Too Long

I must admit that there are many other things I should be doing right now, but sometimes you just have to write. I've been working on a project for some time now, a retelling of a Norwegian fairy tale, and while I think I have a good handle on the written part, even though it's still not completed, I've struggled with the illustrations. I keep going back and forth on how I want the story to look.

This is something I tend to do. If I have an external deadline (somebody wants it from me) I have no problem deciding on an idea and pursuing it. That's fortunate I suppose because otherwise I'd constantly be in trouble with the people who expect me to produce things for them. But, if my deadline is internal, for some reason I feel comfortable with extended the deadline, sometimes indefinitely. Well, maybe "comfortable" isn't the word, it's more like I have thought in the past that it's okay to extend my own deadlines, because I'm the one setting them. And I justify it by telling myself that I haven't decided the direction I really want to go in, I need to do more research, it's not quite there yet, blah, blah, blah. What I've been trying to do recently is to create the same sense of urgency for my internal deadlines as I do for my external deadlines. And artistically this means choosing a direction and going in it, full on.

To that end, I finally started one of the illustrations I've been envisioning for Tatterhood for some time. One of the key elements of the story is that she and her sister embark on a journey. It is a journey of salvation and restitution and I've chosen to make the ship they travel in more than just a means of transportation but also a symbol of who Tatterhood is internally. The ship represents her own need to move outside the bounds of her defined role, and also her ability to do so. With all that riding on it, I really wanted the ship to represent this in a visually cool way.

Pretty big order. And this week I started the ship. Whew. It's not ready to show you yet. Still looks pretty odd. But I'll post some pictures soon. And the process of creating the ship has been really interesting for me. I'm exploring a lot of my own ideas about making things.

Even though I've been thinking about this story for so long, living with it, if you will, I'm only just starting to feel like it's becoming real as I create the miniature version of Tatterhood's ship. It's as though the physical act of building the ship is helping me to see her character even better, and making it easier to write her actions and thoughts down in the pages of the story. The two are becoming more closely tied together, something I didn't anticipate when I started to work on this story a year ago.

I probably should have begun this process long before now, realizing this today, but we learn what we learn when we learn it. I am very excited about the prospect of seeing this through to the end now and seeing both the words and the images on paper. It's quite empowering to be working on something that is my own, start to finish, idea to execution.

I love the process of creating design work or illustration to make other people's ideas visual. I always have. It's one of the reasons I did so well in school. I can take an idea and run with it, and I love the interaction with the client. I think one of my particular strengths has been to find out a particular angle or idea unique to that person and create something that speaks to that idea. But with Tatterhood, I'm starting to really get a taste of what I can do when I combine my own ideas and talents to that same end. And it's exciting.

In the art world they call this "finding your own voice." And it makes sense because it's when your art really starts to show you, as opposed to showing the myriad of images and ideas that have influenced you. I know that some artists never really do find their own voice. And I know that I've felt close to finding it for years, but never really felt as comfortable as I do now with this direction.

We'll see where this goes. Maybe Tatterhood's ship will be the thing that helps me break through my bad habit of shortchanging my own work. That would be really cool.

Man oh Manifesto

A few weeks ago, I came across an article about writing a manifesto. I had a vague idea of what a manifesto was, sort of a “rules to live by” meets “wild-eyed fanatic” mash-up (another new word that’s already overused.) So of course I immediately thought, ahh, here’s some blog material. Because that’s how I usually think. (Not really.)

First, I imagined what sort of manifesto I would write. Clearly, it would be funny. Very moving and deep, in a funny way. Perfect, actually. Except that I don’t usually write things like manifestos. They’re too concrete and directive. And they use big words. Bigger words than I use because I’m not very deep, or a concrete thinker, or inclined to issuing directives. I mean, really, how am I to know what others should do? I barely know what I should do.

Second, I realized that if I actually had a shot at creating a moving, deep and yet pee-your-pants-funny manifesto, I better see what one looked like. Or even maybe just look up the definition. To be honest, this is always what I realize at this point. It's my "go to" second step. Research. I research. A lot. Because that’s a great way to act like you’re working, while not really actually working.

