It's Not the Muse This Time

OK. I admit it. I have not been downstairs to the "clean" studio or outside to the "wet" (read: messy stuff) studio all week. Haven't done a thing. Oh, I have had good intentions. I meant to do some stuff.

But I didn't. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

When I'm not actually working at my unreal job, sometimes I crawl the web (apparently surfing the net is passé) and I look at other people's blogs. Lately, there is something going on about doing art every day. Sounds like fun, no? Evidently, you don't have to do anything big. Just something. Anything. Nice work if you can get it.

Back when I was just a writer - before I decided I was an artiste - I wrote every day. Every day.

I still write (as evidenced here, I think), but I do more visual art work than writing because I can come and go and still do it. I can do something, then walk away. When I come back, it's still there. Sometimes, you have to walk away to let something dry or batch or cure. And, like with writing, sometimes it's necessary to walk away - to distance oneself - to get it right. For me, writing, especially poetry, takes prolonged concentration. And it's hard for me to find that chunk of time.

If I had any large chunks of time, I might be able to communicate with my friends via phone conversations instead of brief emails -- but none of us has extra time -- at least not in big pieces.

So I took yesterday off to go to conferences with two of my kids' teachers. I thought I could sneak in a little creative time before or in between the conferences. Or maybe after. But I made a choice to go work out before the conferences. And after, I had mom-stuff to do. So no art.

My eldest son, age 20, says that blog used to be the ugliest word in the English language, but now vlog is. I disagree. I think the ugliest word is time.