my direction for the year
process & progress
Happy Day!
Winter solstice. This morning dawned crisp and clear. Today is the shortest day of the year.
Tomorrow the world turns to lengthening days and shorter nights.
A time for celebration, for coming out of the dark.
A movement towards clarity.
painted sky
This morning a most incredible painted sky full or glowing pink and orange. The photo can’t duplicate this but it is a marker for this day, a reminder of a sigh released.
I am part way through some small paintings and moving myself in the direction of unfinished stories with the intention of finishing. Though the paintings have nothing to do with the stories, they somehow free me to write. The act of painting, of responding to color, tone and texture is opening me up to ideas, words and experiments with words. My current stories are more character, exploration and philosophy driven than plot driven. I will introduce you to my character Tegan a little further along in my new year.
My New Year
Today is the start of my new year. I measure it by my birthday. I don’t have resolutions but I have intentions. I think of intention as a direction, a path to follow as opposed to making promises to myself.
the view today
It’s overcast and warm here today. I can look out the window and see the Strait of Juan de Fuca. – cool blue, stippled by current. The landscape is a damp study in grey, blue, green and brown. I’m considering what to do – not just today but as a step towards the future. Later today I will continue my experiments with plaster and paint. Engaging in this physical act of creativity gives energy to my writer’s voice. I been having a few plot ideas lately and it is close to the time when I should be giving them fullness by writing them down. For that I will try a new tool - Scrivener. I am trying to stop my habit of writing down thoughts in multiple notebooks, scraps of paper etc. This electronic tool looks to be a place I can compile all those sentences and begin to string them together.
Last night, on my new year’s eve I visited some of my notebooks. They brim with pieces of me, ideas, inspiration, emotion. There are bits of story and poem, word seeds and sketches of potential creations. A recurring theme has been collections of writing – mine and/or others. I still have that magazine idea in me. There’s a wonderful launch pad for creative people in the U.S. called Kickstarter and I wish we had similar here in Canada. The idea is to promote your idea/project and get backers.
Using this for inspiration I am going to pretend there is a Kickstarter in Canada and outline my project. I will announce it when it is ready.
Kickstarting my new year from studio and office and a seed of an idea.
seed of an idea
creativity and business
Late last night I halfway launched my new business model called “EarthWord Creative, development services for artists and writers”. It’s not finished because my learning curve had a high arc and I had to redo some technical details that momentarily knocked me off center and left me speechless. Now that I am back on the ground I thought maybe I should explain my idea. I have a small business called inevitable fire print.web design that has been in operation for several years. I want to create a “niche” service for creative people (those artists and writers in the first sentence) that would help them find a place on the world wide web. Websites are important. Not as a measure of popularity or trendiness but as a tool to show and market work and services. I’ve met a lot of artists and writers who would like to have a website but don’t know where to start. I would like to make my new service kind of organic/creative and grow it as people ask questions, express their needs etc. That way, I can tailor it to the needs of a creative community.
So here I am talking business and making art. I’m taking a break from painting -have to let the backgrounds dry (paint on plaster) before I move to the next step. I’ve had to teach myself to “wait” or the plaster surface can get too wet and start to get mushy. I’m not all that good at waiting when I’m in my creative zone but I’ve found that getting a coffee, writing and/or starting a second painting helps keep me inspired.
There are times when the wait is false though. When I’ve told myself something else is more important (usually not) or there isn’t enough time. What’s true is there isn’t enough time to do all the things I want to do so why hesitate? Why wait? Like those advertising whizzes at Nike said “just do it”.
