Art Store Wish List

As a reward for completing my current multi-year secret project (probably another three months out till completion) I am going to get myself oil paints. Really nice ones, with natural pigments. My current work is mostly mixed media/ fabric, and the addition of slow drying and expensive oil paints would not make sense. But I […]

Rewards

I have been working on a long project that has several dozen distinct points of completion. It is a body of work that encompasses many discreet pieces. Early on, I set up a reward system for myself. Every ten pieces complete, reward. The rewards are things that are: supportive to the project, useful tools, creative […]

Pacing

Working in the studio generally involves a rather different pace than more quotidian work. At times it is hard to shift into “studio pace” if I have spent the morning or the prior day doing administrative tasks, bookkeeping, or meetings. When doing office-type tasks, I work as fast as possible. Every movement, every thought, proceeds […]

GTD

aka Getting Things Done, the famous book by David Allen. Even after implementing the time tracking, 5:30am wakeup, and studio debt protocol, I was feeling a sense of overwhelm. “I need twenty more hours in the week. I’m not focusing on things when I need to. I’m forgetting about majorly important things.” Around that time […]

Studio Debt

A useful technique I have discovered is something I’m calling studio debt. I accumulate debt to my studio when I don’t spend time working in it. This happens even if I go on vacation. Artists don’t get “paid vacations” where they get to come back without studio debt. This means, quite simply, if I’m not […]

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. […]

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 […]