Art Biz Coach, Alyson Stanfield, just released a short, but powerful video of affirmations as a tool for artists and craftspeople to use to respond to today’s belt tightening economic climate. This is an uncertain time period financially and politically that has the potential to play with artist’s psyches in crazy ways and affect pocket books. The video includes a variety of art work in different media and I’m humbled that Alyson asked if she could include an image of a set of my nesting bowls in the video.
Nesting bowls
When times become difficult, it’s a natural instinct to batten down the hatches and abandon seemingly frivolous pursuits to get a “real job” that offers a steady predictable paycheck. In my opinion, that is counterintuitive to living a fulfilling life and I think that if what you do is your calling - whether it’s pottery, painting, metal smithing, printmaking, photography - or even accounting, car mechanics, cooking, teaching - now is the time to make a deeper commitment to yourself and your art (and I write that with respect to all professions - there’s an art to everything). I am not discounting being able to pay your bills, visit a doctor, being able to put food on the table and a roof over your head either; but letting the squirrels run amok in your brain is not the answer.
Rather, now is the time to get inventive to satisfy all needs and wants! I know it’s worth it because I spent 15 years too long in a 17 year career with an airline that strip mined my soul and made me miserable - all for a steady paycheck and benefits. The more senior members at the airline called it “the job with the golden handcuffs.” Ouch. I have committed myself to my chosen path and I’m so much happier - just ask my family. My solution to the economic times is to evaluate my market, find ways to save money on supplies, tools and equipment, economize kiln firings, making smaller less expensive work in addition to more experimental work, looking at advertising & marketing message, and even trying to make my work better while not compromising my path or values.
It can be tricky to accomplish, but not impossible. In some ways, my husband, daughter and I have already accomplished the tough work to weather leaner economic times years ago when I left my job after the events of 9-11. We’re now planning for the moment when he will voluntarily leave his job to do something else. It’s exciting and full of endless possibilities.
Another one of my favorite blogs is written by musician and public motivational speaker, Christine Kane - check out this post on whether it’s time to shrink or expand for a bit of inspiration and whose message goes hand in hand with Alyson’s affirmations.
Visit Alyson Stanfield’s website for information on workshops and subscribe to her blog for great tips and information about the business of art, a topic about which artists often learn the hard way.
Meanwhile, I’ll be spending the day glazing work for the Colorado Potters Guild Fall Sale and Show that opens on Thursday evening. I fired my last bisque load yesterday and think that I’m going to glaze everything just in time.
~Cynthia
P.S. It’s come to my attention that a few emails sent to my address sometimes bounce and is returned to the sender as undeliverable. I think I’ve taken care of the problem now, but if you receive a similar message, I can be reached at cynthiaguajardo at gmail.com (substitute @ for at)
Last week, I was searching through some of my old sketch books for something to use as a screen print experiment and came across some collages that I made for a graphic studio that I took in Landscape Architecture grad school in 2005. I go back to my stint in grad school a lot because I really pushed myself during that time period and made some interesting work. In some ways it was $9,000 well spent even if I didn’t graduate from the program.
The three collages I’ve included in this post caught my eye and as I sat there with them for a moment in silence, I realized that they represent how I want to approach surface decoration on my ceramic work. After writing a few posts recently about screen printing and making ceramic decals from scratch here and here, I came to the conclusion that I would like to create a layered effect with imagery, texture, glaze and decals on clay. So when I found these collages, a light went off in my head - just like a cartoon…
Can you see the brain synapses firing away?
Since you can’t really see the layering in the collage on a computer screen as well as you would in person, allow me to explain. In these collages, I used a variety of graphic textures, text and imagery pulled from newspapers, texture rubs, magazines, and my own mark making. In two of these, I colored some vellum with a translucent markers used by architecture professionals (brands like Prismacolor or Letraset) and collaged it on top of the black and white imagery which in my mind represents the glaze layer. What I didn’t add to these collages is a third layer or the ceramic decal - but I could easily simulate this by transferring toner based photo copies with a colorless Chartpak Blender Marker on top of the vellum.
The collages are not meant to be great art works - they’re more like quick creative exercises to spark design ideas. It was exciting to me when I rediscovered these, each measuring approximately 7″ x 9″. They’re playful, not overly thought out, spontaneous and will be a good addition to my studio practices to push my work or at least the surface of my work to become more complex and all mine. Since first discovering clay in 2002, I have enjoyed the process of working with wet clay much more than the finishing aspect of ceramics. Glazing has always been a sometimes painful after thought, and I confess a single dip in the glaze bucket was about as creative as I dared in regards to finishing my work - sometimes even going as far as to use a one color for the interior and another for the exterior. Hold the phone, keep your pants on!
Minimal and quiet does have its place in ceramics, but it doesn’t really describe me or my personal preferences. Consequently, it feels sort of hypocritical to cop out and apply a minimalistic look to my ceramic work. If you were to visit my house, you would be greeted by a riot of color, mismatched heirloom/purchased/thrift store furniture, family photographs, art work - other’s, my daughter’s and mine, my grandmother’s glass and tea cup collection, mementos, along with piles of newspapers, magazines, and books covering the entire surface of the coffee table that reflect my family and a well lived in home. And, if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know I’m sometimes scattered, focused, colorful, loud, quiet, opinionated, empathetic, interested in many different ideas and philosophies and I think my work should reflect that as well, much like my home reflects my family.
