New Tricks

I went down to the studio today to start work on a pewter project. As usual, I had to clear some detritus from previous projects, days of tidying where I'd tossed stuff onto the tabletop (“just for the moment”). I got the soapstone sanded, but by that time, looking at the bench top was making me a bit squirrelly. I needed to get the bench back....now. Before I did anything else. It didn't take long, and I got to throw out a few bits of junk and make better spaces for things along the way. While I was at it, though, I was thinking about why it is that I have a tendency to work in places other than my studio more often than not. I spent years, decades even, longing for studio space – space where I could just work. Dedicated space with the things I needed to hand, and room to do things without constantly having to clear things first, or reorganize, or set up from scratch or... Here I am, living what is pretty close to my dream, with more than one dedicated studio space, and still, when I think about making chain or about a third of the things I might be likely to do on a regular basis, my first thought is taking what I need upstairs to the table to work. Granted, in the winter, this puts me in close proximity to the stove, which makes for some cozy working. But it means packing things up before, and after – moving stuff from space to space, running down to the studio when I realize I've forgotten something, clearing it all away to allow for our use of the table for other things. It just doesn't make sense. Why on earth is that my first instinct? I've been here a while now, and the studio gets a better flow to it every six months to a year as I try new iterations and figure out my workflow and my real use of the space. So, what is it? I figured out that it boils down to a few things. The first is simply habit. For all the years I've been making I never had a dedicated space. My habit takes me to my familiar table to work, the places I've always worked. I always wanted a space, but I never had one, and now I frankly don't know what to do with it half the time. I suspect that is a part of my unconscious reason for keeping it in a semi-unworkable state.

Another part of it is that I am used to working in a barely controlled chaos state. Maybe a part of me thinks that such a state contributes to my creativity. In forcing myself to think outside the box to get something done I am firing up those creative juices. In clearing a space or setting up my tools I am beginning to get my head into the project. What if I can't create without the chaos? Ridiculous, of course. I will need to prep tools and spaces to a certain degree regardless of whether my space is purpose made and ready. All I'm doing is wasting some of the creative juices on the extraneous tasks. I do suspect that my brain has been playing me a bit though, based on the above idea. I am beginning to think that I have to learn how to work without the chaos. I have to stop being afraid that if I get used to the luxury of this it will disappear and I won't be able to work without it anymore, because I'll have lost the skills and know-how. Nearly every time I tried to create dedicated spaces before they got compromised away, so that is what I'm expecting, somehow. Clearly, having realized all of this, it is time for me to learn some new tricks. Learn to trust in what I have, to glory in it and to use it well while I have it. There will always be an outside chance that it will disappear on me. Things can happen, no matter how unlikely. In the meantime though, I should be making the most of what I've got...I certainly know how lucky I am to have it! Even if it did disappear, I know I could find a way to work – I always have. If I waste what I have now, that is what would make me regretful. So that is one of the many things that I am going to be focusing on in the next while, creating new habits, getting comfortable in the spaces I am so blessed to have at my disposal and learning how to get out of my own way and just make the things that fill my brain and my dreams, all those things my hands ache to do. I'm getting to be an old dog, but I think I've got a little room yet for some new tricks.

Looking Back

I woke up this morning, and was thinking back to some of the things I've written in the last year. I had to shake my head at some of them. Perspective. I'm thinking, in particular of the post I wrote in which I declared the mornings to be mine. I wanted 3 hours, at least, if I remember correctly. That was back in April, and it was right for the time...I managed to keep up that routine for about 5 months, and it was good to establish it. At the time, maybe I even knew it wasn't permanent – but remembering my headspace when I wrote that makes me think of that line in Joni Mitchell's Come In From The Cold. “...I made some value judgements/In a self-important voice” I'm not sure who I was declaring this righteous new routine to, other than myself. Or why I felt the need to be so adamant about it. I was trying to justify it to myself. Sometimes it is hardest to convince ourselves that it is okay to need what we need – particularly in the moment. All the fears and insecurities we (I) have about not being enough, not doing enough. Permission to just do what you need to do, for yourself, for your sanity, for your health...it can be hard not to feel that that has to be justified, or explained, even to yourself. There was a lot of good that came out of it. It created some patterns for me. I got my body back, at least to some extent. When I need to stretch in the morning, I do. There are still days I'm pretty sore, but not the way I was, for months on end. I'm okay to be on the computer in the mornings when I need to – like this morning. I've been pretty terrible about the computer – I'm way behind on my social media stuff, and my website. I have kept up the writing. I have kept up the reading. I'm determined to pick up my fiddle again before the end of the month. These things are all easier because I gave myself that permission – even if I had to stomp my foot and have a tantrum inside myself to do it.

It's funny, sometimes, the paths we take to get to where we are. There are days I look back and think “why on earth did I choose that route? It would have been so much simpler to go the other way.” Not unlike when I was climbing (which I miss terribly.) It's the need to challenge myself, to see if I can figure it out, and regardless of how much more complicated I make it, I generally find I've learned something valuable.

Resolute

 

A random shot of the fire of a smelting furnace - fire is always an appropriate image!

 

Another year has passed. Everything has changed, everything has stayed the same. I've never been one for new year's celebrations, let alone resolutions. Just the other day I was telling the story of being invited to a friend's for New Year's as a kid. I was a bit confused by the vibrancy of their plans. Sure, we recognized it was New Year's in my house, sometimes we'd even stay up until midnight and toast each other with gingerale (or whatever they were drinking that was age appropriate.) A party, fireworks, outdoor raucous ramblings, running around yelling ...it all seemed a bit much. I've always preferred a quieter observance, I guess, for most things. I do understand the impulse to celebrate things – anything and everything can be cause for celebration, and it should be. I've come to understand that sometimes we truly need celebration – particularly wild, ecstatic celebration. It is part of the human condition.

I most certainly understand the impulse to start fresh, to try to improve, to strive to do better … I've always done that, but I tend to do it a lot more regularly – every day, or whenever I'm faced with beginning or ending or failure. To have it as a New Year's thing just never felt right to me, and so, thinking ahead to what I want to try to do in the coming months my choices feel a little disingenuous to me, but a friend has been posting about goals they set last year and goals they are setting for the coming year, and it made me think about things a little differently. The idea of 52 for 52 presented itself to me – 52 undertakings in various areas throughout the year, one each week. The idea appealed as a good way to try to nurture discipline in some of the things I'm trying to work on.

Definitions of the word resolute vary – the various dictionaries don't want to be identical, after all...but they all boil down to the same thing. Merriam-Webster online sums it up nicely as “marked by firm determination.” I like the feel of that, and I've decided that against all my own misgivings, that is what I choose for this year, I choose to be resolute, to be marked by firm determination. Not just in my undertaking of doing certain things on a weekly basis or better, but in my outlook for the year, in my attitude and my actions I will aim to be resolute. And I will celebrate, albeit quietly. I will celebrate anything, and, I hope, everything. Maybe somewhere in there I will find an occasion that demands wild and ecstatic celebration, and if I give in to the impulse my celebrations will be markedly determined.