Blitherings – Page 139 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Junking the Junk

How many of us really do clean up and clean out after the holiday season? I know I never have because I’m lazy and really do not have the time. To declutter means I have to have the time to do it. When I was a kid, my mother made us clean our rooms by throwing everything into the middle of the floor, dumping drawers out, and so on. It was pretty traumatic and valuable (to me) things would get broken. The sound of a vacuum cleaner forewarned that hell was ready to break loose. So, for me, getting rid of things takes a long, long time because that is what cleaning up meant: throw it all in the middle of the room and spend 20 hours doing the task. I’ve done that for years.

2016 has been different. For a variety of reasons, the DH and I have been cleaning up and cleaning out. In the past two months we have rearranged the garage for better usage, and to consolidate stuff so it can be more easily accessed and sorted out by subject matter (yarn, books, toys, tools, etc.), so that future decluttering tasks are easier to do. We also managed to install new mirrors in the bathroom, clean out the cookbook shelf, empty the bathroom vanity drawers, throw away all the stuff lurking under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. DH has cleaned up his office and I have cleaned up the studio and bedroom closet. The picture above is not what we took to the Goodwill drop-off corner, but yesterday, just from the closet, I brought over bags of purses, shoes, clothes, material, and other goodies. The bags were the 15-gallon trash can variety. Now the closet looks like a closet! I can find my clothes, my shoes, my sewing machine(s). Wow!

I get holding on to things. Some things are too costly to replace, such as paints or spinning wheels or chain saws. Hobby items are tools that can take up space and may not be used all the time, but are necessary when needed. However – HOWEVER! – too much is just too much. Freeing up space means there is actual space – physical, mental, and emotional – for new things (hopefully not physical unless they are the product of one’s productivity). Organizing makes life cleaner and easier. We still have a long, long way to go, though.

So, with that thought in mind, I leave you with a link to a jolly good cartoon: http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20188

New Year, New Focus

I’ve done watercolor off and on since I was a teenager, back before the dinosaurs disappeared, but I have never made it a resolution to spend time – a lot of time – mastering it. Rather, the approach I have had has been sporadic and amateurish. Now, I want to be the “serious student” I never was . . . and while I think I am off to a good start, the real question which lies ahead is how well will I integrate painting into my work life? I’ve managed to integrate both sumi-e and photography into my life, but I began both of those long before I ended up working 10-hour days.

There are a lot of good books about “how to” watercolor, and I have looked through and purchased a number of them. As well, there are a number of good YouTube channels with talented artists, with whom you get to cruise along with as they produce a painting. For me, this visual is what gets me all the time. While books show you step-by-step photos, some in color, some in black and white, there is absolutely nothing like the video of beginning-to-end, with commentary as the painting develops.

I still plan on pursuing photography – in fact, I have a 365 project planned, with different subjects on a monthly basis. While I am shifting my focus away from photography as my primary creative outlet, I really want to master watercolor and drawing, and to do so, I need to spend more time doing it rather than thinking about doing it.

So, Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you have new intentions to keep you happy and creative in your life!

Perspective in Retrospect

I have no head for heights, and just watching this video has made me jump a number of times! Despite that, I have always loved this picture because of the simple fact I could never even think of something as working up so high. There is something so awesome about these men . . . and the photographers as well.

Home Improvement

Home improvement . . . for me, a clean and tidy home is wonderful. I like to see clear surfaces, free of dust. Floors free of dog fur are also nice. I don’t like lots of clutter. My small shelf of framed photos makes me nuts – much as I love those people – I hate dusting them. Nature abhors a vacuum, and I abhor a vacuum cleaner. Housework is great, when it’s finished. Not when doing it, but when it is done. I really hate cleaning, but I hate a cluttered mind more. And a messy house means a messy mind.

Okay, that said, I would say that 80% of the studio has been cleaned up. Lots and lots has been thrown away. My paints are accessible, as are my books. Paper has been reorganized, from watercolor tablets to sketch books to lined and grid paper tablets. Brushes are sorted out and been acquainted with again. Like meeting an old friend, one you really, really like, and one you appreciate, too. I spent about 8 hours doing it all, and finally ran out of space in the trash bins. (Luckily our neighbors let us use theirs when we need to!)

This afternoon, I shall do some reading and some color studies or sketching. I just hope that I will be able to continue this once I return to work as that will be the real challenge.

Looking Ahead to 2017

As I write, I am sitting down to lunch, looking at the total destruction and reconstruction of my studio. Unlike those more fortunate, my studio is really a bedroom in the house that doesn’t even have a closet. As a result, all storage is on shelves with plastic bins, all in the hope of keeping the dust to a minimum. In addition to having shelves of cameras and lenses and other photography equipment in the studio, I also have my sewing supplies, a desk, a drafting table, two filing cabinets, two chairs, a computer, a printer, a scanner, and a couple of monitors. The destruction of the studio is the cleaning out and throwing out of things, as well as reorganizing it to accommodate painting more readily. Things are being moved around to make access to certain items more comfortable.

When I think about my focus on photography over the past several years, I am so glad I feel that I have mastered it to a degree that makes it comfortable, and gives a certain level of satisfaction. Both digital and analog are areas where I feel a level of proficiency – I can take good pictures. I know my cameras, I know my film, and can determine an exposure for a manual technique by looking at the light. This is something that once learned is never lost – the knowledge may get a bit rusty without doing it, but it always comes back once being used again.

Photography, though, is not my first love in the visual arts. Painting is always where I want to come home to roost. The feel of a brush or pencil, the colors of paint or gradations of ink, the physical experience of painting and drawing: all these combine for an experience that photography has never had. I am not interested in painting realistic images – that’s what photography is for – but in the emotional expression or abstraction of whatever that painting provides. Besides painting, I love woodblock printing, and sumi-e. There is a sensual quality to working in these areas that, if I had a darkroom, I might find as satisfying.

With this focus on painting – mostly in watercolor, possibly in acrylic – I will need to revisit the skills I’ve lost over the past several years. Because I tend to be rather fixated on painting in certain ways, I also hope that my sense of exploration and adventure will get piqued. It’s easy to become formulaic in art, I think, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of focus. Rather, being formulaic means a level of success in given techniques, but it may not open the door to that magical realm of creativity that leads to new insights and processes. This is where I want to go. I want to study botanical illustration because I am too splashy and undisciplined, but I also want to explore different ways of using colors, papers, paints, and pencils. The process, ultimately, is the most important experience to me. Whether or not I become an artistic celebrity is immaterial; it is the doing and being the art itself.