I suffer from artist block now and then. Actually it is more like easy distraction. It is not that I don't want to be creating something, it is rather the fact that any shiny object passing in my view is just too immediately attainable - and it is the ease of immediate gratification over earned satisfaction that gets in the way. TV and snacks are just such a distraction, and when the two are coupled, well, the project in front of me that would require more than 50% of my attention span just all too simply falls by the side. Then of course there is the guilt that rolls through me when it is time to go to bed and I realize I have not done anything at all. I try to justify it by telling myself that I have instead spent quality time with Mary - which is true, any time together is a treasure, but in reality I deep down inside realize that I have frittered away a very valuable couple of hours. Not only that, but I am making Mary my excuse, which is not very complimentary of me.
Kids have it made; they are fully occupied in the very minute they have before them. I remember when I was little and building elaborate structures out of the incredible wooden blocks Grandpa Miller had made (in fact I wonder where they are today - I'd love to be playing with them right now...). At that very moment, there was nothing that would distract me. The level of concentration at that age was extraordinary. I'd like to think that I was incredibly endowed with a singular purpose to create something - even something as tenuous as a tower of odd-shaped wooden blocks. In retrospect I suppose it was just that my mind was still pretty uncluttered at that point, and the activity around me just held little relevance. I would blithely work away at my project obliviously, and delight in my finished creation in a way that I genuinely wish I could feel again.
In "On Walden" Thoreau preached the need to "simplify, simplify..." and maybe he had something there.
I work every day in an environment where I have goals to attain and drills to follow, papers to fill and reports to read. I realize that I carry that process home with me, setting goals for my evenings and weekends like homework. Mary has noticed this and told me to stop and just let my time, and my projects, evolve. She's a pretty sharp cookie. And by the way, cookies in front of the TV can be all right.
2 comments:
We never take jobs offered to us from Catering Companies -- to make wedding cakes -- because then it's no longer about the look on our nieces and nephews faces when they first see the cake -- take the first bite and in that moment their new spouse becomes a part of our family.....any art piece or creative endeavor has to be about more than a task list, about more than money.....it has to evolve, it has to come from your heart.
One has to take a deep breath and howl at the moon as the stress from your day ebbs out and artist in you flows back in as if it were a tide.....that's the moment your hand reaches for a paint brush; your soul and mind merge and the only distraction is the finite amount of time in any day.....it will never be accomplished with a list, with a time frame....nothing worthwhile ever is........well except getting the cake to the reception on time! :)
xoxoxoxox
I battle with this as well, every day. It's such a precarious balance; the career and the "other" career.
Every day I'm teaching art to these small little bundles of inspiration. They simply go, unfettered and prolific. I envy them. Then I wonder what the difference is, and whether there even needs to be one.
I'm learning.
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