So here’s what I found. There are 23,700,000 Google results for “manifesto” with the first one being the Wikipedia definition. (That's twenty three million, seven hundred thousand for those of you, who, like me, tend to lose count after two, maybe three, zeros.) So of course I went to the Wikipedia site, and learned the definition of manifesto, which is “A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often politcal in nature. However, manifestos relating to religious belief are rather referred to as credo. Manifestos may also be life stance related.” It comes from the Latin word "manifestum", which means clear or conspicuous. But, given some of the examples of manifestos I found, I don’t think everyone looked up the definition in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia lead me to some interesting stuff. For example, out of all the manifestos they could have chosen to quote they selected an excerpt from the Maintenance Art Manifesto written by Mierle Laderman Ukeles in 1969. Here is the quote they included:

"Maintenance is a drag: it takes all the fucking time (lit.) The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom. The culture confers lousy status on maintenance jobs -- minimum wages, housewives - no pay. Clean your desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, wash your clothes, wash your toes, change the baby's diaper, finish the report, correct the typos, mend the fence, keep the customer happy, throw out the stinking garbage, watch out don't put things in your nose, what shall I wear, I have no sox, pay your bills, don't litter, save string, wash your hair, change the sheets, go to the store, I'm out of perfume, say it again - he doesn't understand, seal it again - it leaks, go to work, this art is dusty, clear the table, call him again, flush the toilet, stay young."

After I read this I realized I probably didn’t have to write a manifesto, Mierle was pretty darn close to universal. But maybe there were others that would come even closer to representing my personal manifesto. (Although that was before I actually read Mierle’s entire manifesto, wherein she proposes to live in the museum and do the maintenance as an art exhibit – and then extends it to the disposition and cleaning of other maintenance objects such as garbage trucks – I don’t see myself doing that.) I got to Google result number 750 before I realized that I was just polishing the rocket, (um no, wrong metaphor) before I realized that I was already done with my research and further googling would be silly. Here is my list of things I learned about manifestos.

Things I’ve Learned About Manifestos

1. Other people are more likely to read it if it has a great name, no matter what it actually says inside. Probably the best example of this is the Peanut Butter Manifesto. I doubt I would have read it if I’d known it was about what Yahoo isn’t doing right and not peanut butter, as I’d originally thought. Although it’s certainly worth a read. Second best is The Awesomeness Manifesto, written by Umair Haque for the Harvard Business Review, which in no way lived up to its title (the Awesomeness Manifesto, that is, not the Harvard Business Review.)
2. Umair Haque is crazy for manifestos. I found four within the first 50 or so examples of manifestos. The aforementioned Awesomeness Manifesto, The Builders Manifesto, The Generation M Manifesto and The Smart Growth Manifesto to name a few. And it made me wonder. Can one person really write more than one manifesto? Shouldn’t there be some sort of limit on the number of times you can tell the world how it should behave? Or am I the one that’s crazy here? Although, to be honest, the salutation at the beginning of "The Generation M Manifesto" is my favorite. Like many manifestos, it is written like an open letter, but this one is addressed to all the old people who run the world. How precious is that?
3. Manifestos generally manifest as a series of rules or points. Shorter is usually better here. Five Rules for Life actually limits you to five rules, but on the up side, you get to pick your own. The Simple Living Manifesto has only two rules, but then they give you 72 more rules to clarify the two simple ones. Some of the additional 72 include “Be present.” “Learn what “enough” is.” And my personal favorite “Declutter before organizing.” (emphasis mine) Oh man. I’ve been doing it all wrong!
4. There are many resources available to you should you decide to write your own manifesto. These include “How To Write A Manifesto” which handily explains what size paper you should use and gives a nifty example of a possible format, and a remarkably concise document also titled “How To Write a Manifesto” found on the Scottish Parliament site which suggests that you include pictures of desired outcomes, either drawn by yourself or found on the internet. I like the homemade quality of that idea. Plagiarist.org gives specific examples about what not to do and suggests a reasonable number of pages (2 – 4. Max 5, please.) Lance Whipple in his blog creatively titled “Lance Whipple” covers a wide territory when giving you advice on creating your manifesto, including guidelines for the appropriate number of rules to live by and suggesting advice from the Air Force little blue pamphlet on “Core Values”. The “How To Write An Avant-Garde Manifesto” by Lee Scrivner, goes into great detail about the use of caffeine as a brainstorming aid and the now famous (I’m sure) no quotations imperative, but I have the sneaking suspicion he’s not completely serious.
   
