My first artist residency and the creative process

The creative process is difficult to pin down and work into a routine for me. I spend most of my time floundering around, unsure of what to do or where to begin.

Working on my BFA thesis show this semester was difficult. It took me half the semester to hone in on what I wanted to do for my thesis, I started out way too broad and general. I was trying to tackle subject matter and imagery that didn't relate to my own experience as closely as I needed to hold my attention. I ended up lighting on the subject of habits and waste, though the imagery still isn't solid. I have managed a couple of prints I wouldn't mind showing in the Spring BFA exhibition.

I'm supposed to be making artwork over winter break, and I've arranged an artist residency in order to focus. My teachers told me to work on my drawing over the break. I've been doing that, but I also feel like I should be coming up with at least one print during my residency that I can put in the show. My problem is I can't think of any ideas. The one thing I was working on is a bust; badly composed, boring, not engaging in any way and not worth my time to carve and print.

I've been struggling with feeling like I'm doing enough during this residency, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is my very first and I will spend a lot of it figuring out how to focus and schedule myself. My creative process is still developing, probably will always be developing, and I need to allow myself space and time for that.

All Things Wound Together

A question:
Am I the creator of the world around me?
Or is the world around me the creator of me?

-(It would seem that this sounds awkward and unmusical and a little bit muddy no matter how I write it.)-

A winding-gliding answer:
I think it goes both ways, I create and am created. The path I take is drawn, but also chosen.

I seem to be a woman of few words today...

This is something I did not choose *grins*


I was reading this blog on a college website the other day, and marveling to myself at the craftsmanship of the writing. It's a little bit intricate, but in a way that pretty well covers the entirety of the subject at hand, I think. It's fairly descriptive and it doesn't float off into the air like almost everything I write, it's solid and occupies its space.

So I am doing my best to pare myself down as a person and reach the very heart of me which I guess also translates to my writing, but it feels like a sort of simplicity and spareness of words that's boring rather than refreshing? *shrugs*
I have no idea, but I do think it links somehow.
I have to try, kinda really hard, to wax lengthy and delve deep into any matter. But I guess that's just how it is with such things, no matter who you are. It all takes focus and determination.
That's not something that seems to come easily to me most of the time, determination. I act like I'm good at it, but I'm not so sure anymore. What have I really seen through to the end?
Mostly I feel flighty and like a shallow dipper, hummingbird drinking from the surface of a small pool.

Musing, not intellectually plotting out and methodically sifting every rock from the sand from the dust. They're all full of universes anyhow...

Understanding all of this, though, allows me to consciously choose instead of merely following a path drawn or dug, I don't have to fall into the ruts of my own mind and experience, I can forge a new path for myself.
(For a minute it looked like that was going to draw itself to a close, but the thread of thought continued and I watched it split once again into ten different branches, all a different color and voice.)
I suppose I enjoy following every little path, either physically or metaphorically, and that is why I don't often like sifting the soil to fine treasures. It all looks like treasure, it's all breath-takingly beautiful and fascinating. So either I want to hold and see every treasure, or forget it all and continue on forward with blinders. A horse and carriage in London, don't you know... That's not fun for long though, so then, I suppose, I enter supernova.

You wouldn't believe how analytical I can be, but that's not all there is. That would be why I try to refrain from "I am" statements. It's all good, it's all me, and it changes so quickly. I've said I'm contradictory before, but it's funny how much more even that means now.
Creator and created, so it goes with god? Perhaps, perhaps.
After all, if we are god, if god is within, all around us, wouldn't god look so strangely opposite, though yin and yang are inseparable? God being inseparable from anything, everything, and Good/ Bad, separated by the human mind with the imposing forward slash, really being more gad, or bood than anything else. Black and white, spaced apart and brought together by the word "and", being more of a beautiful swirl and swoop or gray than the harsh straight line between them.

