Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The writer and the artist

When working on my tarot card paintings I would often find myself most frustrated by a lack of time. I'd be completely willing to paint but I had to calculate the time I had available with how much I could get done once set up and take down was calculated. If it would take me fifteen minutes to get my paints sorted, pull out my easel, select brushes and get bowls of water and another ten or fifteen minutes to clean my brushes, pallet and bowls afterwards and I only had an hour available before I had to be somewhere or do something else, it just didn't seem worth my while.

I agonised over this on a weekly basis, resenting time spent at work or time spent away on weekends when I felt I should have or could have been painting. Eventually I began to take a more sensible approach and I made the time, planning on it at regular intervals. This worked wonders and of course, having a blog which needed twelve monthly updates was also a great motivator. Whenever I was lost for an update idea I could use my latest Tarot Card as the subject and write about a new technique I'd discovered or the latest bit of symbolism I was working into a piece.

Now that the cards are done I can easily say that my methods of time management were extremely successful. Once I stopped thinking about how long it would take and began planning on making time available whenever possible the chances for painting became more and more frequent and in short order the 22 cards were completed.

With such an incredible accomplishment done I felt I deserved a break before jumping into the next big thing. The 22 cards marked more than my choice to begin living as an artist - they were key in a lot of personal growth and self discovery which has resulted in a huge amount of positive change in my life. I want to mark this with my art gallery showing, which will be held on the 19th and 20th of August.

But in the mean time I've begun to feel a bit aimless - lost without something to fill those spare pockets of time. I've begun to look at my writing more and edit a lot of the stuff I wrote when I was younger. This involves a different sort of prep than the painting did. I can write or edit anytime, anywhere, whenever the mood strikes me, as long as I've got my computer or journal to hand. I almost never leave the house without one or the other and as ideas strike me I'm finding myself getting back into a flow I've not felt since I was in my late teens.

It's interesting though when I try to marry these two parts of myself - The Artist: the sculptor, painter and creator, and The Writer: the storyteller, the philosopher, and the inventor. This conflict in all the thing I want to do, either because I want too much at once or because one single project requires more focus and time than I feel is available to me, is leading me to take serious stock of my life and how I live it. I've written about this before very recently as I've just begun to embark on a really important career shift.

As I begin to learn about Life Coaching and defining how I want to do this and be this, I'm looking at all the tools available to me which have been essential in promoting my creative work. My creative work will never cease as that would be like asking me to stop breathing, but I wonder about how I'm going to use the tools I've got already with the new career I'm creating. Do I keep this blog as it is and just close it - a record of my Tarot series and other art projects I did for over two years? Or do I keep it going but update it with less frequency? Or, and this is the option to which I am leaning, do I keep this blog and begin to shift it along so it becomes a practical tool for my Life Coaching?

One thing I know for sure, making time is entirely up to me. Whatever I decide for this blog, my art website, my editing and my writing, time is a limited resource which needs to be considered with great thought. In September I'm beginning a course and already I've begun a marketing program which aims to give me a lot of tools for launching my Life Coach services.

These are important first steps which require a lot of focus and attention - a lot of time.

To that end I've come to a decision. Right now twelve entries a month is just not feasible if I've got homework (Yeesh) and classes. So this will be the last month in which twelve entries will feature on my blog... for now. I want to thank everyone who has followed and read it twelve times every month. I especially want to thank everyone who has shared comments and kind words about my writing. It's this sort of genuine appreciation which fuels me and I certainly hope you'll continue to follow it as it evolves.

I'm absolutely giddy to see what happens.

2 comments:

  1. At least keep us posted about how your show goes?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course I will! I simply won't be doing 12 entries each month. More like, one a week. I think I can manage that for now...until I am finished my course anyway.

    ReplyDelete

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