Quarantine Edition: Rewards

Week two of quarantine I had the realization: all my rewards are gone! No wonder I’m having trouble being disciplined about work. My rewards were simple things: going to a coffee shop and getting a nice latte. Seeing friends in person. Taking a dog walk with another dog. Unconsciously, I was making this tradeoff with […]

Wake Up Early (or super late)

*Quarantine Edit* I actually think that when the world hands you a stay-at-home order it might be better to just sleep in and stay as healthy and well-rested as possible. So take this post with a grain of salty reality. It has been said, and it has been said again, so it’s worth saying again. […]

Quarantine Edition: Anti-Distraction

I’ve been trying to write this post for a week but I keep getting distracted. This appears to be the weird reality of the world we live in now. Many of us work at home, the lucky ones have yards. We only see friends and family through the smear of a digital haze. As an […]

Use Small Sequences

When I retrospectively consider my creative working life, I notice a tendency to leave projects unfinished. To a certain extent, this is normal and healthy. Artists perceive a fount of ideas, bubbling up anew on a daily basis. Practicality and focus require that some ideas remain as figments of the imagination, while other ideas become […]

Story Time

Stories. My studio sessions range from 2 hours to 12 hours per day, depending on the type of work I am doing and the available time. My goal is to spend all my flex time in the studio. I generally achieve 80% of this. But here’s a thing I notice. Sure, I might get started […]

Pavlovian Conditioning

You can train yourself just like you train your dog. Sound and Scent Triggers. The concept behind creating a trigger is simple. It is a form of classical conditioning (think Pavlov). If you have ever trained a dog, this should be easy to understand. With dogs, it can take just a handful of repetitions for […]

Tiny Tiny Task Lists

When I make wishlists, the thing I wish for most is more time. More time to learn and develop new skills, more time to write, meditate, reflect, draw. More time to study languages and read. More time to make art and still attend to all the other responsibilities of life. More time to sit in […]

Privacy Needed: Creative Language In Development

A Year of Seclusion to Develop a Visual Language I committed myself to one year of work in private without the pressure of sharing, finalizing, or explaining. This timeline made sense for the medium I chose. I needed to learn a variety of new techniques, tools, and materials. When I began I had a sense […]

Use a Pseudonym

Anonymity & Pseudonym My choice to use a pseudonym for my return to making art was multi-fold. Using a pseudonym allowed me to publish creative work that I otherwise would feel nervous about having associated with my public persona. I am involved in several other businesses, and I did not want my public business life […]

Quarantine Special

Despite the fact we are already working from home, quarantine poses special challenges. I’m an introvert, he’s an extrovert. How do we make sure that we get the appropriate levels of social and mental stimulation while staying productive and creative? Besides the obvious -continue to shower, get dressed, brush your hair, put on makeup (if […]