Creative Constipation and Collective Clutter

Creative constipation...writer's block...the funk...whatever you want to call it.  I have been suffering from it since I went back to my old job as a proofreader.  My job did me in mentally (loosing my mind),emotionally (pissed off and frustrated), physically (hand in hand with the pissed off and frustrated went the blood pressure...yes Dr. T, I know you want tons less stress in my life) and artistically (completely in the toilet)...again.

Art pieces have sat collecting dust upstairs.  Half created necklaces are waiting for me to pick up where I left off.  My studio looks like the Luftwaffe blitzed it!  Materials are everywhere and have been sitting there for months.

Interestingly enough, once I quit the old job this week (due to reasons really not worth talking about) the creativity has come back almost overnight!  Bits of paper scraps, napkins, binders are being filled with ideas for steam punk to dainty flowered jewelry designs.  Ideas for PMC (precious metal clay) clay jewelry are buzzing in my mind with almost everything I see inside the house and out.  A drive up the canyon, to the lake, a walk through a littered parking lot...a;; of if is blowing around picking up speed like a twister.  I'm watching   a storm of swirling ideas flow through my head onto paper and then through my fingers through different mediums.

Currently I have been working on a number of items all at once.  Winter time is knitting season for me.  I knitted over 30 hats for both children and adults and donated them to the local United Way before Christmas time.  Since then, there has been afghan for our newest granddaughter, a rug which I am currently assembling in a sewn circular style (think rag rugs) using cotton yarn and a French knitting dowel.  The pattern is in variegated blues to match my kitchen.  Then there is the third and final panel of the afghan I am knitting from various leftover balls of yarn...think Joseph's coat of many colors and you've got it!

Today (and probably the rest of the week) I will be going through my loose bead boxes, sorting beads into colors and bagging them for our move which will come this summer (details to be provided later). They can then be further sorted and stored in their old vintage jars and bottles later for use at the mountain. I prefer old cork bottles and vintage jars for storing beads rather than those neat little parts boxes or storage drawers.  If I can't see it, it doesn't spark my imagination.  All those bottles range in size from as small as an inch tall to 15 inches high...fish, a cat, canning jars (new and vintage), an old snake oil medicine bottle, perfume bottles and other vintage glass vials.

Beads of glass (new, vintage and antique), bone, wood, stone, Lucite, plastics,  porcelain, clay, seeds, polymer, rose petal beads, and metal, once bottled, will share space with jars of embossing powders, pigments and paints.  Leather, steel beading cord, lace, feathers, hemp and cotton twine, lumps of beeswax,  wool fleece, embroidery flosses are carefully packed in boxes, shrouded in tissue paper waiting for their new shelf space along side tins of shells, beach stones and glass, tiny gears, found bits, bubble gum machine toys, gold leaf, and other bric-a-brac.  Stacks of paper...parchment sheets to clippings is neatly stored in a box by the bookshelf.  Jars of inks and quill pens, brushes, fountain pens, Prismacolor pencils and old watercolor pencils share a spot next to the various rulers and templates waiting their turn to be packed.  My compass from college is still in it's old blue pouch,and is lovingly placed back in the old green tackle box from when I went to college at Utah Tech.  The various bleached animal bones have already been packed away.

My studio has been (and will be again) a literal wizard's cave of magical items waiting to be pulled out and added to the cauldron of creativity.

Packing is now consuming my life, but in a good way.  I am finding an unbelievable lot of things that I can really do without, as I'm sure most of you can sympathize with.  We collect things...can't part with some little useless item just because someone gave it to us and we sometimes even can't remember who it was!

Do I donate them to Deseret Industries?  Do I garage sale them?  Do I eBay them off?  Some have been given to friends and family. Some are being recreated into art pieces and those are being carefully packed away for their future re-invention or renovation.  Don't worry, Lissa, the spitting gargoyle candle sconce from Notre Dame is coming with me!

Since my marriage to Terry, moving back to Utah and perhaps just age itself, I have discovered that my decor tastes have changed tremendously.  A lot of the darker aspects of my life have been replaced with lighter themes.  Even my black and darker colored wardrobe is gone.  Black may be slimming and classy...but it's also depressing as all heck! 

Greens, blues, purples and pastels have entered in the mix.  Teddy bears (statues and the stuffed) elephants and frogs have replaced many of the more dire Gothic art pieces that were everywhere. My tastes are still Victorian but less...... funereal.   My creative rainbow still stretches from solid dark to eye blindingly brilliant, don't mistake me.  It's just that I can now go between the two extremes instead of being stuck at either one end or the other.

I am feeling comfortable in my old skin again...flabby and wrinkled as that may be...it's still MINE!