Rusty Nails and Inspiration

 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

Maya Angelou

Yes, these are indeed rusty nails, 2” with square heads, pulled from boards in a circa-1905 Victorian home. I just purchased them from an Etsy shop. God bless Google searches.

So why are rusty nails so exciting to me today? They’re a demonstration of how much inspiration fuels my work. At 4:30 AM this morning this idea woke me up. The little rusted hand-made paper and wire sculptures I’m currently constructing could hang from rusted nails instead of bent copper wires. I wasn’t even trying to find a replacement for those copper wires! Now it seems the most perfect way to hang them, so I hope it works.

I love these surprising bursts of insight and inspiration most about being a creative. Do you ever experience such flashes of new ideas when you’re engaged in a project?

Here are some of the works in this installation, now nearing the finish line. Will the rusted nails work? I love the suspense of wondering while I wait for them to arrive in the mail.

Urban Wall Art/Creative Muse

 

 

One day last summer I took my usual drive down East Main Street in Rochester to my studio building and this wall mural seemed to just have suddenly appeared on the Fedder Building (I’m sure it took longer!). When I did actually notice it, I did a total WOW-what-IS-this. Now I pass by her every day as I drive to my studio. She has become something of a personal creative touchstone in a neighborhood of old warehouses, rundown buildings and homes divided into numerous apartments.

She is one of many murals that have been painted around the city of Rochester since 2012 through WALL/THERAPY, which its website describes as “a community level intervention using mural art as a vehicle to address our collective need for inspiration.”

And inspire my three-story lady does. Perhaps she is not quite the face I might have imagined for my creative Muse, but that is exactly what she accomplishes for me each day I gaze up at her while I drive  past. She does more than just lift my spirits, though, she radiates a transforming presence in an area that needs an infusion of creative energy. Seeing a building wall thus transformed reminds me of the potential visual art has to surprise, uplift and delight through all of life’s circumstances and challenges.

For a view of the other wall murals now currently creating a new landscape in urban Rochester, please visit the WALL/THERAPY website.

Resetting My Compass

What happens to you once you complete a very intense, creative project? For me, there's a period when that creative place inside feels almost too eerily quiet. Almost want to call "Code Blue, Code Blue" and get the cardiac arrest team here. After a period of such focused work, NOT being engaged to that degree feels almost like flatlining.

SOME people relax willingly. Me, I do it because my entire self goes on strike until I listen to it. So I spent the entire weekend -- amazingly -- away from both my sewing and surface design studios. Read the entire Sunday New York Times AND most of Art in America. Enjoyed a family picnic and played with my grandchildren.

When I walked back into my studio yesterday, I still wasn't ready to enter into that intensity of composing a new surface. Since "show up and do something, anything" is my motto, I played!


There are always painted samples lying about, so I grabbed a few small ones and treated them like sketchbook pages. I painted and silkscreened some details over whatever was already on the surfaces. When that dried, I added some foiling and then fused a sheer synthetic fabric to both pieces, leaving folds and ripples. A heat gun disintegrated the black sheer synthetic in interesting patterns.

To play without direction helps rekindle my passion for creating without worrying about success or failure. These are small, lively and fun. The top one will travel to the other side of the country as a "trade" with a fellow artist and the other one will go into my sketchbook for reference.

After I played, I could deal with cleaning up from the past few weeks. I washed all the containers and brushes and silkscreens and assorted squeeze bottles that had piled up. I'm turning to a fresh page, will mix new dyes for the next project and not try to recycle any of these.

But I have to confess I don't feel ready yet to really immerse in painting and printing another large surface. My inner compass is still resetting, searching once again for true north. It seems that I need to turn around and around, like a silly old dog, before I finally plop myself down in one spot. So while I'm heading back up to my studio today, I can't say for sure what I'll do once I get there.

Even just puttering in my studio makes me happy, though. And that's what living a creative life is truly all about, don't you think?

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, Round and Round

In all directions (and on every surface around me), new ideas and new work are moving forward. Hard to believe that just a short time ago I felt my wheels were spinning. There's a rhythm building again and more than any outward progress, it's that feeling that signals to me I'm back in my flow again.

