Sometimes we all need some motivation. Sometimes that motivation comes in the form of a hug, a coffee date with a friend, a pat on the back with some encouraging words, but sometimes it comes in the form of a good swift kick in the pants! My sister is always the one to give me the swift kick in the pants by telling me to stop complaining and just get it over with! No sympathy there! But often we are trying to be too "politically correct" and telling a person "its okay, its not your fault, I am sure things will work themselves out" when sometimes we just need to be told to "stop your whining and go fix the problem!!!" (Now don't get me wrong, we all need a hug sometimes. But sometime we also need to flush our self centered whining down the drain!) Last week for instance, I was afraid of ruining a hat that I had spent so long making, but I couldn't figure out how to trim it in a way that it would look well finished. I was so afraid of ruining it. But sometimes we have to just take the plunge. I was afraid of ruining it and this fear was paralyzing. I couldn't finish the hat, I couldn't move on to the next one, it needed to be resolved...the pressure was too much!!!! So I just did what I feared the most...I ruined it! It was kind of liberating, I got out my tubes of Windsor and Newton paints and I had fun without fear! I knew that in the end it would be ruined, so there was nothing holding me back! Sure, maybe I wasted some expensive paints and a whole lot of time stretching that hat to perfection, but good things did come from that hat, even if no one else can see it:
1. I learned that after stepping back to look at the shape that I was so precious about, that I didn't really entirely love it anymore (but that I would like to create a new hat block inspired by that form).
2. If I hadn't have gone crazy with my imagination I would never have seen that the shape looked like paint being squeezed from a tube and now that it was painted I realized that is what the form was simply demanding to become!
3. I realized you can't let fear stop you. Sometimes it ends in a less then perfect fairy-tale-ending. But hey! Now you aren't pacing around wondering "What if this?" "What if that?" "What if I pick the wrong one?" <---this at="" cream="" font="" ice="" like="" me="" shop="" sounds="" the=""> Sometimes our fear of the unknown is more frightening then the unknown its self. And the sooner you conquer it, the sooner you can stop wasting energy on useless fretting and get it done with!
As for my motivation? I am going to do a daily blog Get-Up-and-Be-Productive-Inspired-Motivated-Focused type of post to give myself a little jump start and to stay inspired in my studio practice! My blogging topic shall be: A Dose of Inspiration a Day, Keeps the Hesitations Away.
What inspires you?
Leave me a comment!
Well that's all for now, ta ta darlings!
-JJ
