Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ October 1, 2012
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” ~Emile Zola
Happy October!
This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is one of the best ways to stay in touch with how you make meaning.
What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention or practice plan — and ink that time in your calendar. The scheduling part is important, because as you know, if you try to “fit it in” around the edges, it generally won’t happen. An intention as simple as “I will write for 20 minutes every morning after breakfast” or “I will sketch a new still life on Wednesday evening” 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. We use a broad brush in defining creativity, so don’t be shy. We also often include well-being practices that support creativity, such as exercise and journaling.
Putting your intentions on “paper” helps you get clear on what you want to do — and sharing those intentions with this community is a great way to leverage the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!
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Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
Last week I printed 2 times and some with my oldest as well. I also began the studio clean-up but it’s in that ugly phase where it looks worse before it looks better. Vacuuming dust off of years of old sketchbooks.. I sure do miss figure drawing! I also ordered framing supplies for 4 16X20 frames.
This week I will:
1. Re-write the piece on Denise Driscoll for the writer’s goup
2. More gelatin printing using some of the ideas from the book I ordered through inter-library loan. The only good book on gelatin printing is out of print.
3. Begin framing- this might not be terribly realistic this week but I’m putting it out there anyway.
4. Check out Miranda’s calendar at Open Studio and figure out how to adapt it for my studio
5. Acknowledging that my idea to start a critique group is good but I’m not doing it right now. Partly I feel that the work isn’t ready yet, I’m in a very early/ internal/ turning within phase. Feeling protective about it. Feeling downright anti-social about the whole process and guarding my time as if there were time thieves at the door waiting to steal my precious moments.
Deb, both last year and this year once the kids went back to school I did a major turning within phase. I’m sure it’s partly seasonal, but I think too that after living 8 years without time to myself I just needed to hoard the free hours I found myself with. And maybe, *just* maybe, I’m a wee bit antisocial in general. But I say be as protective about your time as you need to be, you deserve all the inner nourishment you can give yourself when you have the chance.
Yay, Deb! And so much fun to get to “see” some of your work in person 🙂
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/office/calendars.html
Last week:
– Write two blog posts [YES]
– Yoga 3X [YES]
– Run 1X [NO]
– Do second lesson in Organic Parenting ecourse [YES]
– Read book about soil fertility [NO]
– Read backlog of herbal newsletters [NO]
– Make echinacea and elderberry syrups [NO]
– Continue learning how to use my new camera [NO]
This week will be a repeat, and I also want to make comfrey salve and lip balm with my daughter, as well as bottle up the motherwort and milky oats tinctures I made this summer.
I seem to feel healthier just READING your lovely list of intentions, jlcm 😉
Missing your lovely updates, jlcm! Come back to the Monday Post…. xoxo
Just emerging from a massive client project, trying not to succumb to overwhelm from all the other things I *didn’t* do during the past 10 days. At least I did manage to maintain my daily morning writing practice, even if it wasn’t exactly pulitzer-winning material.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling
[yes]
* Daily writing practice [yes]
* Complete installment of short story for “5PM Friday” weekly accountability group [no — not ready to share story yet — still in rough shape]
* Prepare for Wednesday Writers’ Workshop [T] [yes]
* Blog post [W/Th] [no]
* Open Studio Groton marketing and development projects [T/W/Th] [yes]
* Yoga/walk/run x2 [yes]
* Reading [yes]
This week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling
* Daily writing practice
* Complete installment of short story for “5PM Friday” weekly accountability group
* Prepare for Wednesday Writers’ Workshop [T]
* Prepare for Thursday nonfiction group [W]
* Blog post [W/Th]
* Open Studio Groton marketing and development projects [T/W/Th]
* Yoga/walk/run x2
* Reading
I said two weeks ago that I would finish my son’s shirt that I was working on … still not done, but I did finish the sleeves that I was struggling with. 🙂 I have been sewing more recently, I haven’t sewed this much in years! I did a little wallet project tonight though, and accomplished the whole project in under an hour.
So my goals this week:
* Cook creatively at least 4 times (as opposed to making spaghetti with canned sauce)
* Finish the collar for my son’s shirt
* Bake with my 3yo
* Sew 2 more wallets for templates/gifts
* Start business plan in case I want to follow through with making/selling wallets and purse organizers.
How’s that lovely list of intentions coming along, Sarah? 😀