Musing over chicken bones

I just learned that, if you soak chicken bones in vinegar for three days, they become flexible. [use #10, here]

Now, I'm wondering if you rinse and dry them, do they become rigid again? Would baking them help? Hmm...

If that works, can you bend the bones into weird and wonderful shapes, and let them set that way, for jewelry? I have no idea, but it sounds cool.

Taking it a step further, can you bleach them and carve on them, scrimshaw style? Will this work for other inexpensive bones that I can ask for at the meat counter of the grocery store?

This is how an artist's brain works, sometimes. Will I ever actually test these theories? Maybe. Probably not. So, I'm sharing them with you, just in case they spark your creativity.

Thoughts on "How to Be Creative"

This may be one of the most important things I've read about creativity in a long time: How to Be Creative. It's a 2004 journal entry at gapingvoid.com. I printed it out. (I had to cut & paste it to a Word document because I lost words off the right margin when I printed it from the website.)

It affirms independent thinking, and it's giving me things to think about, in terms of what I sell. I'm often ambivalent about selling my better paintings, as if I'm depriving myself and my kids of some of my more important art. But, I also need to earn a living; that article addresses this issue.

What's really interesting is how this fits with what I woke up thinking about: The quality of the art that I work on.

See, for a bunch of years, I worked on art specifically to share the how-to info with others. I wanted people to find their inner creative voices. I wanted to show them that they could create art similar to what I was doing... so I focused on accessible art that could be taught, and broken down into by-the-numbers directions, more or less.

Well... okay, I teach process rather than step-by-step products. But, as the audience changed, more people wanted step-by-step instructions... which have never been my strong suit. In the early days--which wasn't that long ago--I could show people the basics of new techniques and materials. I'd provide the tools & supplies they'd need. And then, it was about creating a safe and creative space... a place to experiment rather than a "classroom" setting.

My goal was to provide people with the knowledge & confidence in their abilities to explore art, on their own, after they returned home from a class or event.

As paper arts have become enormously popular and the edges have blurred between scrapbooking and what used to be extreme paper arts... well, it's like the goal has been achieved, and the banner is being carried forward by others. I no longer need to feel responsible for being a teacher, online or in real life.

Oh, the articles will stay at my websites. I just don't need to grow those sites as aggressively as I did a few years ago. In fact, I may re-integrate some of the articles--from the smaller sites--back into Aisling.net. I'm not sure yet.

But, letting go of the need to be a teacher--online and in real life--I'm also aware that I don't have to be so accessible. Approval and popularity are essential to teachers. For artists who don't rely on teaching for income, it's about the art, period. I don't recall any stories about how charming and personable DaVinci was... or Monet or even Picasso. If an artist is a popular personality, that's great, but it's not essential to the art.

As I write this, I'm watching Richie Havens in the movie, Woodstock. I remember seeing him often in Cambridge Common when I'd go there after school. He'd sit on a park bench, play his guitar and sing. If anyone listened, great. If they didn't, that was okay, too. He was committed to the music, period. I'd listen to him for awhile, and then wander off to see who else was around the Common or Harvard Square. It was an amazing time, and I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. But, his commitment to the music made an impression on me... one that I'm reviewing right now.

I've been listening to podcasts by JoeVitale recently. It's funny; I didn't expect to like him. But, he's been talking about aligning what you do, and understanding how you explain--to yourself--the results that you get in life. It's about the evidence that you provide to yourself, that reinforce your actual beliefs... not just what you say that you believe, or what you want to believe. That evidence can get in the way of goals that you set, and... well, Dr. Vitale explains it far better than I can in a few sentences.

So, I'm looking at what I do. I'm examining the messages that I send to myself and others, and the context that I've created for what I experience in life. I'm working on affirming myself as a unique and talented artist. And, that means creating art that is uniquely mine. Much of it can't be copied by others; that's no longer a criteria for art that I create. (Well, not unless it's for a magazine article or something.)

Reading How to Be Creative is helping me to accept greater authenticity in my life, and let go of the need to be popular. This is a very good thing.

Fixed archives

Somehow, the archived posts--the ones from months ago--were coming back as 404s. (That is, the "oops!" page that indicates no page there.)

