Ugh, Caught A Cold

Bleary, itchy eyes and enflamed throat, and a Riverdance of Elves with ice picks dancing inside my head. So it's tissues and tea for me today. And that not yet released noir, called , ironically, The Little Sleep. Which is what I had last night.

Very funny.

Crawling back under the covers 'til the shivering stops. Forcing juice and liquids and looking for good drugs. Something that will kick a little ice pick wielding elf butt.

Late Night Emergency Editorial Meeting

""What is a village but a cafe, a school, a pharmacy, a bakery and a city hall? "~ Daniel Perry owner of the Cafe du Crucifix in Crimolois

My editorial staff convened a late night emergency meeting after reading this disturbing article in the New York Times yesterday. French Cafe bars are in trouble. The French are drinking in their homes! Pinching euros. And saving time. I am sure some productivity coach is behind this all.

According to Edouard Etchverry, known simply as DouDou, times are tough.

"He pointed to a customer sitting alone at a table drinking a glass of tap water. "That's our new customer!" he shouted. Then he turned to a group of bank employees at another table and said, 'You see, they got 386 billion euros from the government, but they can't spend a cent when they come in here!" "

I am sure he gesticulated along with his words so you should probably shrug gruffly, slap a clean damp bar towel on your counter and let out an exasperated sigh to get the full effect. Furrowing brows could work too.

We have furrowed brows here. Staff and I. The demise of the cafe bar in France is unbelievable to us. Why? The demise of culture and art , literature and general idea generating conversation. Might as well say, we're unplugging the internets, only real. We see the potential crumbling of culture and society as we know it.

In London however, the Sloan Rangers have returned to their center of culture, thanks to new cafes, museums and concert halls. Hm. Business is booming. Maybe there is some British cultural initiative afoot. Or maybe there is a a back plot to all this shift of money and bruhaha ( love that word). Maybe it IS possible to be too productive and frugal in a hurry , hurry world. Hm.

Staff and I are thinking. This week's Zone is Archives and Personal. That means we focus ( while still painting) on the documentation area of the business, content, narration and maintenance of the work. And any personal things that need attending. (Correspondence, personal projects, maintenance, like that, ) We think that somehow we need to do something to show our support for the cafes. Half my ideas come from cafe time. Still Perkin" was my alternative studio/ office / living room back in the hood. I am worried that we are over scheduled, over efficiently working our way right out of everything that actually makes culture, well culture.

I do not know what I can do yet... but I am thinking...Hm, there is a cafe at the Nasher...and it is a holiday weekend..NO way would I go to a mall on Friday, but, I could go to a museum cafe, or even one in an arty center. Yep. Putting it up there as one of my 3 Most Important Tasks this week.

How about you? Spent some cafe time in a cultural center lately? Huge Return On your Investment. For all of us. Take a friend.

Purple Showed Up

Purple came on to the scene yesterday, I blame it on Kelly's party boots. And Brush and the gang are all wanting to be hip like these guys in the video. Me, I am just sticking with the paint. But later, I am taking five to see where my character is now, in the novel, don't cha know. Last time I saw her she was in a nice warm bath sipping Napoleon brandy. Which is sounding pretty doggone good at the moment. Should there be snow flurries outside? Hm, dunno.

So while I am being lead by my buddies here, and while I splash in the paint, dip into the words and doodle away, I hope we all remember to find some Naughty to get up too... Like who's handing Remy that towel and refilling her brandy snifter? Pen's not saying yet...but we are looking forward to finding out.

Augh Brush, I got the berets already, you want those pointy shoes and skinny pants, too? AND the glasses? You know Elvis Costello has already done that look. How about something more like Paris, you know cafes', poets, handsome writer men...? Yes, I 'll buy the brioche...Oh, Pen if you dance in the fountains, you"ll catch cold, and you've been watching Fellini again haven't you? Pencil, where's Pencil? Practicing the Tango? Sheesh, when it flows, it flows. C'mon guys we have work to do...yes, you can still have the brioche.

Go on, get Naughty. Like Vonnegut says, we are dancing human beings. So go do some dancing yourself.

Brush Won Yesterday

"To me living and music are all the same thing. And I keep finding out more about music as I learn more about myself, my environment, about all kinds of different things in life. I play what I live. Therefore, just as I can't predict what kinds of experiences I'm going to have, I can't predict the directions in which my music will go. I just want to write and play my instrument as I feel."
~ McCoy Tyner

Thoughts like these are why I love listening to jazz musicians talk about their work. Somehow in the articulation of notes with keys and reeds and strings and sticks, they have words down, too. And when words fail, they have scat. Sound words. Which is kind of a poetry of rhythms and glides, of hip and of hop across a tune.

Brush and I went hippity hop across some more space yesterday. And in some spots we had glide. We had short jumps and some sizzle. Look at that red. It just had to be heard. And we scooted on over to fly with some yellow before we dipped into the blue. Pencil was keeping a beat on the drums. Pen kept quiet, but smiled, bobbed his head with the beat. Tapped his toes. And today they all want berets.

Yeah, silly, but we're just listening to the paint here and this is where it went.

Spaces In Between

"We are dancing humans."~Kurt Vonnegut

I am not painting this painting, it is painting me. Really. I think I am sitting down to do one thing and marks come out, a color calls. That's where I go. It is echoing the novel writing. And like scenes in the novel, or the draft of one, one mark leads to questions, and then more. I puzzle, but I don't worry about the answers....yet. I just keep putting the marks down. Pure color, a call and a response. These are the spaces in between.