I'm not entirely sure any of this is following, or rather, leading whatever came before it, because the longer I sit here and type, the more my mind becomes a mess of color and static and my eyes light up with the glow from this strange tapestry that seems to be weaving itself from the movement of my fingers, the dance of my thoughts.
The longer I meditate, or think, for that matter, the more my language dissolves into something purely from that space in my heart that isn't entirely of me but is also the purest me there could possibly be. The more parallel universes and strange dimensions open up into milky galaxies and colors unknown by any psychedelic experience.
I can barely follow myself, so how should I expect another being to? I wouldn't personally know if this is a quandary experienced by all or none. I tend to relate my philosophies to all of the world and human race, and sometimes I don't seem far off, but at others I am quite sure I have missed the mark altogether.


To wrap this whole thing up finally:
As with many of the questions I ask, there are two answers, or an answer disguised as two, when really it is one thing of two colors wound together. Perhaps the question should not have been separated into two itself in the first place.
I would say that I am created by my world as I create the world around me; It is a dance, no one partner doing all of the leading or following.

Learning often takes you by surprise

Since I began school this past week, after a long (though not entirely unproductive) Summer break, I've noticed something: this year, I am able to read whole chapters and sections of my school books at one time, during one sitting. This was unheard of for me last year. I read pages, or small sections of chapters. I didn't have the attention span or motivation to read more than two pages of most books, novels being the exception of course.
I imagine this is partially because I am not holding myself to a timescale, or a certain number of subjects to be completed in that time span. School is all day now,  sometimes even during the weekends. I record all I can, and don't worry about it when I can't. This is also what I did all Summer long, and I think this has established a new, healthier, fuller relationship with my personal education.
The point is, I did not actively try to teach myself better study skills of habits, they've sneaked up on me over Summer break. I have this mindset that learning is difficult, practice is tedious, and the study and subsequent mastery of subjects is nigh until impossible. But this is not the case, learning and the integration of skills and knowledge are a natural and almost unconscious process. 

Society forgets the old and wise, while the young and fresh are institutionalized

As the river flows-

On, or off, The eyes that see-

begin to fade dull

Of prom dresses and eye makeup

Do I now fail to see beauty in mankind and it's works?

No, it is that I fail to see beauty in the facades of mankind.

What do you think?

Six Billion Secrets is a really sobering website.
It makes me want to be an even better person.
It makes me want to rid myself of all surface judgments.
It makes me want to tell I everyone I know "I love you" every day, because I do love everyone.
It makes me want to become the best version of myself right now.
Funny how that works, isn't it?

Strange how a simple movie can change you forever... (would you be proud?)

Weirdly enough, "Inception" was one of the best mind openingly spiritual things to happen to me in awhile.
While watching it, I was facinated, utterly intrigued, my mind had changed dimensions, and it loved the feeling.
After I had watched it, while I was laying in bed waiting for sleep to come, but almost wanting to stay up and run mazes forever, I thought in new an beautiful ways. I touched recesses in my mind that I hadn't known, or, perhaps, had forgotten about. I wish I could remember some of the questions I asked. They were beautiful and finely wrought to experience.

"My heart has become newly wrought over the years, and many times over. My soul has changed trough a thousand different favorite colors." I am always the best person I can be at the time, though not alway the best person I ever been. But it doesn't really always matter, does it.

I can only remember bits and pieces, scraps of torn paper tugging at the edges of a restless mind, but they're almost enough to satisfy, almost enough to fly me off to new worlds.

Why can't I ever remember the things thought at the end of the day?

The soul shines with all of it's ability, but the skin is the only thing that stands between me and the world.

Why do I want to share so much, why do I feel as if I have to share, but I'm afraid others will think I'm bragging, or that I'm placing myself above them?

Nighttime Epiphany. (If you'll pardon the expression)

 I would like to share a profound experience I had last night. It was about a question that has been puzzling me for years, ever since I began to remember my dreams, specifically the ones I had during illness.

