I did think a lot. I thought about big things and small things; purpose, vinyl siding, litter, community, life in general, gluten, money, sustainability, roofs, car insurance, sorority life, hair, aging, … I thought my mind into a useless jumble.
I talked a lot in 2006. Around September, I got sick of hearing myself and started to talk less. It was still too much. I went to too many meetings and I listened to too many people talk about big things and small things.
I didn’t read enough. I didn’t learn enough. I didn’t walk enough despite the marathon and the training for it. I didn’t write enough.
I regret not taking the time in November to “win” NANOWRIMO. I regret not spending time in my art studio. I regret not breathing deeply enough, often enough to reenergize myself so I could/would write and make art.
I had plenty of ideas for artwork. I wrote some of them down. I could gather them and arrange them into a work-of-art about possibilities. Or maybe the piece would be about priorities - or excuses - or excess.
Yes, excess is what the piece would have to be about. My mind has overloaded itself with possibilities and so my hands have done nothing.
feminist artist conscious and doing
I know that I learn by doing and that I think best when I am exploring by consciously doing and writing about the experience.
I know this and I have to restart acting on what I know. Waiting is a killer. I’m in recovery.
I thought about restarting Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way
or Walking In This World for support. And I was stopped (again) by the thought that so many of the things she created the books to help you “recover” are things I’m not sure I’ve ever felt I had a strong grasp of; a sense of safety, identity, power, integrity, possibility, abundance, connection, strength, compassion, self-protection, autonomy, faith, origin, proportion, perspective, adventure, personal territory, boundaries, momentum, discernment, resiliency, camaraderie, authenticity, dignity.The books also reminded me of a series I’d started and never completed. There’s a box in my studio with a sense of incompletion.
I recently brought In The Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art
by Linda Weintraub. I think it’ll be fodder for a lot of activity.