I'm pretty sure that I've fixed it now. And, those old links... some of them are still utterly amazing. I was going through them yesterday, getting some inspiration for website design. I ended up getting inspired to make more ART!

Focus, professionalism and clutter

Last night, I made a list of what I want to do in the life I'd like to lead. In order of importance: painting, travel, fabric art, and writing.

Then, I listed what I'd need for each. Okay, travel involves a ticket and throwing stuff into a suitcase. But everything else...

I was astonished to realize that I need the least stuff for painting, then for fabric art, and... well, my hoard of writing-related stuff is obscene. I can't even list it all. I have boxes & boxes of cool articles and notes that I'm saving, "in case I ever write about this."

Hello, that's what a good library is for.

I also looked at all the sewing stuff that I own, with the idea that I'll use it for fabric art someday. By contrast, when I was making quilts & wall hangings professionally, I'd buy a few bolts of fabric, use them up making quilts, give away the scraps, and then go buy more bolts... and the occasional accent fabric or two.

When I'm actively working in a field, professionally, I tend to use up everything that I own. I don't keep clutter.

In fact, I'm currently reducing how much stuff I use for painting. I'm looking at the number of tubes of paint I use, and how many of those colors could be mixed from other colors that I own.

In other words, the more professional (and productive) I am in a field, the less clutter I own, related to it.

This is on the heels of spending a day and a half looking for my glue gun, to complete the project for Go-Make-Art. It would have been better if I'd just tossed out the old glue gun and spent the $1.99 replacing it when I needed it again. (Okay, that'd be wasteful. My point is, I own too much clutter when I can't find my basic tools to produce art that I claim to be professional at.)

More declutter inspiration

Part of making more time (and space) for art involves being absolutely ferocious about decluttering. I like this article by Merlin at 43 Folders, in which he says, "If the stuff that you accumulate doesn’t help get you closer to the life you want to have, it’s simply not worth keeping. Period."

I look at all of my stuff and how much of it is about the life that I currently have.

I look at how much I justify with the idea, "Well, if I use this stuff to make something, and then I sell it, I might make the money that I need to live the life that I want to have."

And then I spend a week (or two or three) making whatever-it-is. I spend money on additional supplies that I'll only use half of... and then the rest of those supplies go into my boxes, with some idea that "I might need this some day." (I really hate buying supplies twice... especially if they aren't things that I use in art that I'll keep.)

I drop everything else that I'm working on, to get whatever-it-is completed and out the door. I throw it on my blog, or into etsy or eBay.

And then it doesn't sell. Or, it sells for less than the hours that I put into it, even at minimum wage. Or, I just break even on the supplies, period. The time is gone, forever.

Hello, why do I keep doing this?

I think that I have to be even more harsh with myself. I may need to wholly eliminate anything that I'm working on with some idea that it'll make the money that I need.

I think that I should start living the life that I want. I need to trust that the wherewithal will show up, or I'll see opportunities within the context of the life that I want... not the life that I've had enough of, thank you very much.

When I'm creating something, if it's not something that I'd want to keep/own myself, maybe I shouldn't be making it. I need to quit looking at what other people are doing, while I'm thinking, "Sure, I could make something equally as good, and then I could sell it at a profit, too."

Whether or not I can make something well is not the issue. It's coming down to the energy in whatever-it-is, and if I see real value (as opposed to "that's nice," commercial value) in it.

Even "cute" art needs to be taken off my to-do list.

If it's not about painting and making fabric art (quilts, wearables, wall hangings, very artsy dolls/figures), I think that it has to go away.

In a comment at the article linked above, someone named Cora said, "I got out a few sheets of crisp paper. I imagined my day and then my year, and wrote down the stuff I thought I’d need. Then I wrote down all the things I planned to achieve that year, and got rid of anything that didn’t fit, even things I really wanted to do or new things I wanted to learn. If it was unlikely I’d pursue it in the next 12 months, I just let it go — stuff might be outdated by then anyway."

I think that I'm going to do that, but for six months (in keeping with "The 4-Hour Work Week"), and see what I end up with. That'd be interesting.