Ditching the Plan, More Odds & Ends

So much for the big dig-out, I mean, tidying up last week. I did quite a bit throughout the house the first day: tossing a lot of over-the-counter medicines not used anymore with embarrassingly long beyond their expiration dates, clearing a few stacks off the downstairs table, shredding lots of documents and junk mail I let accumulate for months, and last but not least, making a stab at the studio by putting away some rulers, tape and cutting implements. I could not face refolding the quilts to return to their bin, getting hung up on the idea that I should leave one or two out to put up somewhere but which ones? But it was a start (and yesterday all that clutter in that end of the studio is now back in the closet where it belongs).

I failed to continue with the tidying up because I got sidetracked by a too good to pass up coupon deal on blog2print.com. I have this thing about my presence on the internet (supposedly forever but more ephemeral in nature than most will admit) and don't think the chances are good that those who sift through my physical things when I'm gone will think to look for me there. Give me a good old fashioned book on the shelf to assure my longevity, or so I think. Plus I find paging through a book to find something is often faster than trying to track it down on the computer. And because of my penchant for doing things chronologically, once I decided to take advantage of this service that will easily (if not a little expensively) print out my blog, I of course had to start at the beginning - 2005 (with only a few months) and 2006 combined in one book. It took some time to edit out unnecessary posts and comments to get it to a size that, even with a coupon, wouldn't leave me feeling too guilty about the expense (talk about a vanity press!), but the results were all I'd hoped for.

I've let a lot of "deals" pass me by since that first book, but this time it was a particularly high discount and I had some money from a quilt sale I could use towards it. So I spent the rest of the week scrolling through my 2007 and 2008 posts and editing them down for two somewhat affordable books. So much interesting stuff in those two years, if I do say so myself. I'd totally forgotten that I'd played along with a tag that asked questions about my creative beginnings and leanings, the answers not unlike the information in my recent artist talk. If I had remembered, I could have saved myself some time in preparing that talk perhaps, because the answers have not change in ten years. You can check it out for yourself in the post "An Unexpected Distraction." 

And if you have time on your hands, look through the 2008 posts which struck me as particularly full of meaty and interesting things. Snow and lots of it, quotations sometimes elaborated upon or generating thoughtful comments (from readers I no longer hear from and wonder what became of them), taking up of challenges and lots of experimentation leading to successful quilts, my first exhibit with POAC, a train trip to Minnesota for a quilting retreat, beautiful blooms, vistas and wildlife . . . it was a jam packed year with lots accomplished and lots of musings about this artistic life I'd stepped into. I'm glad I took the time to go through it, noting what has changed and what remains the same, and glad it is coming to me soon in book form.

Computers need tidying up too, and there's been some of that which includes actually reading some of the things saved for later. In more catching up on the blogs I follow, I found a couple more posts I'd saved to share with you. I hope you're not tired of Austin Kleon yet as they are from him, things to muse on that struck a chord with me, and might with you too:

Christmas gift from a friend

"How to hide and still be found" acknowledges that artists need their alone time in order to make something worth being found, yet also need to stay connected with their audiences and the world at large. Or as D.W. Winnicott put it:

“It is a joy to be hidden… but disaster not to be found.”

"You receive what you're ready to receive" draws from Henry Thoreau's journal a musing we've all probably experienced, how you may be exposed to something numerous times but don't take it in if it is not currently of interest to you. But once something does get in your sights, it shows up everywhere and you are eager to pursue those leads to broaden your knowledge. This was even evident as I paged through those old blog posts. As Thoreau himself says:

"The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe. By and by we may be ready to receive what we cannot receive now."

Hope your New Year is getting off to a good start, you figuring out how to hide in a way to still be found, and ready to receive some new thing that will push your creative endeavors forward.