She got so many replies from so many women around the country they decided to set up their own secret magazine. They all took anonymous names and wrote articles about their lives. Taking them through their child-rearing years, through the second world war, through marriage breakdowns and life’s highs and lows, these women found solace in their writing and their friendships. The magazine – called CCC (Co-Operative Correspondence Club) – lasted for over 55 years.

Their lives where often harsh, and many had been educated but forced to become nothing more than domestic drudges after marriage. They endured bringing up their children alone and in austere circumstances during the war and they fought their own battles to find identity, creativity, and achievement. They were brave, funny, witty, enduring, strong and smart. They worked much longer and much harder than I do, and they still found time to write. For 55 years these women literally wrote the story of their lives, weaving a weapon against boredom, domestic drudgery, marriage and motherhood. Life gave them something to write about, and their writing gave their life meaning.

It’s 5.30 a.m. and I’m writing. And it feels wonderful. Thank you Creative Construction – a little modern CCC.

Jul 9

5 Comments

7/9 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

fireworksA quiet week for the prompt “Independence Day.” Cathy Coley and I were obviously in very similar places during the holiday weekend! Cathy’s haiku:

Independence Day
for thirty minutes
grocery store run by myself
first time in a year

And mine:

Fourth of July
A flash of milky
independence found in my
baby’s first bottle

And since I couldn’t attend any fireworks this year, I created some of my own (above) using Photoshop.

By default — no slight to her creative talents! — Cathy wins the contest this week. Cathy, your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way!

This week’s prompt: “My mother’s house”

Use the prompt however you like. All media are welcome. Visual artists and artisans are encouraged to think laterally (perhaps your mother’s house was filled with gardenias and you’re inspired to create a gardenia pendant). Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 15. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

Jul 8

3 Comments

Cathy: Writer’s Stone Soup

Last week was a challenging one creatively since we had house guests, a big 4th party, lots of extraneous appointments, lots of back pain to heal and lots of sleep deprivation to go along with it all – thanks to baby C’s night nursing. After a recent burst of creativity, it was a bit of a let down for me, but I am aware that my creativity has a tendency to cycle like that. I think one of my major challenges in creativity is the fact that even if I try to schedule or plot myself or my writing, it ain’t gonna happen that way. My best laid plans often go to waste. The best response for me in that event, is to take a deep breath, exhale, and not give myself another reason to live in the land of stress and guilt. Sometimes, the worst thing I can do is sit down and “try” to write.

However, I still felt creative, because I stayed in touch with writing by – you guessed it – reading. When I don’t read on a regular basis, something besides all the articles on autism, aspergers, etc. every week, my brain starts to atrophy. I get really grumpy, too, and that’s bad for everyone around me. I think if I stay in touch with imagination by reading fiction or poetry, I can hear the voices in the back of my head rise to the surface. Instead of just picking up the cereal box in the cabinet, I am narrating the beginning of something that may never hit the page, but at least I’m having fun thinking, “As she removed the cereal box from the cupboard, she looked again at his body where it lay on the kitchen floor. Waiting for the police to arrive, she poured the corn flakes into the bowl then read the ingredients list slowly before looking once again, at the growing blossom of red around his head.”

Now, to be honest, most of these thoughts never make it to paper. If they do, I edit and re-edit and scribble it out and try it again, half a dozen times. These thoughts do not rise to the surface to make it even this far, unless I am enthralled in someone else’s writing. Right now, I am re-reading for the several-ith time Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which Lisa Damian would recommend right along with me, I’m sure. Anyway, because I am so excited by his writing, I find myself almost in competition with it. Now, I rarely write thrillers of any kind, but I love his language so much, that the thriller aspect of this book leaks out of my head as I entertain myself by swimming in the collective writer’s soup from which we all drink. If we just realize it and know that about each other and ourselves, even when it feels a little plagiaristic, I think we might all end up writing a little better or a little more often. If I can have fun wandering in my head in between moments of engaged writing, it leads me down better paths toward doing so in the moments when I am hit with inspiration like a truck and actually write.

Jul 7

3 Comments

Kelly: Happy to be here!

Hello everyone! First off, let me say thanks to Miranda for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful blog. I’ve read through many entries and surfed your blogs, and this is truly an amazing, inspiring, delightful, creative group of women. So who am I? I’m a mom foremost, yet that’s a title I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say. I guess I knew I always wanted to be a mom, but when I met my DH (“darling” or “damn” husband, depending on the day 🙂 ), he told me fairly early on that his chances of giving me a child were pretty slim; of course, he waited until he already had me hooked to tell me that. I was 26 at the time, and that biological clock hadn’t really started ticking too quickly yet; we married three years later. And by the grace of God, eight years, several attempts at IVF and a miscarriage later, we welcomed our beautiful red-headed twin girls, Sarah and Olivia, in 2005.

