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Procrastination is not healthy…or is it?

by Filed Under: Photography 3 Comments

At least not chronic and habitual procrastination.  Honestly I haven’t met anyone who procrastination was good for in the long run…but in the short term, sometimes I think it can be a good thing.  Right now though I find myself severely procrastinating beginning the work to move.  I procrastinate when I am totally overwhelmed and right now, that’s how I feel.  I don’t know where to begin in theory but in reality I’m avoiding DOING what I need to.

My list doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter because a lot of what I’ve accomplished so far is invisible stuff!  Like making phone calls, sending emails, researching, running errands…today though I’m beginning with the deep cleaning we need to do to get the house ready for showing.  Cleaning is usually a good place for me to begin when I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s physically demanding, task oriented and has visible results!  I know for some people cleaning is a reason for procrastination.  For me though, I’d rather start whatever big job I have to do with a clean slate, so cleaning helps me get motivated.  I’m not saying I love it just that I know what to do to get myself going.

Sure, I’d rather be sitting outside enjoying the remaining days of summer but alas…too much to do and the weather today has turned decidedly fall like today!  I did take a little break today from all the moving madness to swing by my garden and pick a few tomatoes, tomatillos, sunflowers and pull a few weeds.  The garden isn’t done yet, summer isn’t over yet and we are where we are for the moment.  In the midst of the chaos of moving I am making a promise to myself to stop, procrastinate a little (as needed) and enjoy the last of the time we have living where we are.  The packing and moving will get done!

What tricks do you have to motivate yourself when you find your in a procrastination zone?

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Moving Magement Countdown

by Filed Under: Move Management, Organize, Organizing Projects, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 6 Comments

It’s official: we found out today that we can leave the DC metro area by the end of October.  This is about a month sooner than anticipated, but it’s PERFECT!  It seems like things are falling into place, that this move is meant to be.  I can’t wait to move forward, but right now, I’m looking at all OUR STUFF, thinking, “I hate moving.”  That is not going to be the case this time. I’m embracing it, and I’m going to love it!   I’ll check in each Monday here on the blog to tell you about the move management process.  So, this week is the first week. Here is what we are doing to plan and organize our move, and maybe it will be helpful to some of you at some point.

  • Start a “Moving” binder or expandable file folder to keep all the information in one location. Include everything related here (e.g., the moving information, donations, sales and giveaways, storage, lodging, and other information for the destination location).
  • Use food, cleaning supplies, and other perishables or consumables you don’t want to move.
  • Check pricing on moving companies, trucks, and storage facilities and be ready to book in 1-2 weeks. There are several options: DIY, hire a service or a hybrid (you pack, they move).
  • Make decisions about large items to sell, donate, or give away. Collect items to get rid of (for donation, sale, or throw away) throughout daily routines; keep an empty box and bags in one location and place items to get rid of.
  • Research hotels or other temporary housing and book as needed.
  • Enlist or hire help for the day of the move and unpacking the following days.

Moving BoxesPacking Supplies:

  • Locate and purchase boxes and other packing supplies. Determining the number of boxes needed is a bit tricky, but a moving supply company can help you calculate this based on how many household members you have and how large your home is.  Supplies will include the following:
    • Boxes in various sizes, specialized wardrobe boxes, china and silverware boxes, flat boxes, and cardboard for artwork.
    • Equipment such as dollies and hand carts will make moving large items much easier and safer.
    • Packing tape (and guns), markers, labels, box cutters (or other such knives), bubble wrap/packing peanuts, and newspaper (or unprinted newsprint, which is much less messy).
    • Packing pads, blankets, sheets (the old ones you don’t need anymore), and plastic shrink wrap (which is not very eco-friendly but sometimes is very helpful!).

Lists and Inventory:

  • Number each box and add it to the list
  • A short description of the contents of each box, making special notes of valuable (sentimental or monetary) items or general contents by Category ex. Lampshades, pillows, linens, china, clothes, etc.
  • Label the box with the DESTINATION room location
  • Work alongside packers (if you’ve hired a moving company) to be sure boxes are labeled accurately (even if they don’t have a description, you can add a number and room)

Packing-Where to start:

  • Pictures and artwork, especially personal photos
  • Next, remove all the small artwork from the walls. Pack smaller photos and artwork in medium-sized boxes, with newsprint wrapped around each and bubble wrap or cardboard between them.
  • Small decorative non-function items. Otherwise known as Nicknacks:)
  • Formal china, stemware, crystal, and serving pieces.
  • Books of anything you won’t need to refer to.

