run amok

To run amok is to behave in a wild or unruly manner, and I am not one to fit that description. Though I may seem completely normal, at least for me, my mind has been on overload lately trying to come up with new items for my next arts and crafts show. It isn't that I don't have any ideas. It is that I don't have the time to create them all!

What happens is that I conceptualize a project and then start to run through it step by step in my head. I eventually gather supplies and begin. I soon find that what I thought would work, doesn't. What I imagined would be easy, isn't. And my self-imposed deadlines are extended again and again. I find myself thinking about my art when I'm supposed to be doing other things. I become distracted as my mind keeps wanting to take up where it left off in the creative process. I wake up thinking about what I can do differently today. I bide my time, trying to engage in meaningful conversations as if I have nothing else on my mind, and go about my business pretending that all is well, but all the while my mind is trying to solve the issues that present themselves in this project I want to create.

I've always been a daydreamer, doodling on my paper in school when I was supposed to be learning math; looking out the window at the trees when I was supposed to be listening to a lecture. I've been accused of doing nothing while staring out the window. I may appear to be half asleep but it is at times like these when I am most awake! Most of my writing is done in my head before I ever sit down to write. My projects are like that as well, forming themselves in my thoughts before ever manifesting themselves in real materials.

I then get the chance to work on my project and I fail. I try something different and it too falls short. I know that I need to stop for today. I also know that as soon as I walk out of this room that I will continue to think about what I can do to make it better. It isn't as though I'm working on a cure for cancer or solving world hunger. I'm not inventing something to better our human condition or even worrying about what is for dinner. I'm only trying to come up with something that may bring a little joy into someone's life when that person gives or receives this thing that I've been inspired to create. I would like to think that it will make someone's day a bit brighter. And that is enough for me.

playing with tools

Here's something you may not know about me. I like to play with tools. Not big, manly tools like power saws, but daintier tools like power drills and hammers. Today I spent at least a half hour looking for my exacto knife. I've been trying to figure out how to combine the bolt of leather I found at the Salvation Army, the really cool paper I just bought at the AC Moore store that is going out of business, and a short prayer I wrote last summer into a small art book I can sell at the Farmers' Market. I was also able to purchase a nifty heavy duty punch that promises to punch through all sorts of things. I can hardly wait to try it out!

Not sure what it is that excites me so much about doing this sort of thing since I spend most of my time sewing or writing but I think it is all part of the creative process. And as I'm getting more used to the idea of being an artist, ideas just materialize and I start turning one thing into another. I have already turned two separate bed springs into a display rack and a "tree" to hang my items on. Now that I'm working on creating small birds I'm thinking of having birds perched on the wires. I want to string button garlands through the springs and have these tiny books taking their place on this evolving artwork. I can see the end result and I like it!

Time has been suspended while I've been working in here. I am shocked to find that entire hours have gone by in what I thought was minutes. I now have to re-enter regular time for awhile, but as soon as I can, I will come back to play.

a toast

When I was a student at Michigan State, I had a friend named Arch who used to tease me by saying that I was only there to get my MRS. degree and if I ever did land a job he hoped I knew how to make coffee because that is what I would be doing. Though it would be several years after college before I would accomplish the first part of his prediction, I was in charge of making the coffee at my first job out of school as an executive assistant at a very small mortgage lending company in Denver.

The other thing Arch used to tell me was that someday I should write a column, call it "melba toast" since my nickname at the time was "Melba" and simply write about what happened on any given day. Since Arch lived in my co-ed dorm, he was one of the people I could tell my tales to over dinner or somewhere on the brother floor where I had been made an honorary member. It was a real conversation starter to show up and say, "You will never believe what just happened to me" and continue on with the telling of another strange set of circumstances. My life would be played out in vivid detail as the storytelling went on, allowing others to be entertained in spite of misfortune.

Although melba toast in its flat, dry and tasteless form is not anything to talk about, my life tends to be a bit more interesting. So here's to you, Arch, wherever you are.