I Blog

The question at Mommy's Nap Time is:

What is one regular thing you do for yourself to keep up your creative mind? Do you go to a guild, out for coffee with a friend? Are there people / activities you do regularly or as needed?

I had to think for a minute, and the answer is I blog. I don't have a guild. My "guild" is the general crafting online community. I've had guilds in the past and this is the place where I do show and tell, and look at other people's projects and comment and receive comments.Through two different web sites I've had the classes I couldn't find locally. They are quite different concepts on how to run classes, but I've learned a lot in both Craftsy and Quilt University.

I do have a local quilting friend and we go out to lunch once a week and that is a load of fun. We do very different kinds of things, but she gets it, and so do I.

I do Morning Pages. I think that brain dump in the morning makes all the difference. I write down the things that bother me and I don't have to think about them again during the day. I plan out creative things. I wonder if I should do this kind of thing or that. I decided to start blogging on Morning Pages.

But mostly, I remember to have fun. At this point in my life, having fun makes sense.

The Artist's Way

I'm about to start another round of THE ARTIST'S WAY. I've finished the introductions and I'm into the chapter on the basic tools, which are Morning Pages and Artist's Dates.

I've had a very easy time with Morning Pages. I have journaled for decades, but in several different ways. Both on computer and by hand. So moving to a by hand, in the recliner, first thing in the morning, with a cup of coffee method was pretty easy. I do my three pages and then I work through one or two books. Right now those books are GRIEVING GOD'S WAY by Margaret Brownley and THE ARTIST'S WAY by Julia Cameron.

GRIEVING GOD'S WAY is just two pages a day, a very easy read. Mostly common sense but putting a focus on one thing a day is a good way to deal with grief. I decided I liked the book pretty quickly, and I know I like it even better now that I'm about 1/3 through it.

I've done THE ARTIST'S WAY once before. I always knew I'd come back and do it again. This book, and this system is all about unblocking creativity, and I'm hoping for uncovering another layer of whatever is blocking me. The system works. I'm quilting. I'm blogging. But I'm still not drawing or painting. And I don't spend as much time on quilting as I would like to.

The problem with the last round of THE ARTIST'S WAY was Artist's Dates. This time I started a list. I made a list of what I knew about and then went online. I now have 3 pages a lot of which do not require that I leave the house. That can be a very good thing in a Pennsylvanian winter.

Now, back to the sewing machine. I'm working my way through embellishments on the major motifs right now. Pictures to come for a later post.

Showing Up and Computers

I've started THE ARTIST'S WAY by Julia Cameron again. I've been working my way through Introductions and haven't gotten to the meat of the book. The edition I have is THE COMPLETE ARTIST'S WAY and includes two more books, so in addition to the Introduction to the book, there was also an Introduction to the edition.

One of the things I gleaned from this morning's reading was Showing Up. And the author has a point. If  you don't show up on the page, writing won't get done. That goes for the sewing machine and quilting, the computer and blogging, and to the table with the paints for painting. So I showed up at the sewing machine and I got a rather big stint done. I've embellished all but one plume on the quilt. so I turned on the computer because I was going to show up for this blog and the computer would not turn on.

As you can tell from the fact that you are reading this sentence, it all worked out. I turned it off again and walked away, and came back to find that had worked and turned it on again and this time it booted up properly.

I have no idea why it didn't boot up properly the last time, but from watching it this time, I certainly gave it more than enough time. What I do know is that I've spent the last hour doing silly stuff, like Solitaire games, to just calm down.

Blogging vs. Journaling vs. Forums

This is a what I've learned piece. I expect there will be others, not always Internet related.

There is a difference between blogging and journaling. I've had people tell me they could not possibly blog because they already journal. My journals and my journaling have very little in common with how I see blogging.

First of all journals are private. I do Morning Pages, right out of The Artist's Way and they truly are a brain dump, so I can get my brain out of the round and round and round stuff and get it started. I've also called it screaming into the keyboard when I was typing my journals frequently in public places where a notebook would have been very obvious but typing was what I did all day anyway. I could yell on the page and no one around me had a clue that was what was going on. Even I don't read my journaling most of the time.

Blogs are public. Blogs are written to be read. I blog because I've got stuff to say that I'd like others to read. Like most bloggers I love feedback. I need to know that others have read what I wrote, but Google makes it very hard for a non-blogger to comment, so I understand when I get a LIKE to a link in Facebook, or a mention in an email that someone has stopped in to read. But mostly I need to get the stuff I want to say out into the world.

There is no way I'd be putting the stuff I journal online for others to read. The whole intent is quite different.

