Working In Increments

I love being a jack-of-many-trades. I don't say all because there are a lot of things I can't do and don't even try to. It does have its downsides though. One of the things about finding so many things absolutely fascinating is you want to do them all. Ideally you want to do them all well. I love learning about things, and I love getting lost in what I'm doing. Unfortunately almost everything I love to do, or would love to do takes time and practice to build the skills. The more time you put in, the better you get. Regularly practicing and building skills is a rewarding and exciting thing to do.

But when you are interested in practically everything, how do you fit it all in?

I will spend my lifetime trying to find a decent balance between all the things I like to do, and probably never really succeed. That is okay, I'm having a good time along the way, and every baby step in each of the areas leads somewhere. It is frustrating at times, to say the least. There are plenty of times when one of the worst bits is trying to pick the thing you are going to spend time on. Sometimes the weather will help you make the choice, sometimes time and circumstance will help you out (if it is 3am and you need to pick something to practice and everyone else is sound asleep, something loud is probably not your best choice, as one example.) Energy levels and focus can play a factor too. If I'm really physically spent, going out to the forge might not be my best bet. Carving is probably a better choice.

There are times when you realize that there are things you've pushed down the list for too long. Not that they aren't interesting anymore, just that they have been less immediate. And the balance shifts again.

One good example of this that is glaring at me just now is drawing. Drawing – or at least being able to sketch almost coherently – is actually pretty important in most of the things I do. I'm really pretty bad at it, and I know so many incredible visual artists that it takes a lot of muster for me to put pencil to paper. My partner came up with a great solution. (I may have talked about this before.) He realized that one of the things holding me back was that fine line on that glaringly beautiful white expanse of paper. I got intimidated by the page. After a dinner at one of those roadhouse restaurants where they have kraft paper on the table with a cup full of crayons in which we were discussing design ideas and I was doodling with abandon, he came up with a manilla sketchpad and a box of crayons as a gift for me. It worked like a treat for a while. I spent hours doodling in the pad, and came up with a few not-too-shabby design ideas that were rendered in a fairly coherent manner.

For the last long while though, they've been gathering dust by my corner of the couch, abandoned. I realized the other day that it's been so long since I put anything into my shop sketchbook that I wasn't sure where it was. Probably not a good sign. Not that I haven't been making anything, but I certainly haven't made any notes on it or drawn any of the things I've been making. So while I've gotten better at stretching and practicing my fiddle, and made some strides with getting out to the shop I haven't done a lick of carving or sketching for months on end.

I'm beginning to realize, though, that that is okay. Things have their seasons, and as the wheel turns everything gets its time. I'm not abandoning anything, and sometimes, I find that the space of a rest has let the the information I gained in the previous flurry of activity settle into one more notch of understanding in both my brain and my hands. I can't give everything an hour or two a day – there just aren't enough hours in the day, nor do I have anywhere near that much energy. So everything gets its turn, and each skill gets built (sometimes frustratingly) slowly, but it increases nonetheless. Sometimes its about remembering why you are doing it and most especially, not comparing your progress to the skills of others.