Artist Blog by Sheep Incognito Artist Conni Togel

Tag Archives: creativity

What We Do When We Aren’t Doing Things

Inspiration for the day

What We Do When We Aren’t Doing Things

As an artist, downtime rarely happens at all – whether we are driving on days between shows, or printing between shows at home, or getting set up for the next show, we hardly ever just sit and contemplate what we might want to be doing with our time.
So what DO we do when we aren’t working?
Working.
But, because work is fun, it has become not only work, but a hobby, a life-style, and the things we love to do most. We usually will walk along the beach looking for findings for jewelry creations. Or look around the desert for some cool rocks to wire-wrap or include in a new mixed-media piece of art. Or we will be looking at other artists’ websites to see how other artists create. Or, we are watching inspiring movies that usually spark new ideas.

It has become a lifestyle to see the little unseen things in the world. A little girl pitching a fit outside our booth becomes a little grumpy flowerfairy from the woodlands. The sunset becomes the color palette for a new landscape painting. The store we are visiting to purchase a clothing item becomes the inspiration for a new texture we want to add to some paintings…so while yes, we will occasionally sit on our behinds, we draw inspiration from everything life surrounds us with.
Happy things that make us smile. Stupid people that make us cringe. Stories that make us laugh. Clothing that transforms the wearing one. All are now part of what makes our downtime into worktime – we never clock out.
Which is why we love being artists.

Inspiration for the day

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Office Work – Is the death of artistic creativity….

After spending most of my day working on the paperwork associated with running an art business, I have decided that I am not made of the stuff that it takes to be a “paper pusher”.

The two brain hemispheres that it requires to be both a creative artist, and a business owner/tax filer just do not work well together. I can keep my desk rid of piles of random bills, receipts, invoices, show applications, sales records, to-do lists, and idea sketches. I can answer emails in a timely manner, and I can get all bills paid, all taxes filed on time, and have everything neatly sorted into my filing cabinet. I can post daily on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram, Etsy, and my website.

I can also break out my pallette, sketch out a brilliant idea for a painting, lay out my colors, pick the right brushes, dance with the brushes in hand, turning a blank canvas into something that makes people happy, sad, or silly. I can evoke emotions adult people had long forgotten.Taking pictures along the way to share with my followers on Facebook. Gathering Ideas for a grownup children’s book. Coming up with new titles, new color combinations, new projects to work on. I love doing that.

What I seem to be NOT able to do, is to do both processes together, without compromising the quality of either part. My desk is usually a mayhem of various papers in varying stages of “dealt with”. Paintings – I usually have about ten standing around unfinished, abandoned, or not even started yet. Projects – I have a list as long as a diving board, with not enough time to even get started on one of them.

How do you keep it all rolling smoothly without dropping the ball on either one? It seems as soon as I devote time to one side, the other falls apart. I’m frightened of the day the IRS decides to audit me – how will anybody  be able to find anything or make sense of any of it?

I’ve found that the more I work on the office/business side of things, the less creative I become. It seems to be a downward spiral…

If you are of the creative sort – how do you keep track of everything without losing the ambition to create?

 

 

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