In the past I've done a lot of Forums and Conferences. They, like blogging, are intended for public consumption. When I'm writing a post on a forum or a conference it is intended to be read by other people. I'm communicating. I did local bulletin boards and echoed nets before the Internet. I did Usenet from local bulletin boards when dial up services didn't exist. I did Usenet when Web based Forums didn't exist. And when SPAM killed Usenet, I moved over to the Web based forums which were always intended to be moderated. I did Forums on archaeology, and astrology, on digital scrapbooking and genealogy, stitching and quilting, on books and authors I liked, and even I don't remember what else, and most recently on dementia.

I like Forums. One of the best thing about the Internet is that people with tiny, isolated interests, who could not possibly find another person where they live who is interested in that subject too, can form and build communities online that could never exist in person. And it doesn't matter if I'm writing at 6 am my time and it is the middle of the night where you are because when you get up and get to your computer you can read it then, and answer then. But right now I'm not doing any. That could easily change tomorrow.

Right now, I'm blogging, which I always said I would never do. Interesting when you think about it.

Fifteen Minutes a Day and the Power of Doing Things Badly

I've been stuck since I posted the last post. Afraid to make a mistake. And the answer is 15 minutes a day, and allowing myself to do what I am doing badly. Allowing mistakes

I don't do free motion well, and the next thing on the art quilt is free motion. I've got a new sewing machine and it does things differently than the old one. In free motion the feed dogs are down and you control where the stitches go yourself by moving the quilt sandwich. Turns out I did learn how to do that well enough when I was trying to learn how a few months ago.

But it also turns out that THIS machine has thread tension problems with free motion. It is a "known problem" and the instruction manual had the fix. I was a bit surprised at how much I had to "fix" it. I literally tightened the upper tension to twice what it normally is before the problem of the upper thread showing on the bottom went away.

I also tried it out with more than one kind of sample. The tension fix is different on the two I tried out. I'm going to have to make up a sample that is exactly like what I will be working on and try stuff out before I work on the art quilt (which is still nameless).

The problem with the bed scarf was an unwillingness to cut into the fabric for the borders. I just managed to do that this morning. I don't know if the things I worried about will happen or won't happen, but it doesn't matter. I needed to go forward. And just think. Once I get the final borders on the bed scarf I'm going to need to quilt on that too.

I'm on the last chapter of the third book in the Complete Artist's Way and the subject of the couple of pages I read today was committing to 15 minutes a day at whatever your art project is, and allowing yourself to do it badly. As usual, Julia Cameron was right. She had a point. The problem is to show up (on the page or at the keyboard). She is a writer who was learning the piano and was writing music at the time she wrote that last book. For me it was sitting down at the sewing machine and trying to figure out what I would need to do to get the free motion stuff moving yesterday, and getting out the cutting board and rotary cutter and cutting into that beautiful fabric today.

Heros

I am working through a couple of self help books. I've talked about THE ARTIST'S WAY before, but I've picked up Barbara Sher's LIVE THE LIFE YOU LOVE. One of the things I'm being asked to do in that book is make a list of imaginary allies. To a large extent, especially with historical figures or people who you know about but don't actually know, they are the people you look up to. Your heroes. I've discovered I don't actually have any. So I'm spending time trying to figure out who I really do look up to. Who I'd want on my side if I needed help, or encouragement.

She says you should include favorite pets, so I've added Willie. He was my dog, 20+ years ago. The only one I ever had. When I was sick or needed comfort he would know and come to be with me. He was there when I was trying to fight a regular nightmare that had me waking up screaming. He tried to protect me from all kinds of real or imaginary problems.

I've also added Leonardo da Vinci to my list. He was a great artist and a polymath. Someone I could really look up to. He had an interesting life as well, and there was nothing I know about that turns me off in that life.

And Hatshepsut, a "king" of Egypt. A woman who made her own way at a time when women could not do that. Who became a king because the idea of a reigning queen was something no one could even imagine in her culture. And not a bad king either. She built up the country internally, and began diplomatic journeys internationally. She successfully brought up the step-son who was too young to be king at the time when she took over as his regent and then as the senior co-reigning king, so when he did take over he was placed to successfully become the warrior king that his country needed at that point. He was not beaten down so he would not be able to take her place, and that is pretty impressive all on its own. He was able to build on what she had done in Egypt internally, and he invented empire.

I'm not sure who else I will add to the list, but I am working on it.

