Tag: creativity

The Last Day of the Year

2023 has been a strange year for me. In many ways it has been productive in creativity as I have seen advances in skills I have been focused on. In other ways it has been limiting, too, when focus is more in one area than another. I am the kind of person who is interested in too many things but who does not seem to excel at any one thing in particular. That can get pretty frustrating.

And then there was The Fall. Breaking my left arm was pretty traumatic in a lot of ways. The esposo is still trying to recover from it because the vacation we had looked forward to, one of relaxing and traveling and visiting new places and seeing old friends, turned into several weeks of taking care of me and schlepping me here and there. His time off never really happened, so there is the mental and emotional repression that ultimately does no one any good. He has taken the next few weeks off, and I hope that will help ease things and take off pressures which are there. At least I can get here and there on my own, although we both fear another fall. I have broken 3 bones in the last 5 years because of falls.

As far as myself, I am really bored with my ongoing fear of falling, and the self-assignment for the next several weeks is to watch YouTube videos about balance and strengthening muscles, taking a “How to Walk” class if possible, and moving into forcing myself to do things that frighten me. I have a dislike of being out of shape and incapable of independence so hopefully this will motivate me into a more active approach to these things. For the first time in my life I have felt old, and normally I am emotionally and intellectually about 12 . . .

Creativity, too, needs some sort of order! I keep saying “schedule yourself” - and by this I mean making deliberate choices for time to do all the different things which interest me. Let’s see what happens! I want to do more photography, travel, sewing, knitting, gardening, and of course drawing, painting, learning. My own personality is set toward doing the daily chores and drudgery before having fun, and that is okay as it weighs me down if I know a pile of something needs to be done. 

For example, since August, I have not really addressed paperwork as I usually do, and that is because my daily life was filled with exercises, occupational therapy appointments, dental appointment, doctor appointments, and home health care appointments. Yesterday, I pulled out all the things I needed to sort through. I sorted them and shredded until the 20+ year old shredder up and died. (New one arrives today.) I logged expenses and so on. Fortunately, it wasn’t a horrible process as I have kept up with the daily stuff quite well, but the paper stuff needed sorting and discarding. It feels good to have that done before 2024 shows up! And I have a bog full of papers still needing shredding, so I can practice on the new shredder, and see if it works. What fun!

And so, it is New Year’s Eve. We will be going to the Descanso Gardens to enjoy the Enchanted Forest of Light. We did it a few years ago, and I thought it a lovely way to end a year. I hope that 2024 is not as rough, and realistically, while tough in many ways for my immediate circle, it is far easier and pleasant than it has been for many. I hope that changes, but sadly, I do not think it will.

Thoughts on Photographic Creativity

The day after we came back from our jaunt to Monterey I spent editing negatives I had processed while I was there. I scanned them and imported them into Lightroom. The film was Lomography’s Metropolis in 35mm, and I found it interesting to use, rather enjoying the colors it produces. Chances are I will order some more. For the most part, I did little editing in post as I liked what i saw, but a few had weird schmutz on them, probably bubbles that got trapped as the film was developed. Spot removal!

The process of editing images makes me look at them more closely. I worked hard to make some good pictures, and overall I was pleased with the roll. After a day of gardening and cleaning and just organizing life after the chaos of 4 days away, I sat down and just blobbed by watching various YouTube videos. They all seemed to be ones on photography. They included Ted Forbes’ channel and his “assignment” of a month using one lens length. I also watched Frederik Trovatten’s “Shoot Like . . .” series on Vivan Maier, Robert Frank, and Joel Meyerowitz. Totally by accident I came across a video about the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi.

Up front, I have never really “gotten” photography as an artform for myself. Watching Ishiuchi, I did. She explained her first three series and it made me think about photography as a theme to express emotions by focusing on one thing. That is about as easy a way to explain it. Watching Forbes’ video on one lens length helped me focus (sorry for the pun! Not!) on emotion – which one? – and one lens. Narrowing things down here. Trovatten’s vidoes provided interesting insights on how or why or what various photographers do and did.

Creativity is something that is difficult to find at times – that is, being creative and producing an artwork that is satisfying to me on many levels. These include emotional, intellectual, and proficiency of whatever medium I am using. In general, I can take a decent photo, but I have never been what I would consider to be a creative photographer. I don’t set up still lives or seek out a theme to explore. I like the technical things, such as exposure factors and what I want to see in an image, but I don’t “do” a series of anything. I love landscapes, but the heat limits my wanderings. The pandemic curtails too much travel or traveling with a chauffeur to do a safari.

Yesterday’s video watching pulled a lot of things together for me in the area of making photos. Theme, single lens length, mastery. While I plan to continue to try my daily painting, I am also going to begin a month-long study of image making with a single lens length. The lens will be a 35mm. The Fuji X100V is a fixed lens length at 23mm and a 1.5 crop factor, equating 35mm. I have a 35mm series E lens for my Nikon film cameras. It will also work on my Nikon Df full frame. There is a lot of choice here with what I have. The theme that catches me the most is one that has intrigued me the most over the past several months: my neighborhood at night.

