Monday, September 10, 2012

The Creative Process

or How to Make a Mess



By nature, I have a very analytical, logical mind, and the arts such as painting and drawing are not easy for me. I don't seem to have a vision, as many artist do, that I am able to translate into a beautiful creation. But that doesn't mean that I don't like to try.

What works best for me is starting with a group of objects and to create something from them. For example, I sometimes make beaded jewelry and my favorite way to do this is to start with a mixed bag of beads. I then see what combinations of shapes and colors please my eye. Also I need a pattern to knit, but I like to try different colors and textures of yarn. And I think I have mentioned before that my favorite way is to cook is to make something with whatever ingredients are on hand. That is how my creative process works. In other words, I'm not a visionary artist. I'm a make-do-with-what-you-have artist.

The problem with the make-do-with-what-you-have artist, or at least the way I work, is by the time we try out all of the combinations that we want, our work space in is chaos. You might call us the entropy enforcers. Things would probably work better for me if I stopped occasionally, and sorted out and cleaned up my work space. Then I would better know what I'm working with.

But what would be the fun in that? It would be a lot more fun when I'm done because the clean up takes so long. However, I guess all artists have to suffer. Sigh...








8 comments:

  1. My favourite way to cook is to make up recipes with what I have on hand as well :)
    Just letting you know I nominated you for the Beautiful Blogger Award because I love reading your blog, especially the Second Look posts. And I love seeing your cats.

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    1. Thanks for the nomination Kale. I am flattered.

      On another matter, this weekend I made kale chips and I thought of you.

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  2. Hi live and learn,
    did you sneak into my dining room and snap a picture? My dining room table often looks like that. No sooner do I get one older mess cleaned up, but there's anew one budding! At least the dining room is being used, is how I see it!

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    1. I can live with a lot of mess, but the table has to be cleaned. A couple of more projects ended up on this one, so it is really mess. I have been trying to put things away a little at a time. By the end of the week, I hope to be done.

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  3. Oh wow ! Our cats look identical !! I cannot work with clutter on the table, it drives me insane and I get nothing accomplished.

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    1. That cat is Leo. We also have his litter mate, Annie. They look so much alike that sometimes we tell them apart by their behavior. Maybe your cat was separated from them at birth.

      I generally like to have things organized around me. However, that usually falls apart when I am "creating".

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  4. Finally someone names the way I work as well "make-do-with-what-you-have-artist" doesn't matter if it's food, crocheting, painting, refinishing furniture I'm the same way you are.

    I love the collage, want to come do some artwork for my place?

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    1. Thanks for the compliment on the collage. There is a change I would make to it if I could, but after gluing down hundreds of little pieces of paper it's not possible. If I did this more often, I think I might get better at it. However, I make a big mess and don't do much of anything else while I'm working on one, so I can't start another one for a while.

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