Jessica
Living with animals, I have learned a thing or two about habits.
My cat, Said, has a life that is ruled by his habits. He must wake us up at 4:00 AM, when he knows that he will get fed in two hours. We kick him out of the bedroom and then he knows that he must howl at the door for a little while longer, just to remind us. Then, when we finally feed him, he must lick the empty bowl throughout the day to suck the little bit of flavor off the edges. His process begins again at 3:00 PM, when he knows it’s about two hours until dinner time.
Our other cat, Weetzie, knows that when it’s bed time, she gets to lay on my husband’s chest for 15-20 minutes. When he gets ready for bed, she watches him, expectantly. As soon as he lays down, she is right next to him, ready for their nightly ritual.
These are the actions that make up my pets’ lives. They are small, but they each repeat them every day and night, without fail.
I am trying to mimic their consistency. During the two months of my Year of Resources, I’ve spent around 30 hours in my creative practice. Through tracking my time and committing more time to my creative practice, I am finding some positive results. When I participate in regular creative practice, I have more energy for creating, homework and my career. I dream up new creative projects, because I love the feeling of committing to big ideas. I feel engaged. On the weeks that I don’t create often enough, I feel cranky and testy. Even then, I know that those tensions can be easily cured by a little creative work.
During one of my fits of creative energy, I decided to buy a slew of Moleskine journals, so that I can experiment with art journaling. As I think I mentioned here before, I bought 4 journals and each journal has its own theme. The first is a black hardcover journal and I use it for general inspiration/journaling/collaging. The second is a cardstock cover journal for cataloging my dreams. The third is a cardstock cover journal for pieces based on found objects. The last is another cardstock cover journal in which I am slowly creating a fairy tale, page by page.
In another fit of manic creative energy, I decided to catalog my process in this journal in a photo-only blog called Poet is a Verb. I’ve been slowly building its posts with each new cover and page. It’s freeing because all I have to do is make the page, take a picture, and list the materials I used in the collage or painting. And then I’m done with it and I can move on to the next blank page.
I think what I like most about using this process is that it helps me to develop my habits. It holds me accountable to creating and it gives me a virtual space to document my practice. Most of the pages that I’m posting are far from perfect. In fact, they’re messy and they have mistakes. But that’s my creative practice as it stands today. I am committed to it, I work on it, and I document it, mistakes and all.