I live in the suburbs. It is a nice neighborhood with nice people, curving streets, greenery, a park with a creek. Nearby is a college. A small strip mall is within walking distance.  I consider all these to be within the parameters of My Neighborhood.

I went out last night with this thought in mind, using the X100V, iso set at its highest and the rest on automatic. Everything was done handheld. I will need a tripod. I will need to use flash at times. This will be a great way to dig into the menus of the X00V as well as learn how to use it on a deeper level. And I will need to dig out a tripod and a shutter release cable. These same things will need to be applied to my film cameras and other digital critters.

So begins The Neighborhood at Night.

A New Job

With the official retirement date of April Fool’s Day, I have been rethinking a lot of what I do and want to do.  Being retired is really like taking on a new job.  You have to figure out what is important, what is not important, and instead of someone directing your daily traffic, you are the one who has to make the decisions.  Of course, the daily chores of living set up a schedule in a way, but what if you just decide not to pay attention to them?  I think – I know – my life would totally fall apart!  I like my dishes and laundry done, bills paid, and a clean and ordered living environment – especially my studio – but I also want to have the room to be messy and creative.  That is really my new job:  what to do with my free time.

And what do I want to do?  I am finding my priority is painting and drawing.  These are my longest and deepest loves, ever since I can remember.  Philosophical battles wasted a lot of my time; rather than just doing things, I thought about their values.  These values were really external ones – who will value what I do?  In the end, it really doesn’t matter because I am not painting or drawing for an audience other than me.  That said, I also want to schedule – yes, schedule! – time for reading, writing, photography, socializing, sewing, spinning, knitting, baking, gardening, some travel.  Everyone says my time will be really easy to fill.  I had my doubts, but no more.

Having a return-to-work date from medical leave prior to the retirement decision kept these thoughts at bay.  Now, the world is wide open.  Enjoying retirement is my new job, one to cherish.  It’s like being a kid again, really!  The summer – however long it is now – without school – lies ahead.

Disappointment & Enlightenment

Disappointment:  The meetup experience did not go well.

Being interrupted and being told “you are wrong,” in no uncertain terms by an old geezer, and then being attacked by the group leader for telling the geezer to let me finish talking and stop interrupting, is wrong.

Further in the session, the geezer told someone “those are the rules” without clarification.  What rules?  How to put a sentence together?  What do you mean?  Explain, please.

My initial impression of the moderator was not impressive – he felt needy and off-balance somehow.

Facing the geezer, my first thought was here is a man used to being in power and control, who feels it is okay to interrupt others.

Rudeness and ego-centrism do not have a place in a group such as this.  Other groups I have been in have not had these elements from either members or the moderator.

I am sad, too, as I had looked forward to becoming part of a community of writers.  The other members of the group were good, and there was some talented writing.

Enlightenment:  While disappointed by this experience, it also served to make very clear to me something which had been rumbling around in my head for some time:  Scheduling things to do on my days off does not always work in my favor.

Each time I schedule something that needs some work – such as a writing meetup – it means a lot of focus on that event.  If it becomes something that takes up a lot of time and energy without reward, ultimately I am exhausted.  As an introvert, quiet time with self-reflection and thought is a necessity for self-renewal.

Scheduling time with people I value, doing things I enjoy, is a completely different thing.  I come away refreshed and joyful.

I knew this before the meetup.  I know this now even better than before.  My choices are very clear.

 

The Happiness Factor

Over the past several days I have returned to journaling.  (Of course, I am using my new pen!)  Instead of crying about my problems, wah-wah-wah, I decided to approach it differently.  I decided to write about my more intellectual and artistic ideas and pursuits, to set out plans for creativity, and to take action.  In and of itself, writing is a creative process that brings a level of satisfaction and contentment that just existing does not.

The “happiness factor” is a key element to life.  Being dissatisfied is a great motivator, but I think the “pursuit of happiness” is better.  Thus, analyzing what produces happiness for me has really been helpful.  My free time – time when I can actually think and do things – is not 7 days a week.  Because I have very long workdays, I can merely function half the week.  This means doing the things life requires, like working, and then coming home, eating dinner, going to bed and getting up to do it all over again.  However, there is a small window of time in the morning, and a small window after work, and using these productively does produce a sense of happiness.  What activities does this entail?

In the morning, I enjoy reading the news and looking through blogs as I drink my morning coffee.  Most mornings I spend writing for about 15 minutes, not whining, but thinking.  Sometimes I edit photos.  In the evening, I am lucky as dinner is on the table.  Some news, some reading, some socializing, some TV – whatever.

The “doing” is helpful.  Creativity.  Writing.  Thinking.  Planning.  I looked back over the past 5 days and analyzed my feelings, my sense of happiness, my sense of satisfaction, and by doing all these things, I realized I have felt happier over the last 5 days than I have for some time.  I have given purpose and meaning, conscientiously, to a rather tight existence.  Saturday, too, I have plans:  a first-time with a local meetup writing group.

Too many times we simply flutter day to day.  I do not want to live like that.  Mortality is for real, and I want to enjoy the time left on my road before it is gone.