Since the move is going to take up a lot of my time, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to commit to blogging, but I’ll be popping in to share our progress and any other helpful or interesting things that come up. I am SO excited!! Can you tell?

 

At Work in the Studio With::Penland Artists

by Filed Under: Art, Inspiration & Education, Photography 56 Comments

For quite some time now I’ve been contemplating how to merge my love of art and design and my passion for organization.  While I was away at Penland I found a little seed that’s germinated and has been pushing it’s way slowly to the surface.  In that wonderful nurturing and creative environment I spent a lot of time walking around and observing other artists, their “studio” (albeit temporary for most) spaces and the work being created.  One particular evening we were visiting the Resident artists studio’s and the idea really struck me to start a blog interview series with artists about their sense of or lack of organizational skills and how that affects their work.

Above and Below::Studio space of Jewelry Artist Jeong Ju Lee

Above and Below::Studio space of Daniel Marinelli

Below::Studio space of Textile Artist and Weaver Robin Johnston

Today I’m bringing you the introduction to this new series.  I can’t promise how frequently I will be doing interviews, much of that depends upon who I’ve come across and their willingness to share their organization or lack of.  For many artists and creative types being organized is just not a big priority and often staying organized is a struggle.  Revealing this to the world may not be something many artists are willing to share.   So many people continue to feel embarassed or asshamed about being disorganized but I am here to say that EVERYONE struggles with organization in some area of their life (or has in the past).

Above and Below::Studio space and workshop of Woodworker Tom Shields

Upon speaking with many artists though I’ve come to realize that for all of us there is a cycle to the way we work.  We carve out a space, gather the materials we think we might need to begin and we dig in.  For some creators they need to end each work day (or session) with a bit of re-organizing and tidying up.  Others will continue to work right along side the ever growing piles of detritus, materials, abandoned projects, dishes, tools and whatever else accumulates.   Some artists can go days, weeks or months before they feel the need to stop and tidy up again.  What prompts this action?  Is it the completion of a big project or a feeling of distraction or getting stuck?

Above and Below:: Iron Forging workshop

Above and Below:: Woodworking workshop and workbenches of student artists

I wonder for each of us, how does the order or chaos of our working environment impact the artwork we create?  When you look at someone’s artwork is there any clue as to their working methods?  Could you venture to guess if they are organized or dis-organized?  How does our environment help or hinder our creations as artists?  These are all questions I am interested in exploring further as we meet other artists and discuss their working methods, see behind the scenes into their working spaces and perhaps learn some organizing tips from some of them.

Above and Below:: Metal Casting studio workbenches of student artists and the instructor

Above and Below::Studio workspace of Bookmaking student artists

Above and Below::Studio work spaces of Letterpress student artists

Above and Below:: Studio work spaces of Encaustic student artists and instructor

As I wandered from studio to studio observing and speaking with artists about how they work and taking photographs I found that most of the time people tried to tidy up when I asked if I could photograph them and or their spaces.  “No” I said, I want to capture you the way you really work.  I really appreciate the willingness of all these artist to allow me to share their working spaces with you here.

Above:: studio workspace of fellow surface design artist Kathleen Bennett Bastis

Call to action::If you are an artist and feel you are particularly organized or dis-organized and want to share your working practices and space I’d love you to comment here or email me.

Above:: studio work space of my instructor Jason Pollen;>)

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Thoughtful Thursday::Running Away or Moving Forward?

by Filed Under: Uncategorized 1 Comment

I let the cat partially out of the bag in a previous post so it’s time to let it all the way out.  Mr. Powers and I have made a BIG life decision to move, out of the state and sometime in the next 3-6 months!  We have been thinking about moving for a year and a half at least now.  Each time we go on vacation we look at the housing market, talk to people about what it’s like to live there and consider the possibilities.  Some of our friends and family have probably heard our ruminations about moving to their town and have been let down by the wolf cry…but none of those places have felt right and we always had a major reason why it wasn’t the place for us.  The following are some of the things we have taken into consideration as we’ve made our decision:

