Creating in the Middle of Things

I have a little hiatus from teaching during this two-week period, so I've been in the studio a bit. This is what I'm working on. First photo is the inspiration photo, which is a composite of three different photos I took, and the second photo shows my humble start of this piece, called "Red Stool". I've also got a few smaller projects going that involve working with some sheer hand-dyed organzas (fun!).

That's all I managed last week. I could make the excuse that I am dyeing up a storm for my Ottawa Valley Quilt show booth, that I'm doing my bookeeping for 2010 in preparation for my taxes, that I'm revising and updating my teaching brochure (I only use Publisher once or twice a year and each time I have to re-teach myself), or that I've been preparing teaching contracts, prepping for next week's teaching trip, doing laundry, and worst of all, trying to exercise more and eat better! BUT, the reality hits me today!! Some of you know I've been enrolled in Eric Maisel's Introductory Creativity Coaching training. Ever since discovering his books a couple of years ago, I know that the struggles I go through with the artistic process are normal. We all procrastinate because we want to avoid the work that doesn't work, because we are too attached to outcome, and because we believe the script that we don't have time. So this past week the topic of our class was "Creating in the Middle of Things". We had to come up with an idea to help a client do just that. Apparently I missed the mark, as Eric responded that what we really need to do is help our clients accept that we will ALWAYS be creating in the middle of things, and we have to learn to create despite being there. Modern life, with all its distractions,is always going on around us! "The middle of things" is also the mental states we find ourselves in as we react to life. There will never be a perfect time to create ... NOW is that perfect time. Red Stool is going to be a major piece for me, so how will I make myself sit down and work? By doing a bit at a time, just like my last piece. Better to do 15 minutes a day than a day once a month because it cultivates the regular habit of showing up for your work! There was a quote by one of the other coaches in training, that went something like this "Once you make the choice to cut off the pipeline of complaint, you free giga watts of energy". How true that feels. The answer is to stop resisting the work, and plug away at it little by little. Maybe I can do that with diet and exercise too?
Speaking of Eric Maisel, the latest issue of the SAQA Journal (Spring 2011) contains my article about the "Coaching the Artist Within" class I took with Eric last June. Maybe it will tempt you to read some of his books. I think you will love them.