Archive for the ‘sculpting’ Tag
I spent the first two hours of my day today in bed drinking coffee and watching a dozen or so TED speeches. If your not familiar with TED I’d recommend it to you whole heartedly. It’s a series of speeches from experts around the world on a diverse collection of topics. The anagram of TED stands for, “Technology, Education, & Design”.
‘It sure isn’t the Sistine Chapel!’’
My main topics for today concerned Creativity and the Arts. Listening to people from Bali who design green homes from bamboo or others from Europe who specialize in the creation of designs and art is exciting. It’s nice to know that Creativity is alive and well on this planet and not getting lost in the technological hustle and bustle of our societies.
I’ve always been a proponent and supporter of anyone or anything that creates something. The best times of my life are those spent where I’m relaxed, alone with my thoughts, and putting paper to pencil. Either writing, drawing, painting, or sculpting, it’s all good. With that in mind I thought I’d share a quick look at my lair. It’s my oasis filled with my things and represents my life in one small room.
For twenty years I saved every little doodad, birthday card, and memento from places I’ve been and people I’ve known. Then I began making a series of collages or “life panels” of those years. It started out as two small panels but grew to more than nine with some of them measuring 4’X4’.
‘This is what I call a workspace.’
I never had a sufficient amount of wall space and I had them in storage for twenty years. I moved them from place to place until I finally settled down here in Maine. I still didn’t have the wall space for them and finally decided to make them the ceiling of my so-called man-cave.
Now I can sit at my desk surrounded by things that make me happy. I can lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling and see the people, places, and things that I’ve experienced in my life. The photos in this posting are a quick peek into the craziness of that space that I’ve had the pleasure of creating.
EVERYONE NEEDS A HAPPY PLACE
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I hate to admit this but I suspect I’m suffering from something akin to writers block. It’s a first for me and it’s puzzling. In all my years of writing reports, letters, and thousand of blog posts I’ve never had a problem thinking of ideas and putting them to paper. That’s why this current creative hiccup is so bothersome.
I can’t find any mentions of this malady anywhere so let’s just call it a "creative motivational block". I’m still having all of the creative ideas I could ever want or need but my ability to sit down and get them started has become more difficult. I have of dozens of ideas everyday that are inventive, interesting and unusual but it seems to take forever to put brush to canvas or pencil to sketch book. It’s maddening.
The second part of my problem is really not a problem at all. For the first time in my life I’m financially able to spend the necessary money to obtain the supplies needed to do these projects. In years past it was difficult at times to come up with funds which forced me to step outside the box a little and use materials I never thought possible. Maybe the best part of my projects in the past was that ability to overcome those challenges and still get the job done. I really don’t know for sure.
As always the ideas keep coming and while some of them sound good in my head they’re eventually discarded. Others are easy to do and all it requires of me is to sit down and get started. That’s the bloody rub.
I’ll be ready to start a current project when all of a sudden more bright ideas come to me and I get sidetracked by them. I’ll stop to write a few notes on the new ideas and the interest in the other begins to ebb. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m trying desperately to put a stop to with only moderate success.
I feel at times that I’m so concerned with getting my ideas exactly the way I imagined them that I’m losing the ability to adapt to changes that always seem to come along. I’m in the middle of a project now that I’ve been fiddling with for a few weeks. I’ve thought it through over and over again and visualized it to completion. It’s ninety percent complete but I’m lacking that final push.
I’ve always loved challenges but this one is a doozy.
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I’m a bit tired today after yesterday’s drywall work. If you’re expecting anything spectacular on this blog today you’re sure to be disappointed. I often hear people on their blogs complaining about writer’s block. I’ve never had that problem but I seem to be suffering from a block for which I have no name. It could possibly be called an ‘artists block’ or a ‘remodeling block’, or even a ‘get-the-hell-out-of-bed block’. I’m feeling like a big giant lump with no motivation to do anything except write about how lazy I’m feeling. Which for the record is mighty effing lazy. At the same time my mind is racing and I’m visualizing work that still needs to be completed on the remodel tomorrow.
