Some time back I was promoting here the idea of CROSS-TRAINING FOR ARTISTS of all sorts: doing some work/play in an art form other than the one that's the main focus of serious ambitions. FOR THREE REASONS:
*It's fun and refreshing to be entirely playful with art.
*It's good practice; that playfulness, which is so productive, will come more easily than otherwise during the "serious work."
*It keeps the engines of creativity, the source of new ideas, well-oiled.
So this is why I have this picture of my personally-hand-beaded leaf here. Or at least it's how I'm justifying showing you this.
My work is words. I fool around, with no standards to meet, with lots of kinds of visual arts and crafts.
Last summer I beaded this roughly 3x4 foot item you see hanging from a tree next to my driveway (we live in a cabin in the woods.) Sewing on this many loose beads allowed me to play with colors and filmy material and gave me lots of time for thoughts to float up. Which they did.
I got the thing ready in time for a party at my house in July. I thought of it as my New Leaf party, though I wasn't really turning over any new leaves at the time. Now I am.
Now this leaf is my New Year's New Leaf: reminding me every time I come and go of my fresh career strategies I learned in the Creative Capital workshop that I've been detailing here for the last month.
And so my New Year's Resolve, which is: value myself (more and in ways that I can feel.) The pieces to put this into practice are:
*increase my income by 20% this year
*spend a minimum of one hour a week organizing my house better, so that everything I use is easily accessible, uncluttered, and pleasant to live with. This hour will, of course, turn into more than one, but if I start with a high requirement I'm likely to put off getting started.
*stop berating myself about anything. Do or don't do--but no wasting energy and time on self-nagging. My plan for doing this is to write down every time I start haranguing myself, and congratulate myself on having caught it. (This tactic came to me at lunch today from the creative mind of my friend and fellow writer Stephanie Bass.)
I will report here how I fare. And I'd like your encouragement.
Happpy New Year and New Resolves to you. I'd love for you to use this space to commit yourself to small definite steps toward what you want most this year.
