12 Secrets: Creative Customs

The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women:
Secret 2

This week, the author Gail McMeekin asks us to consider our creative patterns and rituals. Personally, I am FASCINATED with other peoples rituals: Little putterings, how they take their morning coffee, notes to themselves,where they stash little artifacts and goodies they've collected during the day's activity, candid moments in front of the vanity, superstitious habit, traditions they are unaware are even traditions and the amazing beauty present in the daily minutia. What makes your juices flow? Between what and what time do you feel in the groove? Are you a walker, hummer, doodler or pacer? I often think that if I hadn't chosen art (or if art hadn't chosen me) that I would be a sociologist, or anthropologist. So, the discussion of creative ritual was right up my alley. She asks us to closely watch our own creative rituals and if we don't have any, to get get'n and make some up!

While buzzing about in my studio this week, I took a few moments to catch myself in the midst of creative ritual and jot them down in a notebook. Here are my findings:

***I can't concentrate in my studio unless the rest of the apartment is in some passable state of organization. Dishes need to be done or at least contained by the dish tub. The bed needs to be made and ready for me to collapse in during the wee hours of the morning. The laundry monster needs to be stashed away in the hamper. No distracting dust cattle, mystery spills or receipts scattered on the floor. Order matters to me. I don't need the vacuum cleaner lines in the carpet to be aligned or every knick knack dusted to sparkling perfection--but a state of "Ahhh" is necessary for me to concentrate. So everyday before I start pushing paint, I do a round up of clutter and a quick tidy up.The same rule applies to my workspace: at the end of the day everything gets put away. I don't ever want to be intimidated by or avoid my space because it's just too big a project to wade through the chaos.

***My Strawberry Apron. I have an awesome apron my Mom made for me that I just adore. It has these silly pink and red strawberries splotched all over it with gathered black and white striped trim. She even made the pockets long and skinny for me to stuff paint brushes in. :) Before I can feel groovy at my drawing table, I have to don the silliest of strawberry frocks! It's like a uniform. When it's on it's saying, "You're done messing with the pantry, or shuffling school papers, you are working right now." I know that studio time is over when I hang my apron back up on it's nail in the corner.

***Altar Building. I have two small altars in my studio. One is dedicated to Lakshmi, where I keep a drawing of her likeness, pictures of roses I've cut out of gardening catalogs, chocolate coins and a small porcelain tea cup that I drop a quarter into every day. (She is very generous as she lets me borrow them back when I desperately need to do laundry.) The second is a little more amorphous: It's a pretty antique dish anchored by a beefy black pillar candle around which I pile shells, peacock feathers, twigs, trinkets, gifts from friends, goddess charms and cut outs that all migrate too and fro on a regular basis. Lighting the candle gives me focus and in some cases shifts the studio into sacred space where I work on special objects like altar pieces or memorials. I've been teased that between the wine drinking, sound track and twinkling candles that my studio practice is more like a hot date than a workspace. Merry Making, that's what I'm talking about. ;)

***Speaking of Music, it's huge. I can't clean or study or even nap in silence, much less create! My play list depends on the day, the season, the weather, who is home and what I'm working on. I feel like an appropriate soundtrack keeps me on target and helps me submerge myself in whatever it is I'm tinkering with. And I'll admit it, I'm a shameless singer! I often turn up the tunes loud enough so I drown out my own singing. I know my neighbors can hear me--but it's payback for all the awful thumping I hear blaring out of their unit.

***Last but certainly not least is my Zone Out Time. Every night while I'm laying in bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark spots left to us by a previous tenant, I stew on ideas. I feel like this is the time I am most receptive to inspiration--that it's a quiet enough moment for things that my brain has been holding onto all day come up for air. The only "Aha!" moments I've ever experienced have been while in that fleeting foggy moment somewhere between being awake and slipping off to sleep. I keep a notebook and my dream journal on my bed stand to scribble down ideas lest I forget them overnight!

I did notice this week how much the look of my workspace leaves me totally underwhelmed. It functions--holds onto my things, but that's about it. I thought it was silly: "This is the space in my home where I try to make beautiful things, yet it is the least beautiful space in the entire apartment!" That simply won't do. I plan to remedy the situation with some plum colored paint and a trip to the container store! My sister can expect a call from me sometime soon--grab your roller and get your painting pants on, honey!

How about you? What are your creative customs?

Until next time--
Merry Making, Friends~*