Waiting to reengage with that energy is where trust enters in -- not a blind, unreasoning trust, but one based on experience with creative cycles. You remind yourself that not knowing where the work is going is perfectly fine, that the willingness to release a grip on outcomes makes the process so much more exciting -- and even though doubts and fears may creep in about whether new ideas will ever flow out in the studio again, you just patiently show up and do the work as the best you can, holding the intention in your mind and heart to create and trusting that eventually a new cycle of creative activity will begin again.

And then almost without realizing it you seem to find your stride. You totally forget that you ever felt anything but happily engaged and start setting out rain barrels to capture the downpour of ideas. Or at least this is how it works for me.



During the quiet part of my creative cycle, I quietly stitched and completed this 18" x 18" sample piece, learning a lot from the process about what this type of flowing, repetitive stitching can add to the surface. I decided to crop the work so that the gestural writing flows off the plane. Now that it's complete I can consider what I would change and what variations I would explore on the next one and appreciate how it provided activity for me during an otherwise quiet time.



At the studio I've been silkscreening with mid and light value grays and discharging a new silk ground that is a first layer. The next steps will develop the surface with more language imagery. I'll keep creating these and working on the types of marks I make on the surfaces. These marks will influence what the additional layers will be. If it sounds mysterious, it is. The work isn't preplanned, the ideas and meanings evolve around the concept or theme.


Here's what the piece looks like after painting and printing the first layer and then discharging back into it to age and soften the marks a bit. So far so good. It has potential. Over the next few studio days I'll revisit this and contemplate what to add next.


After a physical day at the studio, by evening I'm ready to sit, but I always combine that time with reading or some sort of prep or finishing work. A new Pages piece idea is beginning and in order to create it, I need to cut hundreds of these letterforms in a variety of values and scales.

There's always a pad of paper near me in the evenings to jot down to-dos for the next day and a pile of books and magazines nearby that I'm reading or intend to read. Creativity and imagination need infusions and so I am always mining my environment for stimulation.

And it all makes me happy. That's my basic barometer for success. If you're happy, if you feel passionate about what you are creating, you must be doing something right. If you put your love and passion into what you make, others will be drawn to the work as well. It will sing a siren's song.

Simmer and Stir Often

January's creative soup is simmering nicely on the front burner, a tasty blend of exhibiting, creating new work and chopping up MARKETING into small, bite-sized pieces.

Pat Pauly, a gifted artist whose work has been juried into the prestigious Quilt National exhibition, led the installation of RAFA's (Rochester Area Fiber Artists) newest exhibit at the Arts and Cultural Council on Monday. Forty-three artists' works are on display from January 6-30, 2009 in "New Year, New Directions," at the Council Gallery.


The space is wonderful. If you live in the area, please come to the opening reception on Friday, January 16, 5 - 8 PM. The gallery will also be open all day on Saturday, January 17, 10-4.


On the creating front, I'm completing the second "Seeds" piece, now titled "Seeds of Change." As this detail shot of it in process shows,I'm adding more color as well as choosing more saturated colors to accent the grayscale ground. Most of these seed shapes are just pinned on; next I will stitch them down and complete the piece.

I'm also beginning a concentrated expansion of language imagery and techniques for incorporating letterforms in my work; more to come about that soon.

Another ingredient that I'm stirring into the soup pot is marketing. Webmaster Holly Knott just completed adding current and upcoming exhibitions and several new pieces to my website. Next task will be creating a database for mailing lists to mail out postcards for future exhibitions.

The soup pot is also getting lots of spice from the inspiring coaches and motivational books that I've been gathering. Numerous coaches and websites offer newsletters and tidbits of valuable information; all of them help me stay positive, focused and action-oriented. Step by step, action by action, I am actively engaged in moving my artistic life forward.

Yesterday's mail brought three books to read: Ellen Langer's On Becoming An Artist, Visioning by Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D and Coaching the Artist Within by Eric Maisel. I'll let you know how they stack up once I read them. For some years I was very critical of self-help books, but now I see them as tools to help me stay upbeat and charged with positivity. That positivity imbues the seeds of confidence that are growing inside me; I now truly appreciate those individuals who choose to dedicate their lives and their energy to helping others actualize their dreams and desires.

