small transitions

Well, I would have liked to think, by reading my last post, that I would have documented several of those great Austin places/spaces as well as shared some other work and thoughts by now. But no, it was official- I realized it just yesterday... I have been in one of those creative funks. The kind that has you running around, expending energy and frustration, but accomplishing nothing. I think it came on with the completion of my show deadline- when I took a step back to re-access my work and work through new ideas *bam!*- Funk. All ideas feel fruitless, pointless and overwhelming to accomplish. It all seems to be a cyclical process of meeting one deadline and locating another.

I have noticed several stages in getting out of this mental/emotional space. Stage one is list-making... begin to list all of the things that I would like to do, and all of the things I need to catch-up on (tend to ignore house-projects, etc... when I am focused on an art deadline). This process goes through several incarnations. Then, head out to the studio and begin to play with new materials and create some new experiments, while continuing an older idea as well. Then say, "forget it!" and focus on reading a book and some extra exercise for a couple of days. Try to refresh without feeling anxious and guilty for not being in the studio. Then, just as quickly as it came on, it lifted this morning... new energy, new ideas.

Finally, really working in earnest on the #MailArt project through twitter... have been experimenting with batches of handmade paper for this project... photos to arrive soon.- hopefully a large batch of postcards will be completely finished by the end of this week.

In the meantime, I also have a large wrought iron gate to weld back together, a silk window cover I have been saying I will finish since last summer, and I promised my boyfriend I would paint his guitar for his birthday. That was, well, two years ago, I think. (to my credit, I was back in school and did get him a different birthday gift as well :))

So I will be busy moving forward. And will be drinking copious amounts of coffee, I believe. And while I ponder my own frustrations, excitements and ideas, there are riots happening in Iran. I am feeling like my own little funk needs to give it up- there are much bigger issues in the world.