I wonder if the past few months of mental wrangling, studio avoidance and general gnashing of teeth has been in response to this dialog that’s been going on inside my head. When I think about it, all of this started when I returned home from my teaching stint at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in August. I was so inspired by my stay there, that I made the decision then and there to push myself to make better work - I just didn’t know what the answer or path was when I came home. That dialog has been playing in my head around the clock in the background ever since returning much like a computer security scan works behind the scenes allowing normal use of the computer yet slowing everything down at the same time. Processing…processing…scan complete!
Whew.
I’m not ruling out a touch of ADD, left brain deficiency or general off kilterness either.
Meanwhile, that’s me in the photo above holding a tiny porcelain faceted bottle I made for a miniature swap as part of the Etsy Mud Team this month and was taken by my daughter. I haven’t been a very active participant in Etsy since early July because I haven’t made any new work in awhile - it’s a wonder I haven’t been kicked out. If any fellow Etsy Mud Team members are reading this - I’m getting back into the swing of things, pinky promise.
Paul McCartney and Wings are currently serenading me as I write this and the upbeat music blast from the past sounds so apropos for this picture perfect movie moment in my life - cue zoom in for close up. Smile of contentment on my face. Fade to future - End on positive note.
I often joke that I have adult onset ADD - and I mean no harm or insult to anyone who has actually been diagnosed with ADD. But, I have a couple of problems that make me think that it’s no joke or is something else entirely. I am habitually late for almost everything, I have a hard time organizing myself and don’t make good use of time. It could be that since leaving my full time job several years ago, I’ve assumed the task of running the house, making all the appointments, being the main care giver to my daughter, and am trying to run a small business - make that micro business all at the same time. If I only had to be responsible for myself, I think I’d be fine because I could work when I’m most productive even if that’s 3:00am or dinner time. Therein lies part of the problem - I have to work my schedule around my family’s schedule, both of whom keep normal hours. At this point, I think realizing that there’s a problem is the first step in making everything more manageable and enjoyable for everyone. While I won’t bore you with my day to day family/mom lists, I’ll share some techniques I’ve recently decided to implement in the studio.
Studio Log - I chose the lowly black and white composition notebook because it makes me feel a little nostalgic in a good way.
The other day, I listened to a NPR podcast while walking my dogs in the morning and the topic happened to be ADD and how to help children with ADD navigate through school more enjoyably and successfully. My ears perked up and I decided that I could benefit from some of the strategies mentioned.
Clean work area to minimize noise and distractions. Check - I’ve cleaned my studio and have also started cleaning my computer files and home, which is going to take considerably longer than a day. Less clutter and dirt helps me find stuff quickly and is better Qi.
Making Lists of what needs to be accomplished daily, weekly, monthly and yearly and keeping the list visible to help manage time efficiently. I used to be a list maker and have fallen out of the habit, so I decided to start fresh. I’m keeping a list for day to day stuff as well as a studio log of things I need to do and how much time I work in the studio during the week. It’s still fresh, so we’ll see whether this works or not.
Prioritize tasks. It sounds sort of anal retentive, but in all honesty, seeing the list helps me to prioritize my tasks and obligations. I enjoy the research of starting a new project and am a day dreamer by nature, but those have to be put on hold until I fulfill the tasks on my to do list.
Take good notes and make observations. This became very apparent to me yesterday when I glazed a few test tiles with a cone 6 pink glaze recipe left over from July. It took me a several minutes to orient myself and to make some educated guesses as to what I was thinking during that process. I’m sure it made total sense at the time, but now that a few months has elapsed between dates, it’s a little foggy. All my notes are a jumble of loose papers and aren’t dated. I mixed up 3 batches of the same base glaze, but didn’t label the containers and had printed 4 recipes that I had placed on top of the containers - but didn’t indicate which of the 4 recipes I actually used. I was able to deduct from my tick marks which one it was in the end - but how much time did I waste in the process?
Date and mark the time spent in the studio. Seeing the cold hard data is very revealing. I’ve already acknowledged that I work in the studio part time based on the hours available to me right now, so adding dates and hours worked will help with book keeping and also hold me accountable to work at least 20 hours a week in the studio.
Consult list regularly.
My studio log is separate from my glaze notes and kiln log and I hope it will become valuable as I attempt to be more productive. Here are my most recent entries:
Studio log entries
I also realize that I need to be flexible, adjust the list as necessary and be nice to myself. Yesterday, I had a full day planned in the studio but my daughter and I were both feeling under the weather. I felt better by the afternoon and did get one task checked off my list, but everything else was added to today’s schedule.
On a related note, fiber artist, Lisa Call, began writing an ongoing series on “Scrum Training” and how it relates to making art in August. I have been following her posts with anticipation and am very intrigued by the concept, which is really a framework for managing software development. This seemed like the perfect post to add her insight about scrum and how it relates to the art world. If only I had half as much discipline as Lisa does…she is a single mom of two, works full time as a software engineer, and manages to make a prolific amount of art work in her free time. How does she do it? I think she’s a good time manager or needs significantly less sleep than me.
Meanwhile, creative people are often thought to be more “right brain” oriented while technically minded people tend to rely on their “left brain” functions. I think it takes a balance of both to be a successful artist like Lisa (although the term success is itself subjective). Wikipedia has a good explanation of how the different lobes of the brain function. My daughter gave me a few right brain vs. left brain quizzes last week - and it’s not really surprising that I scored more right brained points than left. It’s no wonder why I need to make lists to stay on top of life! Want to try a few simple tests to see if you’re more right or left brained? Quiz 1, Quiz 2, Quiz 3. Feel free to share your results.
So whether or not I have ADD or my left brain skills are deficient, I hope to be more productive, punctual and conscientious which requires me to unplug a little more frequently. With that said, I’m signing off for the day.
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