* * *

I finally figured out what made all of those past sick dreams so weird. It would seem that my mind had managed to shrink me.

(Yeah, not a very good pic, bit I really think that it describes the dreams well.)

Like a small bug on a knobbly carpet.

But I'm probably getting ahead of myself.
Have you ever had one of those sharp, fuzzy, softly loud, feebly protesting through a frozen body, with heightened senses dreams, whether you were ill or not?
I've been trying to figure out how to describe them, and what makes them the way they are for the longest time. And I think I've finally cracked it!!!!!!
In a number of instances, I can remember giant quilt patterns, huge fuzzy-feeling pebbles, and humungous doorways that it took forever to reach. I always felt minuscule, and everything around me felt wrong. Everything felt strange, and disproportionate. I remember giant distances along almost boulder-like pebble paths. Everything seemed sharp, and it hurt my mind. So I've settled on the startling theory that I had shrunk in those particular dreams.
The one downside to this theory is that I managed to give myself the same feeling last night as I was trying to fall asleep. Big mistake. I felt like the world was falling away all around me, and it was like every particle of my being was amassing inside my head. For awhile I was able to just open my eyes and everything would come back into perspective, and I just rejoiced in finally figuring it all out.
And then the feeling wouldn't go away when I opened my eyes. I started getting a sort of vertigo, and I felt closed of from everything, almost even closed of from the rest of my body.  Almost nothing would make it go away. So I began to pray.
I prayed for awhile, but even just the simple act of opening the prayer eased the feeling a little bit. It helped me feel close to something, someone, that someone was god.

I learned something last night, though I'm not certain as to what. I experienced a profound epiphany. I cracked something that's been boggling my mind for years. In a way, I enjoyed the experience, even the terrifying cut off part.
I doubt that I will encounter anything of it's kind anytime soon.

Theory

I have this theory: The teenage years are when children should be given more freedom of choice and will, this is their time to experiment within the safety net of their parents. It is likely that when they move out, when parents usually relax boundaries and set them totally free, they will no longer have a very secure safety net. The freedom can go to their heads, and they will often make bad choices. They shouldn't be given total control as teens, they still need boundaries, but they should also be treated as adults, with many chances to prove themselves.
Parents shouldn't be completely removed, but they shouldn't hover over their child's every choice and move. Rather, they should let the child know that they are there for them, and should always put down whatever it is they are doing in order to talk. Parents should be supportive, and open to everything their child has to say.

I will probably change this as time goes on. I might add things I have forgotten, or have not discovered yet. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your every insight on this post :)

Top heavy:

In Physics, a top heavy object will not remain stable for long, it will come crashing down, it simply cannot support it self. This can also be applied to the way societies have been built and are being constructed.
Top-heavy societies will always eventually fall apart. The lower classes simply will not long support top-heavy class systems. They won't support societies with a few mega-rich corporate guys, and the majority of the population an impoverished lower class.
What I don't get is very few people seem to have figured this out, let alone our megaconglomeratecorp of a government. It's happened before, in Rome for example. Though Rome wasn't so much top-heavy as overstretched, and I can see this in our modern empire too.
Just one of the things I thought about today.

Mudling, muddling. Puddles of Muddling...

 Why can't I muddle this out? 

Truth is a matter of opinion. There is only love, and contradiction.

A strike from above (?)

I had the funniest epiphany the other day. (Hmmmm, that kinda sounds like something my Mom might say, minus the word Funniest.) It's about balance and stuff like that. You can't create without destroying something, or at least without taking something apart. Like you can't really build a wooden table or chair without cutting down and killing a tree. You can't sew a cotton dress without killing cotton plants and breaking them down. You can't build a stone wall without breaking up a few rocks. You can't make a knife without burning a few trees and melting down some iron (Which in turn was extracted from the Earth.)
I don't know if this works in all cases, but it's kinda interesting to think about.