  • Do we know anyone that lives here?  Friends, family or both?
  • Have we visited more than once and if so why?
  • What’s the weather like? I tend towards SAD so can’t deal with soggy or freezing or dreary long winters.
  • Oceans and Mountains are a plus!
  • West coast, not in our budget and we want to be close to family mostly on the East Coast.
  • Don’t land lock me, I’m not a mid-westerner.
  • Decent economy, colleges, tourism and other industry nearby.
  • Lower cost of living (and lower taxes a plus).
  • Not too small of a town, not to big of a city…looking for just the right size.
  • The South has it’s appeal, we’ve lived in various locations and liked the slower pace.

So, based upon the above did you figure it out?  We have decided upon Charleston, SC!  We’ve been there many times over the past 12 years or so and many times we have said to each other that we would love to live there.  It’s finally time, after considering numerous locations mostly in NY, PA and NC we finally made our decision about a month ago.  I have to say that going to Penland and experiencing a break was the final catalyst!

I’m ready for a little more of this!

Frankly, we never thought we would move back to the DC metro area but the almighty dollar and a promising job made us change our tune and I certainly don’t regret it!  Being back in the DC area has given me the chance to reconnect with old friends, spend time with family, visit New England, NYC (a lot since my brother lives there and my former job took me there for business) and generally appreciate the wonderful diversity of culture here.  BUT, we just don’t feel we “fit” here an  longer, isn’t that strange for someone who was raised here?  I’ve tried to find my tribe, really I have searched but they are not here!  After having lived in various other locations and now having returned to the place I was mostly raised I feel it’s time to move forward.

“When your reasons to move forward outweigh your excuses for staying put, you will move forward.”-Ralph Marston

When I tell people now that we are moving I always get the inevitable question “oh did you or your husband get a job there”…NO!  Each move we have made over the past 17 years has been for either a job or school.  For the first time in our adult life we are making a decision based purely upon freedom of choice.  It is so liberating that I think everyone aught to do it once in their lives!

I’ve thought long and hard about weather we could make it work here and if we are just running away but I can honestly say now that we are not.  We haven’t “Failed” at anything but we’ve made certain choices and in order to continue to live those choices we need to move forward, to a different location.  It’s that darn simple!  I am soooo excited about this big change.  It is scary, moving to a new place, moving a fledgling business and my husband’s construction business but it’s going to be worth it.

We have good friends who live in Charleston and right down the road in Savannah too.  Mr. Powers parents spend their summers not too far away (close enough for weekend visits but not close enough for daily drop in’s).  I love the ocean, it soothes my soul!  I miss the slower more relaxed pace of the south (my Daddy’s from Bamma I must have inherited some southern genes).  We don’t have our date fixed yet but the family and friends have been told and so far seem supportive!  Over the next few months we will be doing some serious downsizing and I’m beyond ready for this!  We will be selling, giving and throwing stuff away.  Loosing the extra baggage is going to feel great.  I’ll be posting about the process of moving, making choices to get rid of things and how it feels as we go.  I hope you will continue to stop in to see where we are and how it’s going.  If you happen to be one of my clients reading this, have no worries, together we will come up with a strategy to transition you to another organizer or continue to work with me long distance (via Skype, phone or internet consulting and coaching).  Moving is pretty major but when it’s moving forward there’s nothing to feel but excitement!

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” Henry David Thoreau

 

Textile Tuesday::What I made at Summer Camp

by Filed Under: Art, Inspiration & Education 5 Comments

Now that summer is almost over and school’s back in session I need to wrap up my experience at Penland.  I’ve been writing for the last few weeks about my whole experience  but haven’t really posted much about what I made personally.  There was more experimentation than finished product but I’ll be sharing some of my creations.  I took with me my sewing machine and, several bins of materials (paper, fabric, threads, inks, brushes and more) even though I knew I wouldn’t use it all.  I wanted to have enough variety for whatever we ended up doing since I wasn’t quite sure other than “mixed media” surface design.

