I let the post routine slip a bit and I'm OK with that! I thought I'd just recap all the creative things I did in the last couple of months. I was doing a sort of long service leave / sabbatical while still working and doing my life, working 4 days, doing pottery on Wednesdays, taking a break from rosters at church, slowing life down. I think slowness has been a theme or an aim of the months. I think God is slow, in that he has the eternal view so a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day; and in that I don't have time to relate to him unless I'm slow. I've been having slow mornings this year, which has made it a lot easier to pray, and sets me up for a less stressful day. I even heard that literally slowing down your movements calms your nervous system. It's a challenge.
I went to a little art thing that a work friend was doing at the botanic gardens. I wrote on these postcards and gave them to my bosses. When I finish my pottery experience, I would like to get back into oils and watercolour. Even just small studies like this are beautiful and mindful.
My first ceramic project was this coil pot! It was smoothed on the wheel, carved, glazed, so it took a month or so altogether, but I LOVED making it. I had some ideas about what I wanted to make last term, but I went along with the learning process and made what worked - just going along with it was a good process. In making this, I tried not to overcook it. It took its own shape, when I trimmed it I stopped when I liked how it looked rather than conforming it to a curved bowl, I carved a design that started freestyle and ended up being inspired by soil structure, the whole experience was a great way to let the process flow rather than be productivity focused or have a goal and force it.
Not every week was so mindful. Sometimes I cried, like my first attempts at throwing. Or when I had bad traffic, ran late, and was anxious to get things done. Sunflower lady has a good radar and offered me a hug.
Not my creativity, but I went to the quilt show at Tocal, because that is high quality craft and very impressive and beautiful.
A colleague wanted to go to the Albert Mucha exhibition in Sydney, and since he was driving, that was a great way to do a daytrip and see and learn about an artist I recognise his work but hadn't studied. He started from a commercial background and transitioned to fine art loaded with political and religious symbols.
More pottery - slip casting. A bit too easy to get caught up in a fast production line. But it gave me a great number of small pieces to explore the glazing process without worrying about ruining something precious from the wheel.
A Saturday arvo in Morpeth, revisiting the gallery, looking at the orchid exhibition,
A long weekend in Brisbane! First stop, The Nest.
A Friday daytripping around Brisbane and buying shoes, and a Saturday in Toowoomba at the flower festival.
Also the meuseum in Toowoomba has a floral artist exhibition, I can't remember her name now, and she was racist so I don't approve her as a person, but her floral illustrations are like portraits of flowers but still like scientific illustrations.
Sunday in Brisbane after church I smashed out a big section of my ancient knitting project. Sometimes you have to do craft when you don't feel inspired otherwise they just don't get finished.
I started sewing recently as well, even though I didn't feel like it, I felt like I should make some baby clothes before all the babies grew up. And once I got things started, I kept going, I was on a roll and I decided to use up as much fabric as I could on small pairs of shorts, thus culling my stash of useless small pieces of leftovers, and making very cheap christmas presents! I also made myself the brown rainbow dress, it was $5 m sateen from the Nest.
The end of term - I held an exhibition in the office! My colleagues have been delightfully interested in everything I did each week!
Once it was the school holidays, I pushed myself to really make a mess - I did the sewing, which spread out over weeks instead of being a single weekend then wrap up, and I got out my leftover clay and did some handbuilding.
It's so easy to put creative things off. They make a mess. You need to make and remake things to get better so it doesn't feel worth it sometimes. You save it for the weekend then the weekend is busy. You will do it later. But you just have to get into it. My first win was coming home from Pilates on Saturday and getting out the clay and starting making a thing for 90 min before I had a late lunch. My biggest achievement was leaving work at 3.30 on a monday, and doing 4 hours of clay and sewing before bed!
To finish, I've been finding encouraging pearls to inspire my creative process here and there. I shared this article with another beginner in my pottery class. https://janetasantesullivan.substack.com/p/honoring-our-beginner-stage
"Instead of relying on muscle memory, our work flows more freely and authentically—whether it’s art, writing, or our first day on a new job—allowing us to tap into unfiltered creativity and genuine enthusiasm that can often get snuffed once we become seasoned.
"What if we celebrated and valued our beginner selves just as much as our experienced selves? Why do we think that only years of struggle and grinding can validate our creations? Maybe there’s a unique worth in the raw, unrefined way of being and doing that comes from our initial attempts, a purity that deserves recognition and appreciation."