All these various activities and actions all go into the pot -- the ideas, the e-mailed tips and newsletter updates, the affirmations, the appreciation lists, the visualizations -- and the day to day showing up in the studio to do the work. What an aroma to inhale, and what pleasure to be cooking up something wonderful through these wintry January days.

Choosing a Word for 2009

Statue in Siena, Tuscany of Romulus and Remus being fed by a she-wolf

We can thank Christine Kane for spurring thousands of us who read her wonderful blog posts to set aside making New Year's Resolutions and instead choose a theme word for attracting desired outcomes in the New Year.

In 2008, I chose the word "fruition" and the images it generated were excellent tools to help me focus and identify specific desires. As the year ended, I listed my accomplishments and am proud of them.

With new opportunities already presenting themselves for 2009, I wanted to choose a theme word that encompasses my clearest intentions.

Confidence is one choice, the desire to feel at my very core that I am worthy and wonderful. Feeling confident about the quality and merit of my work will shine through my applications for new exhibition opportunities. Being confident and self-assured will assist me in meeting new people and networking professionally.

Being confident will increase my commitment to taking care of myself with exercise and healthy, nourishing foods. Possessing confidence will erase the fears that surface when a new work isn't going well that my work isn't "good enough."

In the past I've been able to move forward with bravado and tons of hard work, but now I desire genuine self-esteem to help attract wonderful outcomes. So "confidence" is indeed an important quality, one I wish to make an integral part of my being in 2009.

However, confidence alone doesn't seem quite encompassing enough for what I desire for 2009. Being confident is an attitude, an emotional preparation and mindset but not an outcome. Alone, it doesn't generate images of my desired results.

So I am also choosing a second word to pair with it -- "flourish". The dictionary descriptions of this word are heady and exactly what I desire to actualize in the coming year --"a luxuriant growth or profusion" ..."to reach a height of development or influence"..."to achieve success." The two words bridge my inner and outer worlds; they're a perfect fit, like a pair of comfortable new walking shoes.

So I am entering 2009 holding "confidence" and "flourish" in my heart; like Romulus and Remus,the legendary twins who founded Rome, I envision these two words growing up to build a shining new city for my artistic life in 2009 (minus all the slewing and slaying that go along with Roman myths, of course!).

Interestingly, one of the definitions of "flourish" also is "an ornamental stroke in writing or printing", so the word even relates to my body of work that is evolving through my fascination with letterforms and language imagery.

I love the layers of meaning and intention in choosing these two words, in linking them visually with the twins Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf (my wild woman self?!)and how strong and powerful the images are that these two words generate together inside me. The New Year is underway; may the power of "confidence" and "flourish" manifest in wonderful ways as 2009 unfolds!

The Writings of Agnes Martin

"Martin, Agnes, "I Love The Whole World," 1999. Acrylic and graphite on canvas.

On Friday, I finally picked up the books I ordered through inter-library loan at our local college. Agnes Martin: Paintings and Writings, a catalogue published in 2000 by the prestigious Pace-Wildenstein gallery in New York City, combines ideas about artmaking that Agnes put into writing with 15 paintings completed in 1999. All the works are acrylic and graphite on canvas, all are 60" x60" and have titles like "Happiness-Glee", "I Love Love", "Innocent Love" and "Lovely Life." Agnes always painted in a square format -- in her younger years she worked in a 80" x 80" format, but as she aged the larger canvases became too difficult for her to manage and she shifted to the 60" x 60" size.

At the time this exhibition and catalogue were produced, Agnes was 87 years old. In the final years of her life, she lived in a retirement home in Taos, NM, but still drove to her studio every day to work. The paintings in this exhibition are different in coloration from Agnes' earlier works, which were mainly shades of gray and white with her characteristic hand drawn graphite lines. These later works introduce muted pastel washes of earth red and sky blue, greens and yellows. Nancy Doyle's profile of the artist at www.ndoylefineart.com/martin.html suggests that these colors may be Agnes' response to the white desert light and the colors of the earth in the southwest.