Ever since I saw an interview with Kurt Vonnegut last week, one phrase he said has stayed with me: 'We are dancing humans." He was standing in front of his paintings in a gallery and offering an explanation of sorts. I smiled. This is a writer talking about his paintings in terms of dance. I liked that a lot. It feels like a dance sometimes. Painting has rhythms and movement and some of my work is even done to a specific musical "soundtrack" ( dwarfs not included). This week it is jazz.

Hm. Yep, I can see the rhythms in these. Pure color rhythms.

I was listening to another interview Sunday. This time with jazz great McCoy Tyner. He played with Ellington and Coltrane. Piano jazz. And we all know the thing about jazz is to set up a structure for improvisation. He talked about open chords, with space in between. I have always loved those. I took a few notes, an idea for a piece. Made a note to self to get more of his music. It does nice things to my work. So the rhythms and colors here make an abstract sense to me. Echoed by his words. I've set up a structure on this piece, but these spaces have a mind of their own. A music that seems to be playing, asking me to just go with it. Okay, I'm in.

Vonnegut and Tyner are with me this week, the colors and marks seem to call, and all I can do is the dance in between. I am just the one with the brush in my hand, responding. And the one with a pen, scratching my head. Not judging, but I do have questions. Like isn't it awfully flat? Where's the depth? Are we there yet? What the heck am I doing? Hm. Time to turn up the music and quiet that kind of talk. Just follow this song til it's over. Then we'll see what we have.

Loaded Brush, Sharpened Pencil, Flowing Pen

“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”~Zen Proverb

What every artist wants is flow. That place and mindset where the chi moves in an unobstructed way onto what's before them. Look closely at the photograph. Those beads of water on the brush just happened to show up. When I discovered them, I smiled. Flow. A simple trio of words came to me this morning: "Loaded Brush, Sharpened Pencil, Flowing Pen." The words came, not all at once. First one, then the next, and later the other. But they are significant . These little guys are all working for me right now. All primed. All good, all recognizable. Comforting. And exciting. It feels really quite fine. And it's because of the writing.

A working artist works, flow or no flow, but when that gift of freshly primed and especially fluent creativity comes forth, we celebrate. And work. But happier. Every artist has to master fluency. We have to become our own best coaches, gurus, and friends because there is every reason in the world for artists to stop. Just stop. What would the world lose after all? But for those of us who know that any other way is wrong for us. We don't. We work through, or pause, or zig to bring the zag ( that works a lot.) There are lots of days of just taking the next step, then the next. You can sharpen pencils, clean a table, take a walk, work through the night if need be. Change a routine, or listen, breathe... and work.

Because that's what everyone who deserves the name artist does. We work. In flow, or out. Whether the work is actually on the canvas, or the finished piece, or in development, we work. Even in our down time, you can bet the wheels are turning, the pauses and the activity, are just yin and yang. So flow, when it happens is as welcome as rain. That's what the struggle, the transitions, the pushes, are about after all. Flow. That's when a loaded brush, a sharpened pencil, and a flowing pen come in especially handy. Very special friends indeed.

Yes, that's them, glowing and getting all big headed.. next thing you know they'll have agents and demands. Oh wait too late. Brush get over yourself...I am not building a cabana...c'mon, time to put that cadmium orange on your tip to work. What? Pen wants to go first? Huh, Pencil, you want to doodle some ? Sheesh... I am all zen and suddenly we have divas.

In Zones

Yesterday I spent some very mellow time listening to local radio and working through some source material. It was a nice way to spend a chilly Sunday afternoon. Between the creative writing and the music, some decent flow is happening. And I can build on that. This is "Active Projects" Zone week on my calendar. That means I bring development pieces to the next step, work hard to bring current pieces along, and in general, pay closer attention to the studio aspects of my work. The artistic hermit is called into play.

Zone System. It's an idea that kind of acts like an assistant/ event planner/ permission giver all in one for the working artist. And is meant to solve that perennial problem we have of not being able to be all things at once. Each week has a name for each Zone or area of focus and I know what the direction is for each Zone because I have my goal setting template all nicely completed for each of these areas. So even though the week may require some out of the Zone on demand actions ( every week does), the majority of focus is still in that particular area. Over the course of a month, each Zone repeats. Bases are tagged.

I found the focus and names for my Zones by looking at the important things I spent untold hours doing. The ones I felt nag at me when I was doing one and not the other. Know what I mean? If I am in the studio, what about marketing? If I am bringing things out of development, what about the finish work? And what about invoicing, cover letters, shipping and cold calling , and building relationships, maintaining the ones I have.... and and and. And at the time those other things, like designing successful and FUN residency projects,and fundraising for my community, archiving, competing, and uh, painting, and going on location, which drives it all...See what I mean? Anxious making. ( And was there anything in there about necessary down time? Or a personal life? Notice that too?) How could I manage them all? Zones. Once I had things fitted into those nice little Zones, lots of that nagging, uneasy feeling went away. And I actually got more done.

So yesterday was a mellow day, ( Just proofing that last paragraph made me flutter. Yikes, there is so much to do) But this week, this week is all about "Active Projects". There are some really cool things that come out of these sessions, the kind of juice that drives the work. Without it, there would be no need for any of the other Zones. No, not one. Brush and I are pleased about the scribbling and the radio. The other things had to be quiet, take turns, so we could go forward once again.

So here we are on Organizing Monday. Paintings need to be finished, To do list items need checking off, and I have some new goodies that percolated up, from the good spot...that would be a happy dance you're seeing.

How do you deal with competing demands on your time and attention? One task until complete, or do you have a system for juggling?