Unfortunately for me when I’m working any kind of project I’m consumed not just by the work that I’ll be doing but by constant mental activity that I can’t turn off. It can also make sleeping extremely difficult. Even after having my better-half tell me to take the day off, I struggle. I should be relaxing and enjoying my down time but for me there is no real down time.
She’ll be talking to me about work or family and if I’m lucky I may get every other word or just a general idea of what the subject matter is. I suspect she thinks I’m getting forgetful but that isn’t the case at all. It also isn’t that I don’t care or I’m not interested, I’m just focused on my tasks at hand almost 100%. It’s totally out of my control for the most part and it’s something I’ve resigned myself to dealing with.
Even as a kid I was consumed by my painting, sculpting, reading, and once I started something I kept at it until it was completed. Especially my art work. I’d start a painting and would work around the clock with little or no food or drink until it was finished. I love that feeling of being in the moment and just staying there as long as possible is a real pleasure for me.
At times I have difficulty getting a project started and will procrastinate a little. It’s not that I don’t want to do the project, it’s because I know that once I start I probably won ‘t be able to stop. You could be in the same room with me and during those times you cease to exist. Even my surroundings in the room become a blur except for the piece I’m working on. It can be maddening when interruptions occur and I lose my temper and become difficult.
I thought in my younger days that this compulsion would lessen as I grew older but it has not. It’s been both a blessing and a curse over the years but I’m certain I would miss it if for some reason it just disappeared. I guess I’ll do my best to relax today but both my better-half and I know what I’ll be thinking about. Tomorrows project.
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Are you as sick as I am with all this political nonsense? I decided to get out of the house for a few hours with my better-half to take a short hike through the woods, in a non-hunting area of course, to just enjoy the clean air and the sunny day. The area where we wanted to walk is approximately seven miles from our home and we took the round-about-way of getting there.
I decided just for the hell of it to count all of those annoying political signs that seem to pop up at every intersection and clutter the landscape during every election cycle. I stopped counting at three hundred but it was easily twice that.
I realize there are some rather loosely enforced rules about where those signs can be placed and how many can be placed there but that’s not really my point. It’s just another way for politicians of both parties to irritate the hell out of people. It’s bad enough that we have to listen to a barrage of advertisements on television but now they’re calling on my cell phone. I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country whose made an attempt to contact every no-contact list imaginable to stop these annoying intrusions. Whatever rules they’ve set up for this kind of political crap just aren’t being enforced. Why am I acting so surprised? Everyone knows the rules don’t apply to the political elites.
I’m not a big fan of things political and I’ve lost a great deal of respect for many of the people who insist on living that lifestyle. I can respect a blue-collar worker much more than a smooth talking, word parsing, political hack. These feelings aren’t restricted to any specific political party because the differences between the two have become so blurred in the last few years it’s all the same damn thing. I know it doesn’t do much good to bitch and complain but it certainly makes me feel a little better.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting this week, I was able to make a little progress on that sculpture I been working on. It felt good to zone out for a few hours and concentrate on something interesting instead of the normal everyday humdrum nonsense. It still won’t be ready for Christmas but at least I’m back working at it. I love working with unusual materials and this project has taken it further than I normally go. Trying to create or re-create a woman’s hairdo out of white caulking compound has been a true challenge. I know exactly how I wanted it done and how I wanted it to look but getting there has become quite a challenge. I’ll keep slaving away and hopefully see an end to this project sometime after the holidays. Maybe I’ll be forced to make it a Valentine’s Day gift.
I did little shopping earlier today at a local store that sells used CDs, books, and video games. I love reading and I’ve been wanting for the longest time to eventually read the entire Harry Potter book series. I got extremely lucky and was able to purchase the first six books of that series at a reasonable price. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the book I’m currently reading and be able to get into the first book of Harry Potter sometime this evening. The books are always better than the movies, at least in my experience.
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