I have come to the conclusion that I never jump into a project with as much enthusiasm as I do when I am doing it in avoidance of another project.
I didn’t just conclude this.
I probably first noticed it fifty years ago, when a homework assignment took on monumental urgency and importance when faced with the job of cleaning my room.
Or, vise versa.
I probably spent several years in denial…convincing myself of the necessity of one thing rather than the other…justifying the clear hierarchy of task importance.
I think I finally spent time pondering it long and hard – and thus finally concluding it – while trying to avoid some other pending deadline.
(Maybe I have A.D.H.D.!)
I have been pretty lax in my blog writing, lately. I planned a blog to say that I have recovered from my “funk” and thank you all very much for your kind and generous thoughts…but I went right from my “funk” into a “fit” of activity that left me no time for writing anything.
(Manic-Depressive?)
It started with a desire to get my bedroom in order.
No, it started with a string of writing commitments.
I had agreed to write an article for the Spring and Summer Newsletter of the Beaver Island Association. Another for the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative. Plus reports for the Northern Islander, the Beaver Island Forum, the Beaver Beacon and Beaver Island News on the Net on the Archipelago Meeting I attended in Lansing last month.
That got me thinking about getting my bedroom organized.
Which led to the necessity of digging out the (non-working) vehicle that I use for storage (a sort of garage-on-wheels), to get to the shelves I had stashed there. Which led to the decision that the shelves that really belonged in the bedroom were the ones holding cookbooks and gardening books in my kitchen. What followed was a scenario worthy of a full length feature starring Laurel and Hardy.
The kitchen bookcase went upstairs. The kitchen wall got a fresh coat of paint…which forced the decision to put up the nice white shelves that used to be on that wall (because weren’t they just the best?) despite the fact that three of those shelves were now working shelves in my studio, and two others were employed as my desktop in the dining area AND that fitting the shelves in the kitchen would involve moving the all-wood 32 drawer cabinet out of the kitchen (wasn’t it always too large for that small room anyway?) and ultimately out of the house (because there is not another spot it will fit!). Which means that I had to build a new desktop, cut new shelves for the studio and empty the contents from thirty-two drawers!! I have only two shelve up in the studio, as all of this re-structuring left me short on shelf brackets, and they won’t get to the island until the first boat runs in April. I have the contents of 32 drawers in boxes and bags on my kitchen floor. My dining room table is laden with overflow from drawers and shelves and desktop. Ditto, the kitchen counters. The bedroom is possibly the only room “in order” at this moment.
(Crazy???)
Soooo…faced with all that, of course I got very inspired to get busy in the studio…and then to blog about it.
I’ve been totally negligent about posting art on Thursdays for months now.
In fact, though I’ve had quite a few things underway, I haven’t gotten many things finished in the studio this Winter.
Faced with the disaster I’ve created around me, art-making took on epic importance.
It is Time Out for Art Thursday, after all!
cindyricksgers 