As far as creativity, I welcome and attempt just about all kinds. With a bachelor’s degree in Communications and a master’s degree in English, I’ve held a variety of professional positions that have utilized my writing and public relations skills: assistant sports information director at Florida State University, account executive for a travel and tourism related public relations firm, and as an adjunct college English instructor; I’ve been teaching college English off and on for nearly 20 years now. For the past 14 years, I’ve served as the Director of Student Life and Leadership Development for a very large community college here in Florida, a position that really doesn’t utilize my writing skills much but does require a lot of creativity in time management, planning and marketing. My blog has been a way for me to exercise those writing bones a bit more. Art wise, my creative passions include artisan jewelry and handbag design, photography, and mixed media collage, something I just started dabbling in this year. My primary art “business” is my jewelry, which you can see here.

Lastly, I get quite a few comments on that silly avatar of mine [which you’ll find under comments], so I guess I’ll explain. My girls did my hair that day and wanted me to take a picture (you can see the large version and a couple others from that day here.) I’ve always felt that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you have no right to laugh at anyone else, and we try to laugh a lot around the little happy shack we call home. My family and I live by this saying, coined by my DH: “Life is far too important to be taken too seriously.” I look forward to sharing my life with you all while I learn more about each of you!

Jul 7

3 Comments

In defense of parenthood

childhood

Over the weekend, Australian newspaper The Age published a strong and concise personal essay by Damon Young on how parenthood can actually enhance creativity, rather than serve a fatal blow:

Children are valuable, not simply for their own sake (even if this is the most important reason), but for their contribution to art. Parenthood affords insights and skills for the creative life – it’s not a distraction, but an inspiration and education.

For example, as the parent of a verbose, energetic little toddler, I’m more productive than when I was single. The reason for this is simple: I’ve learned to work with less. Dealing for months on end with sporadic working hours and flagging energy, I became accustomed to opportunistic work: getting pen to paper, whenever or wherever I had the opportunity. He’s asleep in a cafe? Great, time to finish off that chapter! He’s absorbed in Lego? Brilliant, I can catch up on important emails! Put simply, parenthood has disciplined me….Parenthood is also a font of extraordinary, lingering memories. In watching my son mature, I’m constantly faced with my own childhood, and the recollections of my parents. This is an incredible resource for a writer; a continuing, shifting pageant of impression and emotion. This can be confronting, no doubt – but it’s an extraordinary creative cache.

It’s a nice confidence booster. Read the full piece here.

(That’s a photo of mine. I’m a complete amateur, but I find that digital photography is a rewarding way to blend motherhood and creativity. For more on how a pro does just that, read Bec Thomas’s interview below. And many thanks to my dear friend Toni Small, who visited recently and gave me a long-anticipated mini workshop on photographic prinicples and training the eye.)

Jul 4

4 Comments

Breakfast with Bec

For your Independence Day enjoyment, today we join Bec Thomas for “Breakfast,” the Friday series where we get to know an inspiring, creative mother from the blogosphere and peek into her creative space. Bec is a photographer, blogger, and home-schooling mother to three boys. That’s right, home-schooling. Oh, and she lives on an island and spins wool. Seriously. How cool can one woman be?

CC: Please introduce us to who you are, what you do, and your family parameters.
BT: My name is Bec Thomas, and I am me. Me can be a lot of things and they are subject to change over time. I live in the Pacific Northwest so I’m one of those socks and sandals wearing folk who spends a lot of time outdoors. I have a love of water, reading, and online gaming. I’m generally considered very confident, passionate, and rather anti-establishment, but if you asked my friends they would give you many nice adjectives that I don’t really think about.

What do I do? Well first off, I’m a fine art photographer who works mostly in monochrome with nature, but I also decoupage and I hand spin yarn. Yes, I have been asked how I can possibly find the time. My family consists of a husband who is a professional techno geek who works way too much and 3 boys ages 7, 9, and 13, who I home-school.

CC: Tell us about your photography and other creative pursuits.
BT: Photography has always come easy to me. I can just see it, but I couldn’t paint a scene if my life depended on it. A famous photographer, Ernst Haas, from the 40s and 50s, summed it up best: “The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE.” I can see various moments in time that will never exist again; the only way to keep that moment is to record it with a camera. I prefer to work in monochrome but will do color on occasion. Monochrome brings out the details in an image that can be hidden by flashy color. For me, color often gets in the way and the viewer just can’t get past it. I do a lot of storm photography. Here in the Pac Northwest the landscape is often naturally in grayscale in the winter months. My absolute favorite condition to shoot in is fog; it spreads the light so evenly it’s like a dream!

