Today and yesterday I’ve been having so much fun arranging the community art space here at Starshine House / Trailhead 501.
A few days ago when I was sorting through beads and fabric for just a personal project, it occurred to me I think for the first time that straightening and arranging supplies isn’t just a necessary thing for order. I actually think it might be part of the creative process. In other words: In the process of straightening and ordering and categorizing, we come into physical tactile contact with our creative supplies, and this contact generates seeds for different projects.
Also on a somewhat related note, it makes sense to me why raking sand, stringing beads, etc. can be so beneficial for the mind calming and also for creativity.
In today’s rushed world, a lot of people tend to keep their creative supplies (if they even allow themselves to have such supplies), tucked away and not looked at for months or years.
Then when a tiny window opens up in the hectic schedule, we try to get the supplies out to do one specific project, but we get annoyed and frustrated with ourselves because things don’t turn out looking or functioning in a way that we feel happy with. So then we put away the supplies again in their cramped, opaque boxes or cabinets until months or years later …
I’m realizing that, at least for me, I need to just allow myself to sort and categorize without actually “doing a project.”
Just having fun having tactile contact with beads and fabric and all that. Oh, these guys are all the same color, let’s put them in this container, and these fabric pieces which I don’t have an immediate urge to use can go in this big box at the back of the craft shelf, whereas these things that are calling me and I might want to use this week should stay in the clear container front and center etc. etc.
And it seems to be something a little bit more than what I had always assumed it was, which is that if I haven’t gotten my creative things out for a while, I’m “out of practice” and that’s why the project effort falls short.
But the other day it occurred to me differently: Instead of it just being a matter of being out of practice with my tools and materials, I actually think it’s an insufficiency of tactile interaction.
This is a very liberating realization. It takes a lot of pressure off. There’s no pressure to create some perfect item each time. Or even to create any kind of item.
Which is a good thing, because we’re living in a world that’s pretty chock-full of items.
On a related note, I feel like in days of yore, a lot of people’s art urges got channeled into basic daily everyday household items. And I find a lot of beauty and reverence in that. I really enjoy creating or embellishing ordinary household items as opposed to creating something that is “only” a piece of art.
In the generalized ye olden days of yore, I feel like putting a touch of beauty into ordinary objects enabled people to channel the creative urges we all have. And, not incidentally, it brought much-needed beauty into what otherwise would’ve been a pure drudgery life.
Nowadays people go out and make a bunch of money so they don’t have to do old fashion toil and drudgery. And yet, hasn’t it ended up just becoming a different flavor of drudgery, and we often don’t even have every day handmade beauty to draw on, unless we can manage to carve out the time and space to create a bit of beauty. The embroidered flower or initial on a towel; the handmade stencil images on a wall; the handstitched koozies made out of the beer- and soft-drink-company gimme koozies that litter the streets after a festival.
(That said, I love art and always will, even if it’s not functional art. Actually, maybe all art is functional, in that it wakes us up and helps us access our hearts and recharge from the grind. Not only the making of art, but also looking at art made by other people, including both contemporary people and people in other times.)
Looking up from this typing, I see a beautiful jar of beads. They’re already strung, they’re part of basically the whole inventory of a small bead-shop. (A treat that I purchased a few years ago after coming into the life-changing sum of money that I used mainly to buy this house.) A nice local lady was selling them on Facebook or craigslist or something.
I’ve had as much fun using the beads and findings for decorations around the house and outdoor trellis-rooms and such, as I have had making necklaces and earrings and so on.
Same with my fabrics and threads.
Art supplies actually make kind of a pretty decoration in themselves. I clump little groupings of things. Oh hey, there is a still-life waiting to happen! Maybe I’ll make a painting of my jars of beads, sitting just so in the afternoon light.
You can see some pics of one tiny minuscule scintilla of my bead collection over here.
Whether or not it turns into a necklace or a scarf or whatever at that moment, just the process of touching the supplies is it self a valid and joyful activity.
By the way, speaking of another one of my favorite arts — not long ago I found out that a relatively high proportion of ecological landscapers come from a background of arts and literature and humanities, as opposed to, say, “official” landscape architecture or botanical sciences. It’s almost like beauty and ecological consciousness are connected … <wink>