Monday Post ~ February 20, 2012
“Declare yourself to be a contribution.
Throw yourself into life as
someone who makes a difference,
accepting that you may not understand how or why.”
~Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander,
The Art of Possibility
This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.
So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.
Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.
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Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
Last week: sick all week with a chest cold. Managed to moderately keep up with the house and daily drawing, still posting on my art blog.
This week:
1. Daily Drawing
2. Polish up my tree essay for Elephant Journal and submit
3. My youngest goes to Kindergarden next September, daily drawing is becoming a powerful catalyst, but I need to work on a vision plan for next year. Where on earth am I going with all of this? People start asking what you’re going to do with your time when your youngest goes back to school and I am scared to death of the idea of trying to make a go of it as a studio artist. Yet if I don’t try, I will always wonder what if.
4. Start the first panel for the triptych of backbending poses? Or continue on with the preparatory sketches for another week.
How exciting to be thinking about what happens in the fall, Deborah! Don’t let that “studio artist” label scare you. Just keep doing what you’re already doing!!
last week:
-i shall spend an hour cleaning the studio … twice
-i shall paint … twice
-i shall exercise five out of seven days
-i shall bake four different treats for my four best valentine’s
-i shall rehang my remaining pieces on my art wall
…… AND i did it all … rah ….
this week …
-i shall work on cleaning the studio twice (slow going, i need to just get in there and do it til it’s done …. not this slow and steady never finish thing)
-i will paint 6 hours (over two, maybe three days)
-start one commissioned piece
-chat with another commission to make sure i know what’s what before i begin … get it written down
-i will neither bake nor eat any more treats!!
-i will exercise five of seven days
Rah indeed, Elizabeth! So glad to have your creative mojo here….
tomorrow i write. today, i clean off my desk.
That will feel great.
Yay, vacation week! We’re not going anywhere or doing much of anything, but we did have a nice family-centered weekend to start things off on the right foot.
Last week’s intentions:
* Morning centering practice [yes]
* Create new centering center for wall in library [Mon/Tue]
* Spend 2 hours on nonfiction project [no — worked on newsletter instead]
* One blog post [yes]
* Journaling [yes but not daily target]
* Yoga/run x4 [yes]
This week’s intentions:
* Morning centering practice [daily]
* Complete nonfiction project for writers’ group by Fri deadline [M/T/W/Th/F]
* Prepare for Sunday coaching circle [Wed, Thurs]
* Project Life update [M/T]
* One blog post [Tues, Wed]
* Journaling [daily]
* Yoga/run x3 [T, W, Fri]
I’ve been following this blog, on and off, for a number of years. Have you actually completed a good book or a poem or a painting. I’m not even clear what type of artist you are?
With all this endless babble about creativity, whatcha got? Time to pony up.
And the bigger question, is it good?
wow! little harsh there!
all of us are active creatives here …. miranda included ….. plus, she rallies us … gets us going ….
amen, e!
the whole point here is that miranda keeps us all going, giving us a place to set goals for our creativity within our busy lives where kids, jobs, and everything else often take precedence too easily. since she started this blog, personally, i completed a long sleeping book, and rewritten drafts of it to prep for regular publishing, took up my old first love photography again, written a handful of poems. i’ve also gone back to work. i really have to say without the support of these women, i would not be where i am now, really creative, not just saying i have an idea for something or other. i am also much more intentional in other areas of my life tha i was when miranda gave us this platform.
she also paints, photos, teaches, writes, and runs an editing business while raising five kids as intentionally naturally as possible. two are off to college, as musicians.
i think she has accomplished rather a lot. it would be nice to see some more of her visual work here again. 🙂
If the “endless babble” about creativity on this blog is annoying to you, I can’t help but scratch my head wondering why you keep coming back. The internet does offer a few other options, so you might consider looking elsewhere for what you want.
Thanks, Elizabeth and Cathy — you guys are exactly why this blog is so important to me, and why we’ll continue to do what we do. Thanks for watching my back, friends!
(BTW, internet nasties are a cliche: they always use aliases and seem to think that they’re anonymous. But they’re not. Our friend “Sierra” has an IP address in the vicinity of Cambridge, Mass. I see commented on your blog too, Cathy. It does make me sad that there are people who believe that their only path toward feeling good about themselves is to try to take other people down. I know that this kind of person is in pain, however masked, so I’m working on empathy.)
My day job has been sucking the EVERYTHING right out of me….precious little glassworking or writing going on for weeks.
BUT,
this week I will
make beads at least twice
write a blog entry at least twice
write a Studio Mothers post
And work.
That’s a lot for a working mama, Christine! I’d say if you get even two of those those five non-work things done you’re a smashing success.