I’ve taken pictures since I was a kid; it wasn’t until my youngest children got to be over 5 that I decided I could fit making it a career into the mix. My two youngest often accompany me when I take photos — even when I’m going out in bad weather, as in my household we worship the Gortex gods. Since my husband works too much I often take the kids with me when I have to drop artwork off for a show or gallery and they take turns being my date for the patrons’ parties I need to attend. They take these duties very seriously.

In the midst of all the photography excitement, I get in several hand-spinning demonstrations a year, usually with my best friend Laurie Wheeler who is a crochet guru. My two oldest boys can both use a drop spindle so they usually demonstrate right along with us. I also decoupage on wooden boxes — some are as big as trunks. I don’t usually show my boxes but that is changing and my new studio will help.

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
BT: A lot of my work is outdoors. I especially like to work on beaches! After I take the photos, I have to edit them and for that I hang out in my messy office space glued to my computer.desk When I get photos back from the printer, I then head to my new studio space to mat and frame them. I just moved into my studio space a couple of weeks ago. It’s still under construction but it’s huge and can fit all my photography stuff and all my decoupage things. I still have to get all the photography lighting set up out there, but that will come in due time. Once the studio is completely done and snazzy, I will open it to the public. We have art tours on the island I live on and I plan get become a part of that. I will also feature other artists along with both my photography and my decoupage works.

CC: Do you have a schedule for your creative work?
BT: I have what you might call an extremely flexible schedule. Since I take the kids with me, I never know what time I will be taking photos. If I shoot at night then I leave the homestead in my husband’s care (yeah, scary I know). When I have to do my indoor work, it is almost always at night. I’m nocturnal by nature; therefore I have more motivation to get my indoor work done at night.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
BT: I think the biggest challenge I have is trying to sync schedules with my husband. When I cannot take my children with me, it really puts a snag into the works. Part of the time a friend helps me out but that doesn’t always work. It can be quite the juggling act at times.

CC: How do you manage your photography, spinning, decoupage, family life, domestic responsibilities, home-schooling (!) and still have time for online gaming or even going to the bathroom? Have you made conscious decisions about areas where you compromise?
BT: I’m really skilled at multitasking and delegating. I also live under the belief that compromise is just a fact of life. I keep an extremely flexible schedule so things can be worked around and in. I find that if time gets put into a rigid structure then you start to become inclined never to break it and get really frustrated when something pops up that doesn’t fit into the box. If you can stay flexible, the world doesn’t end if something doesn’t get done. The kids usually accompany me, or in some cases “help me” (read pester me, hee hee), while I’m working. A lot of my photography is outdoors so they get an education and exercise why mommy does her thing. Much of the time homeschooling gets done while we’re doing other tasks; the whole world really is a classroom. Yesterday we were out at an extreme low tide viewing the interesting sea life you don’t normally see; I was shooting pictures while discussing what a limpet is and how I hadn’t ever seen a bright blue one on that beach before either.

I have long since refused to be the queen of domestic responsibilities. My goals in life never included being a maid for four other people. The kids all have age-appropriate chores, and have to clean up the messes they make. I still do the laundry though; it just scares me when anyone else, including my husband, does it.

studio

CC: How much does guilt factor in your life?
BT: You know, guilt really doesn’t factor into my life much. I learned when I was a very young woman that I cannot feel guilty for pursuing what I want to do with my life. People too often forget about their own needs in service of others. When I was young I did that too; but I also learned you need to balance, need to set up personal boundaries, and that no one can possibly look out for your best interests better then you can. I generally don’t have time for people that want to try and make me feel guilty or attempt to stuff me into a box of how they think I should live. I am my own empowered individual and you can either accept me for who I am or move on.

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
BT: Inspiration can come at me from just about anywhere. It can be a scene before me, randomly pop into my head, or come from viewing someone else’s work. My most recent inspiration came from fashion photography. I want to apply mass amounts of beads to my friend’s face and photograph it. She is still trying to avoid that inevitability, I’m afraid……

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?
work table

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
BT: Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate! That and all the books I read. I really don’t know if I can live without Laurell K. Hamilton, Jacqueline Carey, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Jim Butcher. Also Patrick Rothfuss recently released his first book and it is fabulous, I can’t wait till the next one is released. When any of those authors release a book, life stops for a day so I can read them.

CC: What are you reading right now?
BT: I am currently reading Acacia by David Anthony Durham.

CC: What advice would you offer to mothers who struggle to be more creative?
BT: Don’t make excuses for not doing it. There is always something that can get in the way, always some excuse, make time and just do it. The only person holding you back is yourself. Also, ignore all that “great” advice or put-downs from the peanut gallery. If you’ve got the passion for it, you can make it happen.

CC: Thank you, Bec! And Happy Fourth, everyone.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »