Wednesday, November 11, 2009

this is where i live (well, monday - wednesday)




Cards and notes from my friends, hanging above my desk.


Nigh-nigh.




View from my window.


I'm getting used to living in transit now, between here and there. I know what things I keep here and what things I leave at home, both physically and mentally. I know what to expect here and I'm slowly learning to make routine in my ever changing schedule.


I like being close to the woods. You can see through the trees now to the rise and fall of the ground under the trees from the other side of the lake. On windless evenings the lake is a perfect mirror of the trees and chapel that surround it. I'll have to try and get a picture of that.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

what i want to do this evening is track an image from picture to meaning to text

I'm finding more and more how important reading, writing, and observation are to my creative process.  It seems like every day I think of more book to read, ideas and experiences to write and how I need to make time to make things.  It's a lot of work right now and there are never enough hours in the day, but I think if I keep practicing these things it will eventually become more fluid and I will have a better understanding of my artisitic process.


The title of this post is by Toni Morrison.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

practicality & possibility



“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Letter Three

I'm learning that growing up means learning to live with one foot on solid ground and the other over an abyss. Most of us don't have our ideal jobs/relationships/living situations the year after we graduate college. We need to figure out what we need to be happy and how we can get by, financially and otherwise, while we work hard and dream up possibilities that get us closer to where we would like to be someday.

I need to learn to balance practicality and possibility, to meet basic needs and seek out opportunity. And in order to strive for that balance, I need to think and live creatively (and sometimes uncomfortably).

I'm also realizing that this is a process and it might take most of my life, but if I am able to work hard and continue to do what I love, this process/journey will be rich and full of beautiful people, experiences, and prints!