Even as I started reading the essays interspersed between the images of the paintings, I noticed Martin's writing is as spare and condensed as her painting. Like her art, her writing seems to contain a wealth of insight distilled from experience into each statement. In the essay, "What We Do Not See If We Do Not See," Agnes declares that she wanted to "live a true life." Living this true life meant seeing the joyfulness in reality, maintaining an awareness of beauty, innocence and happiness because without them she believed one could not make works of art.

In the essay "What is Real?", written in 1976, Agnes wrote, " Works of art have successfully represented our response to reality from the beginning. The artist tries to live in a way that will make greater awareness of the sublimity of reality possible. Reality, the truth about life and the mystery of beauty are all the same and they are the first concern of everyone."

Agnes concludes, "There is a purpose in our lives and it is in operation every minute. When we are right on the track we are rewarded with joy. We can know the whole truth with a request to our minds. If we are completely without direction we can withdraw and our minds will tell us the next step to take." I remembered a similar comment Agnes made in the interview with her in the New Art City DVD. Agnes found that connection to an inner voice that revealed insights to her and answers to questions as she worked.

It is that very connection that I depend on more and more with each new piece of work; that inner voice increasingly guides and shuts out the chatter and clutter of marketing, promotion, sales. The making of the work is now central, the connection to that center within fuels and guides the exploration.

It is possible to track Agnes' artistic evolution from her early days in New York City as part of the Abstract Expressionist era of the 1940's and 50's through her seven year sojourn from doing any painting at all followed by her choice to live and paint alone in an isolated part of the northern New Mexican desert. Studying the unfolding of an artist's life and work can be a rich source of inspiration. Alone with her work and a quiet contemplation of nature, I find great inspiration in Martin's leanings towards Asian philosophy and her connections with nature. How fortunate we are to have access to so many artists through the enormous documentation in both books and film of their work and ideas and inspirations.

As Nancy Doyle writes in her profile of Agnes, "Her work was influenced greatly by nature, however not in the sense of replicating nature - rather, she wanted the viewer to experience the same feelings they have when in front of nature. Some of her titles allude to nature - to leaves, rivers, flowers, etc., but her work has more to do with expressing positive inner states of existence. She has been associated with the Minimalist movement, but her work is less rigid, less cerebral - more spiritual in inspiration than Minimalist. She shared with her friend, the artist Richard Tuttle, certain attitudes about art and life, which stem from their interest in eastern philosophy - the ideas of ego-lessness, humility, and the Tao - in life and in art."

Many of us are drawn to art that attempts to express these "positive inner states of existence." Increasing numbers of western artists have been drawn to Asian philosophy. The works of those artists whose true inner selves seem to radiate through their imagery, marks and concepts are those that currently inspire and encourage me in my own artistic journey.

Let me close with this last quote from Martin's writing. because the advice it contains is vital for all of us:

"Make happiness your goal. The way to discover the truth about this life is to discover yourself."

Working in a Series: More Thoughts

There's a lot to think about when we begin to develop a framework for the investigation and exploration that goes into a series. Most of what we need to consider are the ideas we wish to express and explore ways to communicate them visually. When we take a photograph of a bird, it is usually because we admire its beauty, the coloration of its feathers, the differences in this particular bird from other birds, its uniqueness. We can take thousands of beautiful photographs of birds because we love them and respond to them. However, when we decide to incorporate a bird or birds in our art, we enter into some additional considerations. We are not only looking at the structure and patterns and form of the bird, we are also considering what thoughts or ideas that bird may represent.

One of the first ways to approach the subject of "bird" would be to explore it scientifically. We could study the bone structure and physiology of birds, familiarize ourselves with their habits and history and record the similarities and differences in their infinite variety of sizes, shapes and colors. We could learn about their migratory patterns, their reproductive cycles, the challenges they face for survival as a species.

In addition, the artist could begin to research how images or birds have been incorporated into various human cultures. Native American pictographs and Egyptian hieroglyphs include bird images. Myths and legends involving birds abound in ancient cultures -- people turning into birds, birds that can take human form, birds that immolate and then are reborn from their own ashes are just a few examples.