What is Art, Anyway

One of the things I've been doing to get my life back after years of caregiving is to try to get my creativity back. There have always been creative outlets. There have always been bits and pieces of stuff that I did. I was an amazing needlewoman. I tried almost every kind I'd ever heard of. And mostly I made very nice looking stuff. But you would never have known it from my house. There wasn't a quilt showing and only one, rather small, cross stitch picture. There weren't even sweaters in the house. They had all be given away. And everything else was hidden in drawers.


One of the creative outlets I spent a lot of time on in the past was digital scrapbooking. I did print out my pages, but they went into books, so they weren't ever out where I could see them.

The problem with caregiving is that in the end everything stops. You lose all of your interests. There is no time, but mostly no energy, to do anything but take care of the person who is sick. That is one thing when the caregiving is short term. You can put your life on hold for 6 months or a year, but not for a decade. If you try to do that, you stop having a life. It is one of the reasons caregivers die, frequently before the patient does.

So I really did need to get my life back. I needed to be interested in something again. I did a lot of self help books, and all of them helped a little, but then I found The Artist's Way, and everything changed. 

I'm not sure how long I've been working through the Complete Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Months. There are three books that were bound together in a single, rather heavy, hard cover book. I'm into the third one. You are supposed to take a week for each "chapter" and there are 12 to a book. I haven't done that. Some chapters took more than a week, others less. No question that the system in that set of books has unblocked me.

But one of the first things that happened was that I started finishing things. Quilts got quilted and bound. Pillow tops that had been sitting in drawers became pillows. And I started new projects as well, and finished some of them too. If you look at my house now, there are things I made in several rooms. And more to come.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Art, with a capital A. And thinking of me and Art. And I'm not sure what it really is, but I am having a pretty good time experimenting with stuff.

This blog is part of the experiment. It came to me while I was writing my Morning Pages that I wanted to write something more permanent than emails and forum posts. I didn't want to write a book. I'm not ready to write books. But I could write things that were shorter. Things like blog posts.

Morning Pages are three (or more) hand written pages of stream of conscious journaling done first thing in the morning. She asks a lot of questions in the book, and I do dip into the book most days towards the end of the journaling period. She didn't intend the book to be a grief therapy book, but it ended up being that too, because those are frequently pretty hard questions. They are the easy part of The Artist's Way system. I have a lot more trouble with Artist's Dates, but I understand everyone does.

Right now, my creative outlet is working on the slide show for Joe's Memorial Service. I want it ready so it doesn't have to be thought about when the time comes. I'm enjoying working with the photos, but it is also very hard to see those happier times. I'm taking regular breaks.

Morning Pages

I've been working through THE ARTIST'S WAY system by Julia Cameron for at least 6 months now. I didn't start with THE ARTIST'S WAY itself, but with one of her other books. It is an amazing system for unblocking creativity.

I've journaled for decades, mostly on computer, but I fought the idea of 3 hand written pages first thing in the morning for years. About 6 months ago I decided to just give it a try. I'm still not sure that a computer written journal wouldn't work for me. My journaling style didn't change when I picked up a pen, or when I used a keyboard. But what did change was length. Inevitably you will run out of things to say. It is hard to tell if you have written "enough" when you are using a computer. Is it three pages? More? Less?

I found that if I made myself keep going, I kept going to that third page and generally past it.

Morning Pages aren't the same as writing a blog. You aren't writing for anyone but yourself. In some places Julia Cameron describes it as a brain dump. For three pages you write about every silly thing that is on your mind. You write about the things that worry you and the things that excite you. You write about what you are going to make for supper tomorrow if that is what is on your mind. And at some point, you find yourself writing about the quilt you want to make, or the beading you want to do, or the blog you want to start. And you find yourself making that quilt, doing that beading or starting that blog.

In the last couple of days I've seen THE ARTIST'S WAY mentioned on two blogs that I read regularly. One was a beading blog. I don't do beading, but the author of that blog does, and she unblocked the kind of beading she does using THE ARTIST'S WAY. The other blog is by an author of one of those "how to make money writing blogs" systems. Mostly I don't read that kind of thing but every once in a while he talks about organization or some other subject I enjoy so I look in occasionally. And this week, I found his THE ARTIST'S WAY post which was so much like the beader's post that I was a bit amazed.

Because what they had found is what I have found. During the last 6 months I've also bought a sewing machine, and began trying to learn Art Quilting. I've pulled projects out of the closet and drawers and finished them up. There are three pillows on my bed that sat unfinished for 15 to 20 years. And I finished a quilt this morning. Binding done, and only a little hand sewing to do, that was started in 1994.

I thought about wanting to do some writing and realized I could do it in a blog in Morning Pages less than two weeks ago.

There are other parts to her system, but I am beginning to think that everyone should try Morning Pages.