Sunday Ramblings

I had visitors this morning, a family of turkeys strolled through my backyard, feeding and strutting, and the tom showing off his tail feathers. Unlike the wild turkeys I knew back in Wisconsin, this group looked right off the pages of a story about Thanksgiving Day. I was struck by the brilliance of the red on their heads and necks.

I'm ditching my art journaling again, just have no desire to do it, or much else actually. I know what this is. I often do this when a deadline looms, try to find anything to keep me from working on what I need to work on. Normally, the art journaling would fall under that "finding anything" category but not today. I made quite a bit of progress on sizing and arranging squares and rectangles on Reverberations yesterday, fusing strips of Steam-a-Seam lite along the edges before trimming. But frankly, it was like pulling teeth to keep moving on it. I like coming up with ideas. I often don't like making decisions along the way. I quit yesterday at a point where I wondered if a rectangle might look better vertical instead of horizontal. Well, they always say to quit with something up in the air so you know right where to start the next day. But I couldn't get myself in there today. Frankly, I'm feeling a little lackluster, no energy, not sure why. I decided not to push it and have spent the afternoon reading a book and catching up on my Newspaper Blackout Obits practice. It was tempting just to lie down and sleep the afternoon away.

Panida Theater - Illustration by Bill Klein

So I may not have worked on a new Positively Creative Journal page, but I sort of gave myself another hour for whatever on Friday, treating myself to a movie out. Yes, more than an hour but I don't think the point was to limit the time as much as to make sure time was carved out. I usually reserve paying to see a movie on the big screen for those that seem to deserve being seen that way - like Star Trek. A movie like Philomena I would normally wait to see once it makes it to television, watched from the private comfort of my couch with my own freshly made popcorn. However, when I saw it advertised on the marque of our old downtown theater, The Panida, I felt an unfamiliar pull to go see it there. That venue is so different from watching a movie in a modern cineplex. The airing is part of The Global Cinema Cafe series, you don't have to sit through umpteen trailers of upcoming features and the sound is set at a volume that doesn't blast you out of the room. Sometimes it's nice to watch a good movie on the big screen in a darkened theater, to spend a couple of uninterrupted hours immersed in someone else's story. And yes, I bought a big bag of popcorn even though I knew it wouldn't be as good as my own.

Time to make my own line drawings

As I walked back to my car afterwards, I slowed down to take a look at some of the details of the historic buildings along the way. I think it was the light in an upper story of an otherwise dark building that initially caught my eye. I've walked this route dozens of times but somehow the interesting architectural features stood out more illuminated only by dim streetlights than when washed in daylight. I've never been compelled to sketch any of these buildings before, but I found now an urge to do so. I plan to go back with one of my new sketchbooks and give it a go. Perhaps I'll find I need to go back after dark. Perhaps it will be my next hour for whatever.

I've been so focused on this new piece and the timeline to finish it in that I'd forgotten to do a wrap up of March and scope out possible to do's for April. While I was trying to settle down to work yesterday, I made a stab at listing some goals for the month, what to do once the ArtWalk application is submitted, but found my mind fairly blank about what I want to work on after Reverberations. In reviewing the March list, I found I didn't do too badly, but again, there were several things I could just bring forward into April. But I must admit to feeling a real disconnect between what was going down on the page and the blankness in my head, kind of like the Peanuts character that only hears indistinguishable sounds coming out of the adults - wah wah wah. Again, I think it's this self-imposed deadline that is throwing me off, keeping me from seeing past it. If anything, my thoughts are wandering off to non-quilting diversions, another sign that I don't want to face the decisions in the studio.

Well, Sunday's are traditionally a day of rest. I've rested and rambled and perhaps tomorrow I will be back on track.