An additional inquiry about birds might be how artists have used the bird as a visual symbol. Dead game birds were often included in 19th century still life paintings. Picasso's dove paintings are universally recognized. Poets and writers have often used the bird symbolically -- consider Poe's raven as an example. Then consider what the bird represents to you and how you might communicate that feeling as a visual image. Would it be a realistic or abstracted bird, the complete image or just the suggestion of "birdness" with a wing or feather?

As one gathers knowledge and information, the potential for exploring this subject becomes increasingly vast and complex and can seem overwhelming. But allow yourself to feel overwhelmed for a bit. Out of the Mt. Everest of information, some images and ideas will begin to fire your imagination and move to the forefront of your thoughts. Those are the ones you seize on and begin to flesh out in your sketch or notebook.

Just writing the above, my imagination is most charged by the idea of stripping away the colors and patterns of various birds and working with the tiny skeletal structures. To me, stripping away is an appealing concept at the moment because it seems to echo my desire to get beyond the surface and reveal the bones or structure within a subject.

So the process begins with gathering information, opening ourselves to a vast array of ideas from various directions and sources and then sifting and sorting though them to the ones that excite us the most. This enables us to begin to narrow our inquiry and select specific attributes of our subject that we wish to explore visually.

That also means our exploration and discovery are ongoing and we will begin to notice references to and information about birds everywhere. Our radar will be attuned to the subject and our reference base will continue to widen. We'll find ourselves noticing how birds appear in places like advertisements, in children's books and stories, in old movies, in novels, etc. etc.

Clearly "bird" is a vast subject, but as we explore it we will also sort and define, sort again and redefine. Eventually we will make a choice to start with certain elements of "bird" as a design theme and by making that choice, we will move quietly to a more inward investigation and move away from ceaseless research and references. The huge river will branch into more navigable streams. The first step is to place a toe in the water and begin creating. Ripples will move outward from that first action and attract a response; action initiates the process of expressing an artistic response to "bird" as a subject for artistic enquiry.

Note: I won't be posting for the next week; we're hosting a big family reunion. Close to 30 of my husband's Nebraska cousins and spouses are arriving tonight and we'll be taking them on a whirlwind tour of upstate New York, starting with Niagara Falls and ending up on the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands. But of course my mind will still be gathering impressions, sorting and sifting ideas -- so even when we are not actually MAKING art, we are in the process!

Stoking the Embers

I taught experimental textile painting to a full class this week at the Memorial Art Gallery's Creative Workshop. We met for three afternoon sessions in a row, which turned out to be just the right amount of time to explore some new techniques and not tire any of us out too much. David, above, has taken drawing classes in school and came to the class to experiment with color and painting techniques. He was one of three teenagers in the class; they were terrific additions to the group and tried everything.

Terry is newly retired and loves layering colors and patterns on fabric. She took classes from me five years ago when I was teaching at my studio - yikes, what a reminder of how fast the years fly by. She brought in some great small works with multiple layers that were really intriguing. A fellow layerist!

This is the area we set up for wax resist. These quilting hoops that Isabel is using worked great as an aid for stretching fabrics before applying soy wax with brushes and tjanting tools. I already knew Isabel was a talented weaver, but didn't realize until this class what a wonderful eye she has for color.


Debbie experimented with a variety of techniques the first two days and then became totally absorbed in painting a lovely floral arrangement the final day.

Here is Mattie working back into this softly blended, dried surface with small brushes and thicker paints to flesh out the details. These circular shapes are really starting to develop depth and interest.
Charmaine on the left and Barb in the background also created numerous lovely samples with a variety of color combinations and techniques. Charmaine created several pieces like the one on the table by pleating fabric and waxing with a kitchen tool over the folded edges. The pattern fragments when you open the fabric; an idea that has multiple variations. Barb, in the background, uses a stretcher frame that can adjust to different size fabrics. Neat little hooks attach to the frame with rubber bands that grab the fabrics to secure them.

Dawn loves expressionist painting and gestural calligraphy as much as I do. She has a delicate, restrained hand and a very minimalist approach.

