Starting, stopping, starting again..

Procrastination. Motivation. Disorganization. It all gets in the way. I have 2 applications out, a good start. I have an important one due in a week or so and I want to create something extra nice for slides, but first I have to organize the studio because right now I would be hard pressed to find a pair of scissors in the chaos. So I go up to the attic (which developed some lovely musty smell during my hiatus thanks to a leaky roof and a rug that held the drips for weeks) and make piles and 'areas' and fill garbage bag after garbage bag. It will be better soon.

Meanwhile, I have to keep the creative spark going, and I've been playing with photography a bit. Just to see the world differently, to focus me, to absorb the light and color around me and keep it. I like this one a lot





I'm thinking I might like to use photography in my work. Make a collage for the cover of a book with my own image as the background. I could incorporate some of the actual elements captured in the photo...some beach grass, a branch. When I get a creative idea that I like I feel a scratching against the wall of my gut, a bubble in my throat. It makes me want to go up there and get lost in it. But there are still many bags to fill with art trash, surfaces from which to scrape months of glue overspray. Clumps of hot wax are frozen to the old plate the glue gun occupies. Brushes are dry and curved because after the last show I left them in a water glass and closed the door behind me with a click that sounded like I'd be gone a while and sure enough, I was. I have to throw out the bottles of dried up paint, the thickened glue, the old jewelry that seemed like a real good idea at that yard sale last Spring but now just looks sad and old and tacky. Going, going, gone. Before you know it, there is light and air and room to spread out and clean water for the brushes and all the waxed linen bundles snuggle together in a plastic bin.

2 apps out there but no answers yet. A studio 50% cleaner than it was yesterday. New stuff to unwrap and place in newly organized shelves. A couple of new ideas to look forward to and that little belly scratch of anticipation. A good start.