Tag: creativity

The Creative Process on Tuesday

Tuesdays are my off-from-work day.  I love them because most people (including my husband) are at work and I get to slack off all by myself.  So I putz around the house, clean a bit, read a bit, and then make it to the pottery studio for a few hours.  Then home again, where I eat a decently cooked meal for once. Perhaps I read some more or … whatever.  It it my day of no-plan.  Next I’m likely to fuss at my small garden and do other creative projects which are at hand.  Today, it is framing a beautiful picture of Ganesha and writing this blog entry.  Somehow the solitude and time to wander around the neighborhood or just wander through my small home is highly conducive to creativity.  The gentle act of moving and observing everything outside, or wandering inside and randomly picking up a poetry book, or pulling out construction paper and scissors generates spontaneous ideas.  Years ago, a friend told me that even if I didn’t have time to execute all my ideas, I could write them down and maybe get back to them later.  It was excellent advice.  Not only does it stop me from despairing that I will never get to any of my ideas, but it empties my head so that I can concentrate on the one idea I wish to act on now.  Which happens to be…writing this blog.  Right now.  In short, what I need most to be creative is lots of time.  It is not necessarily time directly related to creating.  There must be some time to let the ideas naturally germinate and grow, away from the pressure to be or do something.  It is time to absorb other people’s ideas, which naturally leads to my own creative process.  Some ideas of projects for today (only one or two of which I will get to) are:

finish sewing alterations of clothing

executing several pottery designs that I’ve been mulling over since Sunday, when I went to the Walters Museum’s Japanese pottery show

some sketching ideas I’ve been thinking about, such as another self portrait (haven’t done one in a while) or I might just sketch the cat

I’ve also been thinking about doing some really large painting projects to just play with large brush strokes

cutting out  colored construction paper to tape onto the front door as a precursor to painting an abstract design on it

starting another short story from the several ideas written in my notebook

trying to sound out one of the Child Ballads I’ve recently heard on the guitar

Ahh, or I could just stare out the window at the crab apple tree blossoms that are just opening, turning from bright pink buds to 5-petaled white flowers.  Or I could paint them….

Tuesdays are really good.

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(stoneware plate created in 2013 and painted last Tuesday)

painting, sketching and the muse

IMG_2222Thus far I’ve talked about the variety of creativity.  I was first opened to creative thought by drawing and dancing as a kid.  I remember climbing my favorite tree, a crab apple tree in the front yard, and discovering perspective by sketching the house across the suburban street.  As I grew through adolescence and young adulthood, I kept journals that contained everything I was thinking in words and drawings, prose and poetry.  I still keep these journals, although now they don’t have as much in them since I often write prose on the computer.  Poetry, which comes to me at random times, is still in the journals and also on all sorts of random scraps of paper.  The muse is chaos and does not come only when bidden.

And after a long hiatus, I am finally drawing and painting again.  It feels like the world has gotten bigger and beauty is everywhere. My favorite prayer is a Navaho one:

I see beauty in front of me.

I see beauty behind me.

I see beauty to the right of me.

I see beauty to the left of me.

I see beauty above me.

I see beauty below me.

In that spirit, I hope you will enjoy these samples of my art.

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Painted at Sparrow’s Point in Baltimore.

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A sketch done of my son when we were on vacation at the beach in Rehobeth, Delaware.

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This watercolor is of a wetlands near Kennedy airport in New York City. I attached it to re-bar that I found while wandering in the city.  At the time, I didn’t know what it was but it looked like the perfect frame for a small painting.

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One of my earliest oil paintings was done on wood I found.  I love painting on wood and it is easy to find scraps that are being thrown out from construction sites.

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A favorite corner of my home with two small paintings.  The larger painting is of my sister Kim, sitting on a bench at Clark Gardens on Long Island.  The smaller piece is oil on canvas stretched over hanger wire.  The photos are of my mom and great-grandmother.  There is a lovely porcelain cup given to me by Sensei Kiyota.  The figurines are of Shiva and Laksmi.  I picked up Laksmi when I was in India.  My husband coincidentally had Shiva well before we met.  Now they are together.

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Both the above and below paintings were done when I lived and worked in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  It was still a rough neighborhood but was a growing artists’ community at that time.

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Above is my guardian angel.  She was painted after I had a horrific bicycling accident and my foot was run over by the tire of a street sweeper.  My foot looked just like it does in the painting before the doctor stitched it up, although it was (thank goodness) still attached.  After the accident my lawyer, Clay Evall, came to the house.  Clay told me later that when he saw the huge truck tire in my apartment (which I had used to practice bokken), he knew I’d somehow get better.