not waiting for snow

Nearly 2am, and I'm awake, having fallen out too early last night.

Word has it that snow is on the way, and I always seem to be awake on nights when snow is expected. I'm usually waiting for it, but not tonight. Tonight I'm just awake.

I did a figurative sculpture of a woman a few days ago. Unfortunately, I had already decided that she wasn't a particularly good piece by the time I got to the hands and feet, so I just slopped my way through that. Ends up I like her pretty much, except for her deliberately rushed extremities.

It was my patience that got the better of me while I was sculpting her. I didn't have it in me to focus on the fine details necessary, and I had already convinced myself that it wasn't going to turn out well, overall.

The critic is a nasty thing when it comes to creating, and mine has a very loud voice.
What do you do to silence the critic?

magnificent dullness

When I start writing, the critic sits on my shoulder, correcting my grammar, and whispering about how uncreative I'm being. In the workshop I took with Emily Hanlon, she called the critic, the Ick... and icky it is! She also spoke of the Muse, which can conquer that Ick any ol' day.

This is just a blog, though, and like a journal, it is where the everyday gets dumped out, and I'd like the critic can suffocate beneath that dump.

I started this blog, in part, because I want to speak of the creative, and how it resides within the mundane. To quote myself, it is a "magnificent dullness".

Learning to read the sky, on an ordinary day, is a most extraordinary thing to do.

first ladies

The first lady (from around 1999-2000) I made sits behind me on a piece of chapparel. Her head is as big as her boobs, and there's a raw freedom in her disproportion and fingernail markings. A swift creation, taking no more than an hour, she looks right at you, in anticipation of the Ladies who will follow.

The second lady, my Muse.

I was about to take a writing workshop with Emily Hanlon.  Things to bring included something to represent the internal critic, and something to represent the muse.  For my Muse I chose this lady (the one in background).... the same rough qualities of the first, she concentrates her gaze upon her hands and her crystal.  I sit her beside me now, so that I remember what means to have new eyes, unphased by imperfection.... indeed, embracing it, and letting in the real freedom of the creative.