Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ March 25, 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 
Getting used to being at home alone with my mother-in-law without driving/domestic help from my husband. My biggest challenge at this point is maintaining focus given the current increase in distractions and stressors.
Daily writing practice streak: 103 days in a row of logging a minimum of 500 words daily in my WIP.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Maintain sanity [mostly]
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages & intention journaling [yes — but missed a few days]
* Daily writing practice [yes]
* Complete installment of short story for “5PM Friday” weekly accountability group [yes]
* Write blog post [yes]
* Start working on newsletter [no]
* Yoga/walk x3 [yes]
* Daily reading [yes]
* Project Life [no]
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]
* Write blog post [T/W]
* Start working on newsletter [W/Th]
* Yoga/walk x3 [M/W/Th]
* Daily reading
* Project Life [afternoons w/kids]
As it is Holy Week, I have some extra reading and church services to add to my schedule. I have several projects that are on the back burner and will stay there for a couple more weeks since Life is a bit complicated for now.
To do this week:
* knit prayer shawl
* Morning pages/art Journaling
* pull fabrics, choose pattern and set up schedule for prayer quilts with the church group.
* design the stoles to be sewn after Spring break
* start planning for Creativity week-end (be ready to present May 1st)
* Dye eggs!
Great, Melissa! How did things go?
There’s a hoard of family coming for Easter and preparations galore, but I’m still trying to keep some creative time going:
* Free writing 20 minutes a night.
* Revise first chapter of WIP.
* Read, read, read.
* Dye Easter eggs.
* Design egg hunt/scavenger hunt for my kiddo.
How was your Easter, Cynthia — and the other items on your list? 🙂
Last week:1. New project, my daughter said she’d rather have me teach her an art class than take a class somewhere else. –yes
2. Writing: daily journal writing and turning from my memoir to researching and writing about EC Tarbell for a booklet to be printed for fall exhibit.- daily journal yes, Tarbell no
3. Daily yoga practice- I’m on fire with this new teacher we (yoga buddy & I) found in Belmont. –yes, wrote a blog post in yoga blog too
4. Mail the taxes-done!
.5. Begin painting kitchen and downstairs hall. –kitchen renovation is growing in my head but no physical progress this week
6. Daily drawing: contour drawings.- no, no! Oh no…
7. Gallery: set aside several large chunks of time to get caught up, especially getting the calendar in order. Schedule in time to visit the Worcester Museum of Art and the MFA to research Tarbell.- yes to chunks of time, haven’t scheduled those Museum visits yet
9. Teaching Yoga- working on flexible scripts for my sequences but didn’t get a whole lot done on it this week
10. Late addition- made an appointment I’ve been avoiding for months and went. Much easier than I thought.
This week: March 25th
1. Scheduling Museum & Gallery visits: 1st stop Soprafina Gallery in Boston to see Catherine Kernan’s woodblock monoprints- this is the last week and it’s important for me to see her work.
2. Printmaking at Pam’s on Monday
3. Writing group is next week and I need to consolidate some pieces into something that more or less resembles a chapter, daily journal
4. Gallery: finish up Dreams show details, get the Faces prospectus out into the world, paperwork
5. Teaching yoga- find a reading or poem for Sunday’s class, work on the hip opening segments
6. Continue the monday art class with the kids
7. Survive with grace a weekend that contains a girls slumber party and an Easter brunch with family