Somehow I missed getting Liz, Serena and Elena in camera range -- or else they were just really good at dodging me! One thing I was definitely aware of by the time the class ended is how excited I am now to return to my own studio and start working again. Today I unloaded all the supplies I had taken to class, got everything in my studio pretty well back in order and feel ready to really get back to work tomorrow. Even left myself a list of to-dos so I can dive right in from the moment I walk in the door.

I've also been working with Holly Knott for the past several weeks to redesign my website. My work has evolved over the past three years and I want the new site to reflect that. Hopefully it will only take a week or two longer to complete it and then you'll get a chance to look at it and decide what you think. I'm making a lot of changes to the content as well, since I plan to focus on applying for more solo exhibitions.

Desire, Contrast and Tension

In a variation of the Midas touch, without the ironic twist that you could never touch another human being (or possibly scratch an itch!), suppose that every creative idea you attempted to express worked out flawlessly? That your every effort was met with critical acclaim? That it required no real effort on your part to succeed beyond your wildest dreams?

I wonder how long I would stay committed to my visual art if I had this power? Or would I seek one new challenge and stimulation after another? Over the next year I might sculpt a new David, paint a new Mona Lisa, beat Tiger Woods at golf, dance with Alvin Ailey and then saunter off to Hollywood to write, produce, direct and star in my own Oscar winning film. Top it off with a Pulitzer prize-winning novel. Effortless, limitless creating. I admit it, it's tantalizing.

But is it just making everything we touch gold that we are really seeking? Or do we also fall in love with the practice and process of Getting There (wherever that may be)?

In visual art, contrast and tension are vital elements of good design. There's contrast and tension in the creative process as well. Try watching children really absorbed in play. They are seldom laid back and relaxed. Rather, they're active, bodies and minds engaged and in a state of high energy.

My creative times are filled with tension at well, not unpleasant, more like the tension that builds when an aerialist is somersaulting from one trapeze to another, when the gun fires and the gate opens in a horse race, when a figure skater leaps into the air to attempt a triple axle. It is a tension that comes from knowing there is a bridge to build between intention and actualization. At times the body, mind and spirit work together so effortlessly, so beautifully -- and the results of that focus, intention and action all come together to create stunning results. At other times, the horse stumbles and loses its stride, the figure skater falls, the aerialist misses the catch and drops into the net, but the repetition of these efforts over and over and over leads ultimately to accomplishment.

Artists may be less aware physically than figure skaters and acrobats of how much work and preparation go into accomplishment How many times do athletes fall as they practice, how many repetitions and refinements does it take to have the movements become so integral that they can appear to happen effortlessly?

When we watch a dance troupe and consider the incredible disciplined practice that goes into training a dancer's body, observe the nuance and gestural quality of the simplest movement, I think we can begin to appreciate how long it takes to develop a similar expertise in art making.

And yet I also believe that our desires and intentions do manifest. We can touch a surface and create gold. All we need to do is engage in that process of practice, commitment and setting our intentions. We can create anything that we are willing to work to manifest. And I believe that our eventual successes will give rise to new desires, new intentions and a new cycle of practice, work and growth. It's a delightful prospect to look at my daily efforts as preparation for my own Olympic Gold Medal moments, to feel a growing confidence and pleasure in my practiced techniques and recognize that I am ever more skilled at and knowledgeable about surface design and composition and creative process.

I can enjoy my never-ending curiosity that always leads me to my mischievous "what ifs" and mutter over the frequent failures that often ensue, but I'm more comfortable with failing now that I know it's just a part of getting to success.

A July 08 Reader's Digest article related the story of entrepreneur Sheri Schmelzer and how she developed Jibbitz, decorative accessories that fit into the holes in Croc shoes. Over a period of several years, Sheri worked through trial and error and a variety of challenges to create over 300 designs and built a retail customer base of more than 4,000 stores. In December 2006, Croc bought Jibbitz for $20 million, hiring both Sheri and her husband Rich to come on board and manage the product line. Please note that Sheri and Rich didn't retire to live on a Costa Rican beach. Sheri is the chief design officer of what is now a global business and seems to be thriving on the creative challenge of designing new products in the Jibbitz line. She turned a simple idea into gold -- and the gold seems to be secondary to her love of creating more new ideas!

