Creative Process « Fridaville

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Be Me

April 10th, 2010

“Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.” William Blake

When I was in the doctor’s waiting room for an hour (yeah, I know they gotta make a buck by overscheduling), I made sure I had something to read to pass the time, and this quote lit up like a neon sign in the beige and taupe surroundings. It gave my spine a tingle. The passage it was quoted in was from a book I’d never heard of called Redefining the Corporate Soul, and the authors write, “Don’t straighten out your curves; they’re what make you stand out from the crowd. Find a way to exploit them, not eliminate them!”. Use what makes you different is one of my rules…live into your quirks and quandaries. For me, that means stop trying to deny my past, but instead, try to use what makes me unique, no matter how unpalatable it might seem at first glance or how embarrassing or how gauche or how white-trashy parts of my background might be. Be me. How easy and simple it sounds, but it’s one of the hardest things I ask myself to do in life.

Posted in Creative Process, writing | 4 Comments »

We Make Love All Day

March 30th, 2010

This is a shot of just a portion of the wall in our art director’s office. It’s almost completely covered with past covers of our magazine, and I realized today when I walked by it how much daily inspiration and beauty it provides. And how lucky I am to work in an environment in which beauty is a requirement. Sometimes I forget how holy it is to be able to follow your calling, to name your passion and claim it. Doing work that uses the best part of you is an act of love — for yourself, your family, your friends, your coworkers — but it’s not always easy to achieve. A wonderful book on this topic is An Artist in the Office (How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week) by Summer Pierre. You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate her suggestions on how to make office life more creative–it’s helpful for anyone whose day job threatens to throttle their real passion. And in the meantime, devote part of a wall to the beauty you want to bring into your life…and watch it happen.

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Tell Me

March 24th, 2010

I read an intriguing post on The Improvised Life blog about taking sabbaticals and what (aside from jobs and money!) keeps us from taking time off to dream and imagine and explore other paths. She posed the question, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Is it doable if we want it enough? I’ve always longed for a sabbatical that someone else paid for, but that has really gotten me no closer to time off, so now I’m thinking about how I can pay for my own sabbatical. A friend of mine suggested that society should start thinking of the first year of retirement as a sabbatical, a deliberate and planned pause instead of a full stop. A pause for renewal before starting the next phase of your intellectual life versus thinking you’re being put out to pasture. But I wish we could all, no matter where we are in life, have periodic sabbaticals that are kairos intervals, in the sense of holy time or a special time of opportunity. Creating an inviolate, sacrosanct time for ourselves in which to reflect, read, walk, write, regenerate is just as important as taking the kids to Disneyworld, heading south for spring break or having a frantic, antic Christmas. Tell me: What would you do if you had a year off, where would you go and what would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Posted in Inspiration | 6 Comments »

10 To-Dos This Week

March 21st, 2010

1. Cultivate one fresh, green idea. Not just the dull, rusty I’m-in-hibernation green of my frostbitten jasmine vine or the I-might-be-dying green of the bamboo plant I’m nursing on my porch. I want sap-running green, neon green, spring-onion green…tender green shoots promising succulent, tasty projects.
2. Make a map of my day, inspired by Sara Fanelli’s book.
3. Download something inspiring to listen to on the way to work, like this.
4. Make a 7-song playlist for the week. You can sample my choices here.
5. Dress with more creativity instead of resorting to black on black every day.
6. Have a conversation with my conscience and work on one thing that will make me a kinder person.
7. Believe someone is going to rock my world in a good way this year. Please, no rocking my boat, only my world.
8. Love my wrinkles. Or at least be good friends with them. Okay, maybe shake hands with them and have a cup of coffee.
9. Think sexy thoughts. Absolutely necessary for creative mental juiciness.
10. Go fishing for deeper friendships instead of waiting for them to jump in my boat.

Posted in Fresh Ideas, Lists | 1 Comment »

Lack

March 11th, 2010

There’s so much blah blah blah about how fashion magazines distort a woman’s self image, but I know I’m not going to be able to fit into or afford anything in Vogue. Shelter magazines and design blogs are a different story. I want the lives they suggest are possible to be lived in those gorgeous rooms. I leaf through Elle Decor and think my bedroom would be a haven of peace and serenity if I only moved all the furniture out and painted the floorboards white–you know, Swedish style in South Carolina. And oh yes, I need to distress the white chest sold to me as an antique (also known as junk) whose drawers only open half way. I have to inch my hand in to drag out a pair of tights, but it’s vintage. On less minimalist days, I lean toward Bohemian Hippie Rich on a budget, but if I tried to create a mood wall of photos and art like the one on the magazine page above, it would look like one of those pitiful homes of a hoarder that pop up on the news every now and then. All grimy and random, not artful and studiously casual. And the rosy wall paint that references stuccoed Italian villas out of Enchanted April? It would look like Milk of Magnesia no matter how many times I went to Home Depot to remix it. Today, nothing in my life fits right, nothing is magazine-worthy. Not the living room walls (did I really choose Spearmint?), not the sheepskin rug (it looked so good in the magazine!), not the the wires hanging down from the TV and the multiple hideous cable boxes (I can’t commit to a flat screen wall installation because maybe I’ll give up TV or move it to another room) and especially not the thrift shop bedside table with a blue mirrored top (I’m sorry, but you’re so ugly). A friend of mine says this is a necessary stage you have to go through when you’re trying to change your life or shed your old skin. It’s like being between dress sizes — nothing fits and everything sucks. And all you can see is lack, not how lucky you are to be transforming.