5. Manifestos do not have to be about earth shattering subjects. The winner in this category clearly has to be “really. tights are not pants” although the runners up are “Tank Girl: Post Feminist Media Manifesto” and “The Gobbledygook Manifesto.” Although, to be completely honest, the “Tank Girl: Post Feminist Media Manifesto” went mostly over my head, I just liked the movie and the Gobbledygook Manifesto is here because I liked the Gobbledygook Volume Analysis Chart. Oh and an honorable mention goes out to The Cloud Appreciation Society.

And that’s five things, and I have it on good authority, or at least sort of by consensus, that a list of five things is perfectly adequate for anyone. Any more and you’re just showing off.

If you’ve stuck with me so far, here’s your prize, a lovely three part series of interviews on The Transom Review with Ira Glass, on what makes great radio. It’s long but well worth every minute.

Ira, who’s name is practically synonymous with his show, This American Life, (which, in fact, I can’t even sit here and type without hearing Ira’s distinctive voice saying in my ear “This American Life presented by Chicago Public Radio”) talks at one point about the Big Idea and how what often makes radio stories worth doing is how well they can tie into that Big Idea, the universal idea or concept that makes a story bigger than itself. So maybe that’s the takeaway here, that manifestos are simply an attempt to tie into that Big Idea, the one that makes sense out of nonsense, creates order out of chaos and a map in the wilderness.

Or maybe not.

As the days get shorter...

I start to think about the holidays. More specifically, I start to think about what to make for the holidays. I can't help it. Starting in October I turn into a very large elf. And I wouldn't have it any other way. And it's genetic because my sisters are all the same.

I remember childhood Christmases. We would make ornaments for the tree and simple gifts at church. One year we knitted simple slippers. We made Christmas cookies and fudge and painted pictures.

I love to shop, don't get me wrong. Shopping is pretty darn fun. All those wonderful things out there, shiny new, wrapped in layers of plastic wrap, packing foam and nestled in their fabulously decorated cardboard boxes, just waiting to be wrapped in more paper, prettier this time and accompanied by ribbons and/or glitter. But the problem is, I only have so much money, so the shopping is pretty short lived.

As for making gifts, now that lasts much longer and is, in the end, a much more satisfying gift giving event. I get to spend hours thinking about the possible gift ideas. Poring through books and magazines crammed with ideas. Thinking about each person on my list and what I think they would like to receive. Then I get to go through my stash of supplies (and believe me, there is quite a stash of supplies to be gone through - sometimes I even find supplies for gifts I intended to make in previous years but never got around to) and pull out the things I will need to make the gifts I've decided to create.

Some years I know I will have limited time. Last year, for example, I was in the middle of preparing for my portfolio show, so my gift making was limited to jam. Other years I decide I must make one item that is so big, so glorious, and so time consuming that no one else will make it onto the home made list. They still get gifts, of course, but the recipient of the one gift is just lucky that year.

After all the lovely planning, which is much of the fun, I settle down to the actual creation. This is when I really start to feel the spirit of the holidays. I put on some holiday music or a fun holiday movie, and start to work. In some ways it's like a magic spell. Hours of labor spent, while thinking about the person who will receive the gift. Pursuing small creative impulses and embellishments. Thinking about presentation and purpose. All of this ties in to the process of gift making and creates a memory that stays with me, long after the glow of purchasing a great gift has passed.

My husband laughs at me because I'm almost always more excited about others opening gifts I've chosen for them, and especially gifts I've made for them, than I am to open gifts for myself. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE getting gifts, but there is something about seeing someone enjoy a gift you've made that just gets me going. I can barely restrain myself. Especially when I really think I've gotten it right.

My parents and sisters and their families all live far away from me. We don't usually spend the holidays together. So it is a little disappointing to pack the gifts in a box and send them off, to be opened unseen, although I do still enjoy the gift exchange. And it doesn't have to be elaborate, or expensive. It's not about that for me. I just like to send my loved ones a little something to remind them that I think about them, even when we're not together.

Quilt Expo Underwhelms

First, let me start off by saying that I would be indistinguishable in a crowd of middle aged women wearing capri pants, sensible shoes, misshapen but comfortable tee-shirts and carrying a bag the size of a small Midwestern town. Which is exactly where I found myself at this year's Quilt Expo.

