Holy Cow.

I've had an iris about ready to bloom for a week.  Last fall, I hurriedly ordered and then planted a bunch of bulbs and rhizomes last and then promptly forgot what any of them were.  And I'm going out of town tomorrow and thought I would miss this guy blooming before I went.

But, at last.  And it was worth the wait.

The inside is just as pretty.  It looks like a stormy sunrise... *sigh.

What if your aesthetic doesn't match the actual work you produce?

So, I'm having sort of a dilemma right now.  It's not keeping me up nights, but it's on my mind a lot.

I have a bunch of time to be creative right now, and I don't want to squander it.  I'm having loads and loads of ideas--so many that I have to jot them down the moment I have them so that I don't lose them in the onslaught of more ideas.  Some of those are gardening ideas.  A bunch are creative nursery ideas (but if I work on those now, will I jinx the process?  If we're totally unprepared will we get a baby really quickly?). But a bunch are also illustrations and book ideas and toys and pillows.

My desk--that I'm trying to keep so so so clean--keeps getting littered with little scraps of paper with ideas on them.  It's great!  And a little overwhelming.

Here's the actual dilemma, though.  My aesthetic is really pared down, the simplest structure and line work as possible--just enough detail that some other person can understand the thing I have made.  My toys have eyes, but never mouths. I like big color fields.  My favorite color is all greys but the lightest versions that slip into pastels.  I hate pastels. I love all things natural as design elements, but also as textures (don't try to sneak polyester or rayon or Splenda or margarine on me.  I can always tell).  I believe that children's toys should appeal to them, but also to the adult that they will become, and I think they should fit into the decor of their family's home--wood blocks, naturally colored dolls.  And everything I make should be enduring.  It's construction and appeal should last.

But sometimes when I sit down to draw, it all gets really complicated or the colors are whacky.  I start with the idea that I am going to follow the things inside of me that define how I judge taste and the objects I allow in my house, and 20 minutes later, I've not followed any of those rules.  What's up with that?

 

These are slices of a series of heads I have created.  What?  I like them, but how do they get me to where I actually want to go? I don't have this problem with the dolls I make.  I buy yarn and fabric in colors that appeal to me.  But something about drawing digitally. . . there are so many options and cool things to play with.

So, help me/us out.  How do you create within the bounds of your aesthetic?  Does it just happen naturally or do you have to make a conscious effort to constrain yourself?  Where do our aesthetics even come from?  And do you think we can live two aesthetics--the aesthetic of what we create and the aesthetic of what we consume?

And maybe most importantly, is it important to have one strong look and feel for your work?  

 

I struggle with that. I love that when I see illustrations by Mercer Mayer that I can always recognize them.  But I also think it's pretty cool that there are Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Oak Park that you would never recognize as his designs if they weren't on the registry.

What if you want to try out loads of different "looks and feels" in your art work?  Is that a lack of commitment? Or is that unfettered creativity?  I don't know.

I'm not sure I can only still be having this conversation with myself. . . Thanks in advance for chiming in!

What's Happening?

I am approaching two months out of my job of 10 years.  Two months of standing outside a career and a regular decent paycheck and the ability to buy a lot of things or expensive dinners.  It's disconcerting and sometimes it makes me feel uneasy or it makes me worry a little about the future and what that will hold for me when I figure things out.  That's the tough stuff, but there's good stuff, too.

I'm no longer afraid or anxious or nervous. When I smile now, I can literally feel how my face lights up and how that smile is a smile inside and out.  I don't use an alarm clock to wake up any more, and oddly enough, I wake up earlier and want to get out of bed and start the day. I catch myself singing and or dancing while cooking or gardening or cleaning.  I think about things really deeply and fully.  I see details of the world around me that I haven't bothered to notice (a completely shiny silver church steeple in Oak Park.  I looked it up thinking that the shiny-ness was new.  Nope.  I was just so bound up I didn't notice giant 20 feet tall shiny things in a sky that I see weekly). I feel peaceful inside.  I am truly best friends with my dog for maybe the first time in his life.  Dan has a good wife in me now and that makes me infinitely happy and content.

