Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ February 11, 2013
If you aren’t doing your creative work as often as you’d like, recommit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is one of the best ways to stay in touch with how you make meaning. Can a regular creative practice be part of your intentions for 2013?
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 leverages the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!
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Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
Last week:
1. Look into the Maud Morgan center for the arts. http://maudmorgan.com/events_news.htm
A little research, consider going to an opening??- didn’t do this yet
2. Monday- printmaking class with Pam Lawson- yes! A huge success, 2 prints that are going in a positive direction
3. Daily drawing: the teapot- yes, 4 days out of 7
4. One other art making session- at least 2 hours- Thursday. The CAA deadline is fast approaching. – no, but instead I went through my recent artwork and evaluated what might work, settled on 3 pieces and have framed one of them
5. Blog Post for the art blog- yes, and the yoga blog
6. Writing- edit and revise a section for Thursdays meeting- yes, turned 2 sections into a chapter
7. Gallery work- filing, Tarbell committee, ISS- Wednesday no
8. Yoga- 2nd series Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, 1st series Thursday & Friday, ? Sunday? Can I get to a class?? Saturday off – yes
9. the poor dog doesn’t get enough, truly, Mon, wed & Friday are my day to get him out. Try some longer walks or even running in the woods like I used to. – work in progress, did go cross country skiing on Sunday
10. the poor 5 year plan, at the bottom of the list. I keep looking at the book with a guilty twinge. I know this kind of thinking will help me enormously, I’m not going to drop this from the list. – nope
This week:
1. Monday- printmaking class with Pam Lawson-
2. Daily drawing: the teapot/ might work on drawing the yoga poses and getting the hand positions
3. The CAA deadline Wednesday- finish framing and submit 2 pieces.
4. Update my art blog, more links to other art blogs
6. Writing- begin working on the next chapter and the overall arc of the story, where does it end?
7. Gallery work- filing, Tarbell committee, ISS, budget for the 2014 lecture fund, oh god and the monthly report isn’t done!
8. Yoga- sore shoulder and wrist, so I have to modify a bit this week. Mon, Tues Wed: 2nd series. Thursday, Friday- 1st series get to class this week?
9. some longer walks with Meyer on mon, wed, & Friday. Snowshoeing?
10. The 5 year plan, put the book somewhere that I can’t ignore it! Print out what I’ve got so far. Make a graph with columns, 1 year, 2 years, etc.
11. Acknowledging with some sadness that we need to sell our house, and getting it ready to sell is going to cut into my time for writing and art. There’s a lot of painting, fixing, and decluttering that has to happen. So, the 5 year plan will help me stay on track, but I’ll have to keep my goals modest. For now!
Always a pleasure to read your weekly intentions, artem!
The house prep/sale process can easily morph into a full-time distraction. I hope you can figure out how to keep that massive project from eating up time for your creative work
Well I’m not as on-point as other posters perhaps, but this week I need to:
1. Finish the outline for the new blog banner I am illustrating
2. Lay in the skin and hair tones (I’ll give myself 2 days for that one!)
3. Finish the banner and photograph it so that it translates well into photo editing software
4. Finish adding the text to the banner and upload it to the new blog!
It may seem a petty list, but when you home school 4 kids and have a newborn – this is a pretty hot and spicy order!
Spicy indeed, Stephanie! The fact that you’re even MAKING a list with a newborn is awesome — and that you’re doing it while homeschooling four children to boot blows my mind. Sending all good mojo your way for a creatively satisfying week! xo
I much enjoyed our cozy Nemo “lockdown,” and even got our tax planner done — so great to have that load off my mind.
This week, like the last two weeks, is blissfully light in terms of scheduled events and appointments. (My “One Thing Only” rule [https://studiomothers.com/2013/01/30/my-new-rule-the-power-of-one/] is starting to yield major benefits.) I can continue to make meaningful progress with several projects and client work.
That said, with my husband still at home and able to do most of the school drop-offs and pick-ups, I’ve fallen into the trap of working too much and not setting clear boundaries for recreation and spending concentrated time with the kids. So this week, given that I have plenty of time during the day to get work done, I want to stop at 3:45 for family time–making valentines and catching up in my Project Life album.
Daily writing practice streak: 61 days in a row of logging a minimum of 500 words daily in my WIP. I really need to get back to frontloading my morning practice instead of leaving it for late in the day/early evening, when I’m really not at my creative best.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling [yes]
* Daily writing practice [yes]
* Submit story to nonfiction group for Thursday’s meeting [yes]
* Read peer pieces [yes]
* Complete installment of short story for “5PM Friday” weekly accountability group [did not submit anything in wake of group meting]
* Write a blog post [yes]
* Yoga x3 [x2]
* Reading [yes — finished two books I’m reading for research]
* Project Life [no]
* Complete month plan for February [partial]
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 [daily]
* Complete and send newsletter [M]
* Stage blog post [T]
* Yoga x3 [M/W/Sat]
* Reading [daily]
* Project Life [afternoons w/kids]
* Make valentines [T/W]
* Complete month plan for rest of February [T]
last week, i set the bar pretty low, but i met it and was happier with what i edited.
this week: writing group tomorrow: send out at least two more queries (got my first rejection already), and maybe open up what i started in nanowrimo. see how it goes.
Reblogged this on Samantha's Blog and commented:
this is so true writing is my art at the moment thanks for sharing
This is the first time I’ve done this. I feel a bit worried that I’ll have to get off my arse now 🙂
1) Wax the bases of my finished pots, ready for dipping.
2) Paint lurid stripes on my ugly teapot
3) Make a needle felted bunny
4) Find a picture of the Buddha in profile and copy it.
It seems so little in contrast with some of the other plans I see here. I’ve just started homeschooling my three, so a huge amount of my creative energy is going into making learning interesting. I’m currently reading three books on unschooling as well as one on the Charlotte Mason Method as well as learning a new method of speed maths !
Its fun, but a LOT of work. I’m popping this Creative Intention Monday Post into my Google Calender so I remember for next week 🙂