But for all the trouble I've gone to to develop my Quilt Expo Camouflage, I guess I forgot one key element. An overriding interest in traditional quilting. That's not to say I don't appreciate it. Row after row of lovingly constructed, beautifully executed quilts graced this year's quilt exhibit, a large display inexplicably walled off in the very center of the room, and set up so that you are forced to zig zag back and forth, dodging camera shots and docents. You are given a slip of paper at the beginning to vote for your favorite, but make your decision carefully. Should you decide to go back and see an earlier quilt again it's similar to a salmon spawn.

Some of the details were breath taking. The minute stitches. The carefully pieced intricate patterns. The time consuming and almost unimaginable attention to detail was enough to make even my jaded attention span pause. There was one quilt where the beauty of the pattern was entirely created by incredibly dense quilting of deep orange thread on a lighter orange fabric. Stunning. But I wanted more.

I wanted art. To be fair, I'll amend that to I wanted MORE art. There were some beautifully artistic pieces but most of it was simply perfectly executed traditional quilting. Nice but hardly art.

Maybe it was the booths surrounding the show, more than the show itself. Yards and yards of fabric. More sample quilts. But it's all been done before. I've seen it before. There wasn't anything that I saw that I thought was truely innovative. And that's the problem.

I love quilts. They are both warm and extravagantly time consuming. They can be beautiful and fascinating. But they seem to have reached their limit. There doesn't seem to be anything new going on with the quilting world, other than technical advances that make it easier to make your traditional quilt.

And that's okay, it's just not for me.

And, as a side note. $5.50 for PARKING? Are you kidding Alliant Energy Center? Really?

A Head Cold and a Mad Men Marathon...

Sitting in the television room, watching a mini Mad Men marathon and fighting off a vicious head cold leads to places I probably wouldn't normally go. I began to wonder, watching the women characters all struggling with their own places, what kind of person I would be, or would have been, had I grown up in the forties and been an adult in the sixties.

Would I be the same as I am now? That seems unlikely. I am as much a product of my time as anyone. So if not, who would I be? Would I be pushing the envelope like Peggy, trying to use her brains and creativity despite an unswerving wall of indifference from the men around her? Or would I try to resign myself to being a good wife, whatever that means, like Joan Holloway, all the while knowing that I was better than that. Or would I be one of those multitude of women in the steno pool, just trying to pay bills and find a husband. Pretty sure I wouldn't be Betty. She's just plain too crazy for me.

Deep down I don't think I'm the steno pool sort, but then again, times were different then. Women had few choices. Those lives of quiet desperation were part of what lead to the sixties and the Women's Movement. I have a sneaking suspicion I'd be a Joan. Damn good at what I do and letting it kill me that men got the sweet end of the deal just because they could pee standing up.

I know that Mad Men is a television show. It's a drama, with character development suited to making interesting story lines, not a documentary about a time now gone. But the question remains relevant. What kind of person are you? What motivates you? What makes you either part of the norm, or makes you break out of it? And women still have issues to resolve.

We're all a lot more PC now. We don't say and do certain things in the work place. We, as women, expect that we can do just about anything we please, if we are willing to put in the effort.

No matter what sex you are, using your creative mind is hard. It requires effort above and beyond the simple matter of day to day existence. It requires time and effort, energy and enthusiasm, courage and encouragement. It requires being impractical in many ways, because the payoff for creativity is often the most elusive, sometimes never arriving at all. Whereas, the payoff for practical skills like organization and attention to detail, while undervalued, are rewarded with regular pay and your own chair. And impracticality doesn't feed the babies. It doesn't pay the electric bill. And women generally find it hard not to be practical.

Sitting in my Studio

I'm sitting in my studio. The windows are open and I can hear rain as it finds its way through the leaves of the massive oak tree we call Big Ray. (Burr Oak - Raymond Burr - Big Ray) I've come up here to clean and hopefully work, but instead I'm writing this blog post.

I haven't written much lately, mainly because I've actually been working on art. Something, somewhere, has loosened in me and I've started to actually produce work. Not as much as I would like. NEVER as much as I would like, but more now in the last six to eight weeks than I have in many months before this. And it's good. It's very good. Mosaics and mixed media work. Some painting. I'm settling in and creating some of the things that I've been thinking about for a long, long time.

