Thought for this week

As I have no one cause or activity that I am passionate about I find it extremely difficult to blog weekly. This is not to say I am not passionate about anything, this just means that the causes/activities I do have are many and all equally important to me. Since I must write something, this week I’ll write about working as an artist. I have been working with clay since 1988, making both functional (eg: plates, cups, vases, etc.) and non-functional (eg: sculptures, raku, etc.) items. I find it is relaxing and takes my mind off the chronic pain. With the pain however, it is hard to get motivated to do anything especially doing something that can be very physical. But once I get going I feel like the clay absorbs whatever is causing the pain and thus brings some relief to my life.

Part of being a multimedia artist and working with clay is coming up with ideas and ways to execute the work. As a designer, my day job is to be creative on demand. By the end of the day it’s difficult to get motivated and come up with ideas for what to make in clay or draw in other media. On a slow day at work though I can come up with ideas of things to make and sketch them on a piece of paper or in a book that I sometimes carry with me. This helps on those days or weeks that the ideas don’t come and the motivation is low.

So what to do to get my creativity back? The only solution I can come up with is to quit my day job and focus on my personal art full time. No pressure, no deadlines and no being creative on demand for things I am not passionate about or care about. The one drawback to this plan is that I will have to reduce my life style to watching the pennies or I should say nickels since pennies have been discontinued. But I think it may be a good thing as there would be no more stress and no deadlines except those that I put on myself. Working with clay full time is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. I now have most everything I need, equipment wise, to set up my studio. The last two years, spring, summer and fall, I have spent building a wood fired kiln and this summer will be the first firing. I am so excited! It should have only taken me a few months to build, but with the pain level the days were limited where I could do anything but I did it. Of course it was with the help of a few friends and a few family members who knew my situation, how much I wanted my own wood fired kiln and stepped in to help. Now I just have to pay it off as it was not cheap. Now I’m set except for the number of pieces I have to make to fill the kiln and the many hours it will take to fire the kiln around the clock using wood only.  I can hardly wait!