…when your craft is 85% done and now you have the supplies to finish it, but you don’t remember where you put the original project.
::headdesk::
Aug15
Category Archives: whines
Jun10
Funkytown
Maybe I can say something insightful about art funk today. I’m not altogether sure it won’t wind up in full grousing mode like I did last night, though. (See post that I locked down. Except you can’t. You’re welcome.)
What is it about human nature that there are times you know that doing something — like making things, or taking a walk, or making something fresh and homemade to eat — will make you feel better, but you don’t? Or not doing something — like eating that second giant bowl of ice cream, getting into a Twitter pissing match, or reading comments on any news story pretty much anywhere on the internet — but you do?
Me either.
I really need and want to engage more fully with art projects throughout the week rather than half-ass them at the end — which I’m not doing all the time, mind you, but I have been putting off the multi-day projects and new skills to some degree and doing something quick or finishing up a project I’ve been inching along with. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d love to get engaged in something I can’t wait to come home to every night — and then have the energy to do something with it when I do get home.
Work is long hours plus a long commute these days, and lately it has been feeling thankless. It’s hard to hold onto the creative spark under those conditions, when all I want to do is eat dinner and zone out, and on weekends I also feel I should be cleaning All The Things or I have social plans.
I don’t know if this post is insightful or not. Not especially, that’s my suspicion. And not funny or entertaining either, which is worse.
But there you go.
I do have a project in mind, so I’ll be back later.
Jun3
I am in a funk and I cannot find my Velcro[TM]
Tis totally beyond me why I should have a massive case of the blues today, but I do. Perhaps because I pinned a bunch of hopes on having lots of things done this weekend, and next to none of them were done (note the impressive use of passive tense in that last phrase). I need a day or two where I can get a massive running start on doing things I don’t necessarily want to do. If there’s somewhere I need to be in the middle of the day, it pretty much ensures I won’t get anything done before, and I’m not so likely to do so after, either. (Note lack of agency implied by phrasing here, too.)
Yesterday I did some volunteering that completely sucked dry any social energy I had. I’ve long thought of myself as shy, but as I’ve gotten older I think it’s more that I have a finite amount of social energy. In small groups or one-on-one, I can go for quite some time, but big parties where I don’t know many people deplete that energy faster, and going from one thing to another can mean I don’t get the recharge I need. So last weekend I was at Wiscon, where I did tons of socializing (though not as much as in previous years, as the art show prep kinda wore me out), and then I slammed right into the work week, then Saturday I made phone calls for a get-out-the-vote drive. This is completely outside my comfort zone. Three hours of that was enough to send me home to bed at 4 pm instead of to the party I’d been planning to hit. I told the campaign volunteers it wasn’t in my comfort zone, and they were awesome to coddle me and ply me with sweets and say I was doing great. Still, I think I’d rather have a root canal.
It’s interesting, considering Friday I did another volunteering gig, my Meals on Wheels run for the season (we have enough volunteers I don’t get to do more than 1 or 2 runs per season). I was having a morning that, to say the least, lacked in awesomeness, but I was looking forward to the meal deliveries. There you’re knocking on doors, but people are so glad to see you and the smiles you get are so genuine. It makes me happy that I am contributing to older people being able to live on their own, and to know someone checks on them every day (or nearly so). I don’t know if it gave me energy, but it gave me a mood lift, which I needed.
This doesn’t have much to do with creativity, except why I’m just thinking about getting started on something crafty. And I have no idea where my Velcro[TM] is. There was going to be a massive amount of clearing off spaces and organizing and decluttering, but I’ve been spending time with my funk and my laptop most of the day. I did go to a graduation party for an hour or so this morning, and did see the friends who tend to energize me, but I came back to sporadic fits of dishwasher loading, bill paying and piddling away the afternoon online.
I do have a project that’s a hair away from being finished, so I’ll get to it as soon as the cat gets off my arms. Just needed to talk about this energy stuff.
Apr29
Look! I made a mopey post!
Your danger-facing crafter is Miss Crabbypants today. I did some work on a DIY project, but some aspects of it look kind of crappy, and I don’t think it’s going to suit the purpose I meant it for as well as I’d hoped. I’m not ready to call it complete, though, so pictures will come later.
I had way too high hopes for this weekend, and all I’d get done, and just blah. And the realization that the project was going to be a disappointment came right at the time when it was too late to make it to the movie I’d decided to skip so I could get stuff done. I will regroup, though, and it will be okay. The project will work in some respect, just not the one I was counting on.
So now I’m trying to figure out how to step up with an actual project for this week. I’m in the midst of a couple of sewing projects, but I don’t want to toil away over either of them like I’m in a sweatshop to get them completely finished. I would much rather spend the bulk of the evening watching the S5 Doctor Who disks I got before vacation. So…something that’s hella fast, or something I started work on a while ago and isn’t too far from finished….
Oh, and I forgot to make note of another reason I’m crabby. I spent about half the day being a grown-up, doing the checkbook and budget thing and writing checks for a TON of bills, and then taking a carload of stuff to the indoor flea market and redoing my space. (Okay, the flea market part is fairly fun, but I would have picked a different day for it, but I can only go on weekends.)
Must make a decision and get going.
I am glad I didn’t go to the movie, because now it is raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. (TM my dad)
Apr22
ALL UR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
So sunny and beautiful outside, that I just want to go out onto the deck and sit with my glass of iced coffee and read or do some embroidery or something. But it’s 48 degrees out there. That’s the cognitive dissonance that comes from having an early April vacation in Austin, Texas. All but 2 days of my vacation I sat out on the deck at the apartment I rented for two or three hours, reading or writing posts. Another day I went out to breakfast at Kerbey Lane and sat out on their deck, where I ended up in a conversation with multiple people and stayed quite a while there, too.
Austin was fabulous, full of inspiration and wonderful people to converse with, terrific food and entrepreneurship. So much creativity in so many ways. I should have taken a lot more photos than I did.
Came back to a week that was a bit disheartening, and with a place I needed to be every evening except Monday, so there wasn’t much chance to recharge. Yesterday was the day I planned to plunge back into creativity, and I just couldn’t get things going. And what’s the best thing to do when you’re already beating yourself up about not attending to creative work? Oh, getting into a Twitter argument with someone whose idea of political point-making is “Moron! Ha! Pwned you!” Not that I was stupid enough to try actual substance myself; I just kept pointing out, “That is not remotely pwnage.”
Why do we waste energy on such idiocy when we know that it’s idiocy? Am I the only creative person who pisses away valuable project time this way? Why?
I do have a project. I finished a piece I started a while back, and that gave me some energy to do prep work on art show stuff. I’m not done with that, but stopped to have a snack, and need to get back to it.
Oh, and I bought a Craftsy class on layering and slashing fabrics, as I got a half-price offer. Though the first lesson keeps talking about my fabric stash, which I don’t have much of. I did get some actual garments at thrift shops in Austin that I plan to use for the fabric.
Okay, on to the work of the day. Check this space out later; I will be posting my project.
Dangerous Crafts for Girls 