I Am This Woman

A while back, I wrote that creativity is messy, in that there is not a linear path from inspiration all the way to execution. Sometimes there are messes to make to get to the good stuff, sometimes it is in cleaning up the mess that one discovers the nugget.

Today and yesterday, I have been getting dirty. Messy AND dirty. How? I’m out in the garage sorting through string, wire, tools, rusty things, dusty things, pots of paint, tubes of glue, rolls of tape, and tangles of tangly things. And it’s glorious.

Ah ha, this tool! this is what my father used to mark holes for drilling! Ah, this is the old drill, requiring NO power cord. This is the screwdriver set with the wooden handles that he made, from reclaimed doweling and found screwdrivers when the house next door was built and the workers left a trash pile.

What in the hell is this tool? it’s something for the car because it’s greasy. Black and greasy.

Oh cool, another clothespin and a rubber band. Perfect for making a tiny clamp for glue drying.

You can bet that the cleaned up workbench in the corner was quickly filled with new projects and piles of things to sort out and weed through.

Yes, it does my heart good to simply clean and sort this mess, get my hands dirty, and make plans for future projects. This is part of my grief work, I suppose, reclaiming the happy hundreds, even thousands of hours I spent in the garage with my father and brothers.

I can’t wait for TigerWhelp to come home.

There have been many many blog ideas come and go in the past few days. I cannot spend the time to do justice to any of them. I’m leaving for Africa on Monday, and my experience with international travel is that, despite global economy, it is unlikely that a Walgreen’s will be on every corner. Plus if there is a “chemist shop” or “Apotheke” or “medisyne,” things will cost a gazillion poker chips and I’ll only have the blue ones and not the required red ones. So if I want a band-aid, it’s good to have one on hand. We are also taking an emergency jar of peanut butter. If all else fails, there is some kind of bread wherever we might be stranded, or we can eat it with our fingers.

So here are those blog ideas, in raw kernel form, for the silo:
I Am This Dog: a little spiel about Lucy and how she’s fitting in. How she’s not anything like Sasha Queen of Dogs, who had a great sense of humor but was a bit standoffish. No, Lucy is more like the Elizabeth during the reign of Bloody Mary, all obsequy, compliance and sweetness, with hidden fire. However, she, like Sasha, will lick up the bathwater on the edge of the tub, and then proceed to dry your arm off as well.

Ruby Red: the magic of clicking with creative people when there are just enough ruby red martinis in the room. I attended a mediabistro.com networking party, and found immediate creative juice with people who work in my field, though not in my industry. It was quite fun, and I have some new contacts to develop as I proceed into my freelance career. (Ruby red martini = vodka and ruby red grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed, shaken and strained with a cherry.)

RTFM: I succumbed to reading the manual for my new cell phone. It’s not that I have teh dumb, it’s just that some engineer somewhere makes the decision of where to put things in the menus, and it’s NOT INTUITIVE. Please please have the person who writes the manual also help out with these menu decisions? KTHXBAI.

Hide the Stash: (No, not THAT kind of stash.) My yarn stash has been dominating the bedroom for quite some time. It’s calling to me, tempting me to start new projects, acquire new product, seek new patterns. ENOUGH. I call a HALT. The stash will be lovingly organized and labeled in bins, tucked into closets and drawers, and the works in progress will be at hand for those moments of knitting enjoyment. I run the stash, and don’t you skeins forget it!

There might be another blog post before departure, but with the list of things to do growing and things not getting crossed off, my attention must be elsewhere. I may or may not have connectivity on the journey. Either one will be good. And yes, there will be perhaps 500 to 1000 photos, if I know myself. Might even take a film camera to give the lad something to do with his hands.

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Collecting things and putting them into artful arrangement is uniquely satisfying - this is the very definition of collage. But that’s a final step. First, there must be the sourcing and collecting.

I’ll discuss sourcing later, but first collecting. Humans quite simply LOVE collections and collecting. You can find a collector’s group for almost anything. Archaeologists stake their careers on the collecting habits of ancient folks; museums are temples of collected works. Anthologies, compendiums, lists of lists, memoirs and coffee table books attest to the power of the collection.

I work in publishing, so for me, reading a magazine is not the pleasurable pastime that it might be for others. I notice the editorial and advertising, the fonts, the layout of a page, of the book, the special advertising sections…

BUT when I get magazines and “read” them with scissors in hand, I enjoy them so much more. I cut phrases from advertising, callouts, titles. I swatch textures and interesting images. I crop and re-crop models, landscapes for a new feel to the full-page photo. All these bits and pieces go into a huge pile from which I draw when I sit down (usually later) to make a collage.

I don’t think too much when I’m leafing through. I just let my brain take over and I listen to the inner creative spirit. This part of me is already digesting the pieces of the magazine, and then putting them together again to take on the intended meaning. So as I page through, with scissors in hand, I don’t work so hard to put the pieces together as the editors intended, but instead look for the hint of a suggestion that a color or line or texture or turn of phrase might someday recombine in an artful way for new significance.

The little bits go into a stack, which is then stored in a page protector and filed away for the next time I sit down to make a collage. And that is another process entirely

Sometimes, I do read an article before I cut into it. I also have a clip file of collected articles that I want to read again or share. (I collect those too!)

When you think of what it is that you enjoy collecting, see if you can determine what quality or sensation drives that impulse? Is it color? line? texture? Is it tactile or olfactory? Is it a mood or feeling? Is it a sense of wealth and abundance? Is it nostalgia?

Whatever the reason, collecting is powerful, deep brain stuff, almost a force primeval.

Everyone knows what happens to a clean litter box, a clean diaper and a clean countertop. In the case of the first two, as we say in Arizona, caca pasa. And for that countertop? Matter will be created to clutter it up. This is known as TigerWillow’s Law of Flat Surfaces. (I’m working very hard to get it accepted by scientists, but there’s this little quibble about repeatable, observable and the scientific method. Hrmpf.)

This morning, I woke with purpose. The purpose-driven day. Clean tables and countertops by bedtime. In order to move on with some new projects, I require the space to get things out and make a mess, but there is no room to make a mess. There’s a big mess in the place I want to make a mess.

This is known as a corollary to TigerWillow’s Law of Flat Surfaces. It is called the Mess Conundrum.

So far, my progress has been to put away the Christmas things, sort through and organize the coffee table clutter, clean off the craft table clutter and sweep, sort and re-sort the kitchen island clutter. Dining room clutter was moved aside (sans the Christmas items that were cherrypicked to be packed in the cheerful red and green plastic bins which are now in the garage), and dinner was served. Right now, a fine game of Stratego is being waged after dinner was cleared.

There again, another example of the Law and the Mess Conundrum. If dinner had not been eaten at the table, there might not have been a cleared-away spot for Stratego to emerge from the cupboard. And if the game isn’t put away properly, there will be no Frog Juice, nor will we be able to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner there tomorrow.

Clearing away, messing up, clearing away. Pendulums, night and day, earth and sun, and housework operate pretty much on the same principle. And that, friends, is pure science.

Judging from the sounds of boys divebombing Stratego pieces prematurely and very unstrategically, I’d say the game is over, and I must publish this entry. Stay tuned for more scientific help to keep life in balance.