The thing I hate about my studio is that I've got it so crammed full of stuff that I have a hard time finding things. I wish I could be more organized. More respectful of my own, hard won space.

The things I love about my studio are many.
It has a sink. I am so freakin' lucky to have a studio with a sink. And cupboards.
When I look out the window I see leaves and some little bit of sky. It's like having a studio in a tree house.
As much as I hate how much stuff I have in here, it's great too, because almost anything I want to do, I have the stuff to do it in here.
I can do whatever I want in here. There's no one who is telling me that I have to do a certain thing or not do a certain thing, other than the mean voice in my head, which I am trying to still with work.
It's a luscious melony orange color, full of juice and creativity. And while there's not a lot of wall space, there's still some left for things to go up.

And finally, let's face it, the best part about it is that it's a studio. I have a studio. For many years I didn't have one and I limped along, working on the dining room table or in a corner of the living room, with art supplies stashed in boxes or drawers but always overflowing into our living space.

In one memorable apartment, during my quilting and doll making phase, my studio was behind the couch in the living room with the sewing machine right next to the hall that went to the bedrooms. My husband remembers that one every time he thinks about the foot surgery to get the broken needle out of the ball of his foot. I remember that year because my oldest son was two and the only time I could find to work was late at night, after everyone else had gone to bed. Not a lot got done but it was good stuff.

I learned to mosaic in first house we owned, sweeping small shards of glass off the dining room table whenever it was time to eat dinner. In that house I also took over almost half of our bedroom, with my fabric and sewing machine. But I hated to sew up there because it was always hot, stuffy and the roof slanted down in such a way that the only place in the room where I could stand upright was right in the middle. So I would haul stuff down and work on it in the small living room, with the kids crawling through the work.

Don't get me wrong. Even with a studio my art supplies are not confined here. They bust loose and creep down the staircase with alarming and overwhelming frequency. As I write this there are bags of fabric in the tv room, waiting to be turned into costumes for 3D fairy tale illustrations, a big bag of paint and brushes in the dining room, left over from this week's art date, several tubs of glass shards in the dining room and garage, given to me by my local stained glass supplier, waiting to be sorted and then cut up into smaller shards for my mosaics. And there's always random art tools stuck into drawers or pencil cups, and rolls of paper tucked out of the way in crannies behind the couch or between the hutch and the wall. And that's just the stuff I remember.

And I'm grateful. Grateful for all of it. Grateful for the luxury of space to devote to something that I clearly could never NOT do. Grateful for the patience of the man I married. He not only lives surrounded by my art, but occasionally finds himself wounded by it, and still he doesn't complain. Too much. Grateful for my sons who, maybe because they never knew any different, don't seem to notice or mind that their home is a colorful, patterned mess. Actually, I know they notice, and I suspect they mind, but they don't make me suffer for it, and for that, I am also grateful.

Sitting in my studio. I'm going to get to work now.

A Done Bun Can't Be Undone

I was wishing today that I'd never learned to play Bejeweled. (I started to write Bedazzled but that's something else entirely, maybe a Ronco product?) Not only is it a time waster but I'm compulsive about it when I get stuck. Stuck on an idea. Stuck on what to do next. Stuck with too many things to do and none of them include a beach, sun and some fruity rum drink.

And then, as I was wishing this, this voice in my head said "What's done can't be undone." and that pulled me up short. It's true of course but I wondered if that came from somewhere. Did Hamlet say it? Or maybe Napoleon? I don't think it's biblical because I can't envision Charlton Heston saying it, it seems a little too homey for him. So, I googled it. And found "A done bun can't be undone." which I like even better. Such nice assonance. (yeah I looked it up.)

So much of what I read today seems to talk about all the things we've been doing that we know is a "done bun." Probably shouldn't have run up so much debt. Really shouldn't have put all our money into things we didn't understand. Definitely shouldn't have trusted people who said "I have a formula." Stuff like that.

But hearing about what we shoulda, coulda done, doesn't change where we are today. It's a done bun. We have to just eat it and move on. So starting today I'm going to work on forgetting where to find BeJeweled. And Zuma.