Idea Catchers

Have you seen a Native American dream catcher?? It's a wrapped hoop with a woven "web" at its center, decorated with streamers, beads and feathers. The story goes that if you have one hanging where you sleep it will "catch" all the bad dreams in its web and only allow the pleasant ones to pass through.

I learned a while back that ideas need "catching" as well. Creative people seem to get periods where ideas flow faster than streams during a spring thaw -- and other times when the stream quiets down to a soft trickle. Hopefully you have a way to catch these treasures when your own inspirational stream starts flowing. I keep a variety of journals and sketchbooks -- yes simultaneously, although I didn't plan for it to happen that way. They allow me to get ideas down on paper as they arrive, whether en mass or just one at a time.

I started my creative life as a writer, so I kept composition notebooks at my side for journaling and wrote morning pages in them daily for over ten years. When I started learning visual art, some of the ideas I'd describe in words would make no sense to me when I returned to them later, so I bought a spiral bound sketchbook and started to draw out my ideas with some added notes. However, I was still too emotionally attached to my composition notebooks to give them up, so I kept writing and eventually drawing in them while also drawing and writing in my sketchbooks. The two seem to go with me everywhere in my tote -- I don't feel right if they aren't wherever I happen to be, so I carry them to and from my studio, my home office and sewing room. When I go on vacation anywhere, they go too.

However, neither the composition notebook nor spiral bound sketch book fit neatly into my purse for times when I didn't want to carry a tote bag. A three pack of thin moleskin sketchbooks at Borders were precisely the right size and weight to tuck into my purse.

If you're keeping count, that's now three places where I store ideas, but it doesn't stop there.

To create a log and practice journal for my language marks, I found a wonderful spiral bound drawing pad with a hard, black cover. Several times a week (although my good intentions were to do this daily), I experiment with letter forms and tools and record the marks. I want to create a whole library of marks as this idea of my own personal "language" develops. But this doesn't mean that I don't also record language marks in both my spiral bound notebook and sketchbooks.

Since I also collect inspiration from other artists and do research on the Internet, I have a big three ring binder and numerous file folders with magazine clippings, downloaded and printed articles and art references. Some of these get stapled or glued into a sketchbook, some just get placed in folders. And just for fun I keep another larger spiral sketchbook where I periodically clip and paste art works that trigger ideas in me for color combinations, texture, pattern or design ideas. This one has been ignored lately, but it's great fun to rip apart magazines and it entertains me when I don't feel like going to my studio and working!

It seems that I am curiously and very strongly emotionally attached to this eclectic assemblage of idea-capturing materials. Part of me longs for long rows of neatly organized sketch books, journals and reference materials on shelves that will precisely detail the progression of my work and development as an artist. In reality, I scribble and scrawl rather than draw or write attractively and jump around between the journal and sketchbooks. I will favor one for a while, then suddenly be drawn to record most of my ideas in another one for a bit -- hither and yon, in no particular linear order. What seems to be important is that they stay NEAR me -- I get almost frantic when I am separated from them for any length of time.

Now that I'm confessing, I also must confess that each time I go back through the pages of my sketchbooks or journals, I am AMAZED at the quantity of ideas, quotes, drawings, records that these small volumes contain -- most of which would make little to no sense to anyone but me. They are personal and sometimes totally unrelated. Sometimes they include notes from lectures I've attended, books I want to check out, website addresses-- sometimes I write appointments or phone numbers or personal affirmations in them as well. It's an amazing time capsule of my creative life and I find it fascinating to go back through them -- they've captured so many details that I would have totally forgotten if I hadn't taken the time to record them. Even if I don't keep ideas in just one place, the subjects and themes are so constant that moving back and forth between them isn't difficonfusing. Quite the opposite, it helps me see how all these bits and pieces intersect or connect.

When I reach the last page of one sketchbook or journal, I feel a little twinge of sadness, like reading the final page of a great book, but that turns into excitement again when I open a brand new one. It has the same tantalizing sensation of new beginnings that I feel every New Year's Eve.

As you may be well aware of by now, I am an advocate for EVERY creative person having some sort of system to record and store ideas. I'd love to hear what tools and methods work for you and whether you manage to have some sort of organization for this part of your artistic process.