Lets begin with some of the more informal exercises.  As I mentioned in my previous post here, we began working on black museum board in an 8″ x 8″ format.  We started with limited supplies, gesso, inks and colored pencils.  Here are a few of them in progress on my large almost 10′ x 3′ (fabulous!) work space.  Man I loved having all that room to spread out!  I was able to get messy and still have room to work!  I’m going to start talking more about this subject here on my blog because I became a little obsessed with observing how other artists work, are they neat and orderly or totally messy?  At what point do you stop and clean up your space because it’s too messy?  These are some of the questions I started asking fellow artists…but getting back to the class:)

Some of the pieces above came home with me unfinished and I’m continuing to work on them a little at a time but below are some details of completed pieces.

I loved how expressive, spontaneous and painterly these exercises were.  I found working on the black background both challenging (seeing colors in a new way) and liberating (leaving my “typical” color combinations behind).  I thought that the square format would be good for me (i.e. challenge me even more) because one of the things I really wanted to explore at Penland was my understanding of composition.  Sure, I’ve got degree’s in art but my past 12 years as a designer of repeat patterns has stunted my ability to create artwork with “proper” composition.  I found this out as I began to explore photography.  As a designer I tend to center or repeat things out in a certain manner so I wanted to throw that aside while there and focus on understanding composition better. 

Another very fun and liberating part of the class were the quick 15-30 min exercises we spent each morning exploring a certain mood, idea or expressing a feeling (these were centered around the discussions of various Astrological signs).  I had gone with certain expectations of this class (I tried not to but inevitably there were some) and I didn’t realize how much expressive drawing and painting we would be doing.  Some of these exercises were quite large in scale (compared to 8″ squares) and I enjoyed the movement involved in creating these!   Sometimes you’ve got to get your body MOVING to make ART!

We continued to work on these quick exercises at the beginning of each class almost to the end.  Sometime after the first few days we began to explore other ideas and expand beyond the small format and black background.  That’s when we started (not the whole class but some of us) experimenting with rust dying on fabrics.

We did a whole batch of scraps to see what kind of results we liked and from there I decided to create a silk scarf using the rust dying technique and some shibori pleating.  I had particularly liked the results of a couple of pieces of metal from our experiments so I used them to wrap my pleated scarf around.

Since this was quite a large scarf I used 2 pieces of metal and pleated and rolled from both ends to create different effects on both sides.  Then I used a wire that would rust to secure the whole bundle.  

This is what the bundle looked like after 24 hours and before I unwrapped it.  Promising but a little un-nerving.  There’s something exciting about the juxtaposition of using these industrial rusty, dirty metal pieces to “Dye” this beautiful delicate, “precious”, pure white organza silk!

I’m so glad I photo documented this unwrapping process!  I love the swirly shapes created by one particular piece of metal and once this was un-pleated and unrolled completely it would never look exactly like this again.

This is how it looked completely unfolded.  I love the results and it’s got me hooked on rust dyeing.  But wait, I wasn’t finished yet!  I decided to take this another step and I over dyed part of this with a coffee/tea stain using a bound shibori process to resist a large portion of the scarf from being dyed.

I let it dry and in the meantime spent some time trying to learn how to create a rolled hem with the appropriate presser foot.  I wasn’t pleased with the results so I decided to bring it home with me and create a hand rolled hem to finish it.  When I got home though, I decided to do a little more experimenting with the machine rolled hem and to my surprise I was able to find a great tutorial and with a little experimentation I was confident it would turn out successful so I bravely finished the two ends (the sides are selvedge edges).

I am totally happy with the results of the finished scarf and I have plans to create more, similar pieces in the future!  I’ve always loved shibori and dying but have been hesitant to continue to use chemical dyes as I get older.  I’ve experimented enough with them over the years but I don’t want to prolong my exposure to them.  The process of rust dying opened my eyes to a whole new medium to explore, along with other natural dying processes.

The finished piece has been over dyed with the coffee/tea stain on one side which created a beautiful grey which occurs naturally as the tannins in the tea react to the rust.  The neutral colors of this scarf are so versatile and sophisticated!

I may finish this piece off with a few beads at the ends to give it a little extra pizzaz but nothing flashy.  I love the simple beauty of it.  As you can see there was a lot of exploration and self expression that came out of this class for me.  I’ve got some other bits I worked on as well that I’ll probably share down the road but this give you a good idea of the amount and kind of work we did within the two week class.  It was fabulous!

 

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