Also, and we'll see if this lasts, I don't really want to buy things. Maybe that's liking kicking coffee or sugar? You just have to go cold turkey, get over the withdrawal, and then you look around and wonder how you accumulated all of the stuff you already have.  And instead of wanting to buy things, suddenly you want to streamline and get rid of things and whittle your life down to just the best bare essentials, making room for thinking and loving and people instead of junk. . .

My friend Slava, who has recently moved her entire life from Chicago to Long Island really abruptly for a new job, has put all of her stuff in storage in Brooklyn and is in temporary digs in Long Island essentially living out of three suitcases.  We talked about this recently, her so far away on the phone in this new life, me in a much different life than when we hugged goodbye in February.  And at some point our conversation turned to the things we owned and why.  She has discovered that all she really needs is the stuff in her three bags and that she's already starting--in just three months--to forget what's in her storage unit.  She and I both were marveling at the surprising sense of freedom that comes from not being burdened by so many things.

We'll see if this feeling lasts.  But I like it.

Also, this morning, I watched this great short documentary about fashion and consumption and whether our level of consumption of clothing is sustainable (spoiler: it's totally not) and then following a few designers around who are trying to investigate ways to make fashion better/more energy efficient/more sustainable and it's fascinating:


I think I aspire to buying fewer things that are of higher quality that will last and last and last, and this documentary definitely is inspirational in that regard.

Upcoming Project

On a family walk today, this beauty caught our eye:

So we drove back once we got home and picked it up.  We have all of the drawers and there are little shelves inside the cabinets.  It's a big piece.  Seems like it's the top of a hutch, but when I get through with it, it will be nursery furniture.  It's big enough to hold all the kid's stuff for a few years.  Super exciting.

When it's made over, pictures will be shared.  Promise.

Checking in

I mean to be posting more, but I have to be honest, I'm spending so much time enjoying my life more that it hasn't been a priority.  I have been writing letters to friends and family.  I have been taking my dog for walks.  I eat lunch with my husband every day (often lunches I have master-chef-ed out of food from the pantry).  I knit and sew and clean and cook.  I draw.  Oh I draw and draw and draw and draw.

I'm also doing some temporary contract work--such a gift.  It doesn't take loads and loads of brain power, but I can do the work at home on my schedule and it's the kind of work I could keep doing once there's a wee person in the house.  Extra cash to make money feel not quite so tight on one salary.  Thank you, Jess, for thinking of me for this.  It was the last piece of the puzzle that makes all of this feel better than okay.

And now there's a word that I've decided I'm going to try to get out of my vocabulary: should.  It's this word that I think I use in a guilty way, as in I am enjoying doing X, but I really should be doing Y.  Or I am making this big life decision because it's what I should do.  But the second I say "should," I know that there's a better voice inside of me that's saying, "don't do it!"  "Should" literally is the word my brain uses to say, "now I have to give up something I like to do for something I truly don't want to do." Why do I do this to myself?

So here are some pictures of my past week:

office clean up.  threw out several bags of garbage.  I'm a pack rat.

but now my office is clean and lovely.  Still.  A week and half later.

Our dog L.P. is sending emails to my niece and nephew. If they get mail, they get to read it out loud in front of their preschool class.  Now that I know that, those kids are getting some mail.

Sometimes, just riding the train with friends is fun. . . 

but it's also nice when there is a baseball game at the end of the ride.

The garden is starting to take care of itself.  Less planting this year.  All the hard work has paid off!

Columbia College Chicago's end of the year arts celebration: Manifest!  A giant art party--who cares if it rained, the art was still brilliant.

These are the kinds of things I should be doing, so I am.  It helps that Dan supports this brief period of discovery and starting over.  I may never be able to repay him for this, but I will love him deeply and  long.