A NEW ANEW

With this new year laid before me, I see an open field of possibilities for numerous creative processes and experimentation awaiting exploration. The new year always gifts me with renewal and a freshness that is like a huge blank canvas ready for me to jump in. The excitement and creative juices flow through me rapidly as do the thoughts of contemplation as to where new creative energy will take me and how to best use it.

Yesterday was the first meeting this new year of our trio of art mates. However, we are missing our dear fourth member who passed away from us in November. But her spirit still gathers with us each time we meet. Our topic for discussion was time management and organization. It was one of our most productive meetings thus far. One of the pluses yesterday was having the company of my dear sister, Wendy, who offered some great ideas from her own experiences dealing with time management and getting organized, all of which she says has profoundly changed her life. Her input was very well received, welcomed and of great value. Thank you Wendy. All of us contributed great ideas and set personal goals to work on for the month. We will check in with each other as to how we are progressing.

Below is an excerpt from a great article that I shared with the group, Time Management for Creative People, Manage the mundane - create the extraordinary by Mark McGuinness. My husband emailed it to me with "because I care" in the subject line. He sees where I have areas in my daily life and art life that could use some help-removing obstacles that prevent easy forward motion. My work space can get chaotic after a push towards a show, but to me, that is how I work...no matter how many times I clean and start anew, it always ends up looking disorderly. However, I do know I need to do some purging in all aspects of my life. So back to this snippet from the article...I had to share it as I imagine lots of us creative types may relate as I do, although I do not get up at noon nor do I work in a dressing gown, but as for the chaos, that seems to be my feed.

"I’m not suggesting that all artists and creatives need to be ‘organised’ in a way that would satisfy a corporate boss. You might get up at noon and work at home in your dressing gown, in a pigsty of a living room. You might check into a different hotel room every day and work on the bed. Your creative process and working habits might look like total chaos to an outsider, but if they work for you, that’s all that matters. And there will be some method in the madness – patterns in your daily activities that are vital to your creativity. These are the things you need to do to keep your imagination alive – whether it’s sitting at a desk by 6am, using the same pen, notebook or make of computer, hitch-hiking across America, putting rotten apples in your desk so that the scent wafts into your nostrils as you work, or sitting in your favourite café with a glass of absinthe."

read more here: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog/2007/12/03/time-management-for-creative-people-free-e-book/