darkest

darkest.  might have gone a bit overboard here, but I’m okay with it.  One of my long term goals is to have a framing station somewhere in the house, or have a studio large enough to have a separate area for that.  Then I could just head over to the spot and mat something without clearing off a space and getting out the equipment.

But honestly, that’s not a reasonable goal considering my current space limitations. I share a medium size room with my husband.  I have a reasonable amount of space in which to create small to medium sized pieces.  Large pieces not so much.  A more realistic goal would be to organize my half of the large closet in which I keep my art supplies.  I saw a blog in which an artist went to IKEA and completely revamped her space.  It was Tracey Fletcher King, check it out.

But even that is not a goal for just yet, next month or this Summer, but not right now.  An even smaller goal that feels manageable would be to add some links to this blog, artists I love, useful things for artists.  Spiffy up the blog a bit.

I’m reading the book called “This year I will…”  by M. J. Ryan and it’s all about motivation and how people work.  There’s a Japanese concept called “kaisen” in which you make tiny incremental changes.  The example the author uses is that of an industrial line.  You might move one trash can one foot to the left, making a small repetitive movement faster.  It’s sort of like how I keep a small pencil box and a sketchbook in my purse now, so that I have basic supplies at hand.  How can you make a series of tiny changes that add up to something bigger?  Well, that’s why I’m drawing 15 minutes a day, isn’t it?  And I wish someone had told me 5 years ago what a powerful practice that could be, because I truly didn’t believe that I could squeeze my art into 15 minute increments.  So I gave it up for a while.  And psychologically, at that time, it was true.  But now I see that if 15 minutes is all you have, then 15 minutes added up over the days of a year becomes something indeed, a practice worth having.