Things have been a little crazy, and last weekend I had a mini-mini-breakdown. I was surrounded by messes--my craft room was a disaster, my sewing area in the dining room was a disaster, my workspace in the garage was a disaster. I felt completely overwhelmed and briefly considered giving up crafting and taking up housekeeping instead (that's the breakdown part).
I sat down and spent a little time journaling about how I could get myself together, and of course, all the obvious solutions presented themselves: stop buying so much stuff, sell some of the stuff I'll never use, and get organized. But what I kept coming back to was the fact that most of the messes seem to come about because I'm always so rushed, running from one project to the next, tossing stuff around, and generally working in chaos. And the solutions to these problems, once I thought about it, seemed so incredibly obvious:
SLOW DOWN.
TAKE A DEEP BREATH.
ENJOY THE PROCESS.
That whole rushing thing is not particularly enjoyable, and why else do I make time to do all this if not to enjoy it? It's not like I have commission deadlines to meet, or a show to get ready for--at least not most of the time, and those are special circumstances that would deserve a little consideration. And, I realized that the process of crafting encompasses the entire lifecycle, from getting out my materials, to creating, to cleaning up after myself.
I've been doing much better with my philosophy in place. I still have heated moments of inspiration where I find myself tossing piles of fabric around to find that one perfect hand-dyed shade, or moments of exhaustion where I'm just too tired to put those fabric pens back right away. But altogether, I'm enjoying the process--the entire process--much more now.
“Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.” Erich Fromm
4 comments:
I SOOOO identify with you on this one! But I've come to the conclusion that I just work messily and have spells of working crazily and piling stuff on top of each other and then spells when I don't do anything.... But tidying up occasionally helps as well!
Holy cow do I hear ya!! LOL! My whole house is in such a mess because just about every room has something for my business in it! I'm also a lampworker and I just love your handdyed fabrics! I so want to move to have a place in the backyard for my studio to get it out of the house! LOL! I do need to get this place cleaned up and more organized than it is one of these days! Good luc with your organizing!
Thanks for the comments, Liz and Anne. I agree, Liz--my resolution to clean up after myself lasted about a day and a half. Everything is a mess again, but the good thing is that I have to sometimes clean up BEFORE starting a new project since I need a place to work.
Anne, I'm a lampworker too, though I'm not doing it now; I took the torch out of the house because the constant smell of propane was making me very nervous. It's too hot (and messy!) in the garage, and I need a backyard studio too! Of course, that might just be one more space to clutter up . . .
You are going to be so sensible in future Michelle, or are you really ? I think you're just like the rest of us, so just decide to forhet about the mess and enjoy what you're doing :).
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