Posted in Creative Process, Truth Serum | 3 Comments »

Waking up is hard to do.

March 11th, 2010

Driving to spinning class this morning, I thought about how my life is a constant battle against falling asleep. Not in the bedtime sense, but in the one-life-to-live sense. It’s so much easier not to exercise, not to practice drawing, not to read a difficult book, not to think about my own mortality, not to start a scary project, not to take my camera out on a photo safari, not to meet new people. The soul wants to be awake, but it’s an ongoing struggle not to drink the waters of Lethe and indulge in a gentle forgetfulness, a spiritual indolence. After all, that other stuff is hard work and I always want to start it manana. I’d like to think my sluggishness is due to a thyroid problem (everyone I know is taking Armour Thyroid supplements) or to a lack of Adderall (although I wouldn’t turn it down), but in my case, it’s just that it’s so much easier not to do. Easier to think about writing a book than to sit down and type a first sentence that might be “As a child, I learned in school that our state was known as the Dark and Bloody Land in the struggle between Indians and settlers, conquered and conqueror, and that’s how I thought of our family battleground from that time on.” Easier to chatter over drinks about how I want to do a self-portrait out of newspaper and acrylics and found objects than go home and start it. Easier to pull the covers over my head than to face what’s lurking in my own Shadow.

Posted in Creative Process, Enlightenment | 5 Comments »

What if they laugh?

March 9th, 2010

When I get ready to unveil anything in a public way — whether it’s an editorial in our magazine, a blog post, my Pecha Kucha presentation — I get cold feet, and behind the stage fright is the middle-school fear that people will laugh. At me. Maybe they do, but it’s never happened to my face so I don’t know why the fear is so intense. Evidently the reaction is not all that uncommon when people try something new. In Brainwashed: 7 Ways to Reinvent Yourself, Seth Godin attributes this to our lizard brain, that prehistoric part of our brain responsible for fear and rage, the part that resists change, urges us to stick to what we know, warns us not to stray off the well-traveled AAA route. Every bold thing I’ve ever done in life has always been accompanied by the lizard brain refrain that I’m bound to fail, fall on my ass or get laughed at for being presumptious or pretentious or just plain pitiful. I do have an inner redhead, but it takes an awful lot of coaxing to get her safely past that fear-breathing dragon. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

Posted in Creative Process | 3 Comments »

Is It Time Yet?

March 3rd, 2010

I’m thoroughly hibernated now. Sure, I’ll grudgingly crawl out of my nest of flannel sheets and Barefoot Dreams blankets to go to work, but I can’t wait to get home at night to a book in bed. This morning, I hit a new low, going to Starbucks with my pajamas on under my long winter coat and my hair looking like it had been brushed with a wooden spoon. Ugh and Uggs. Even Wendy, the barista, did a double-take. On the way there, I noticed that despite the cold and nasty weather that seems to drag on like a Russian winter, things are on the brink of blooming. Are the cherry tree and jessamine vine crazy? Don’t they know they’re in for shivering in the wind for awhile, with the added chance of ice storms and freak freezes? But blooming, whether it’s a flower or an idea, comes on its own schedule. In fact, the work is being done all through the winter of our souls, just aching to burst forth in some spectacular display of color, symmetry and dazzling artistry. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I struggle to birth new projects that don’t even have names yet, that won’t be safe from cold spells and high winds that test them and try to shake them loose from their tenuous hold on life.

Posted in Creative Process, Inspiration | 1 Comment »

Morning Meaning

February 28th, 2010

Do you ever get tired of the morning routine of wake up, shower, shampoo, brush teeth, dry hair, moisturize and maybe makeup? Sometimes I wonder how to be more awake to life when I walk through the same monotonous steps over and over every morning. There’s one morning ritual that I almost look forward to though — using the squeegee on the glass shower doors. I love being enveloped in hot steam and water and then wiping the slate clean before I step back into the world. While I’m in the shower my wanders lazily and daydreams furiously about projects I’ve started or want to start. From the inside looking out, the room, the day ahead is a blur, a mirage. Taking time to clear the shower doors with the rubber blade prepares me to cross the threshhold into the day, to take those ideas and dreams out into the world where they might gather shape and form and color. A tiny meditative practice that adds a bit of meaning to my morning. Do you have a ritual that prepares you to meet the day?

Posted in Fresh Ideas, Home, Senses | 5 Comments »

5 Rules for Life (subject to change)

February 24th, 2010

I love the blog called 5 Rules for Life and decided to make up my own. What would yours be?

1. Don’t confuse your soul with your ego. We’re not the press coverage that our minds are always producing about us. We’re not the impression we’re trying to make on strangers. We’re not the center of the universe.

2. Test your behavior by trying to see it though another person’s eyes. We get locked into automatic reactions to situations (I’m hurt, I’m mad, I’m right and you’re wrong), but sometimes it’s illuminating to hear ourselves through other’s ears or imagine how someone else views our behavior. Doing this has pulled me up short at times and made me reconsider knee-jerk reactions that I tend to have about certain topics.

3. Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean you have to love them or even be friends with them. It just means you release both of you from an embrace that has become a death-grip.

4. It’s okay to love beautiful things. An expensive purse can make you feel better, especially when it’s a rare and special treat and not part of a string of endless self-indulgence.

5. Meditation really works miracles. It’s really hard, but it really works. It still amazes me that you don’t need equipment, classes or special accessories to learn how to do it. And you can do it anywhere. But I have to remind myself of that at least once a day.

Posted in Enlightenment, Inspiration | 3 Comments »