I'm on Blog of the Day today!
February 16, 2005
Happy Hump Day, as we call Wednesday at our house because if we can get through today, we have less work behind us than in front and the easy slide to the weekend.
Terrible to treat the week that way. Soon we are clicking off the seasons on our belt like tightening belt notches and the year flies by in increments of weeks and weekends, work and play.
Keeping this blog is a way for me to integrate my creativity into my daily, non-creative work week. Unfortunately, there are weeks when work takes over and I'm caught with either nothing to say or nothing scanned in to upload for you all to enjoy. I have a bunch of drawings to scan in and if I have the energy I"ll do it tonight.
On my birthday, my paralegals gave me a pocket-sized sketchbook and an art kit so I could "sketch in court". I thought it was incredibly touching that they affirmed my "hobby", especially since they are the only people at work who have any idea that I have "another life" as an artist and writer.
Sometimes I sketch in court. I've done most of the elaborate courtroom moldings and friezes, the hanging chandeliers, the flags, and the bench. Lately I've been doing quick sketches of parties up in front of the judge at the bench. I can only accomplish this, though, when no one is around me that I know, which is rare. I'm not ready to share my avocation with my colleagues. Law is a tricky business, most of it built on perceived reputations. I can't be known as the woman who "draws" - have a hard enough time being so much older than most of the lawyers in my office.
As much as I'd like to spend a life drawing and painting and writing, I think the duality of my life gives it energy and one feeds off the other. Ideally, I'd only work 3 days a week as a lawyer. It can be done; I did it for a good 8 years when my kids were little. However, the little kids pretty much ate up my days off, though that was the period when I was quilting, which is a good creative pursuit when you have small children and spend a lot of time watching them play while you work on a quilt.
This week I'm working on my big 50-year journal. I went through a lot of old photographs and selected some that highlight important periods in my life. I do a lot of free write on the journal page, then paint over it and pick out phrases and highlights to illustrate. I have no clear idea of what I'm going to do until about the middle of the process and the collages are very layered with paint, gesso, tissue paper, art papers, stamps, watercolor pencils and graphite. It's kind of private folly and I don't know if anyone would be interested in it except me, but that's okay.
Right now, I keep the big journal set up on my art table with all the supplies around, so I can sit down and do a few minutes work when I have a chance, or pull up a chair for a long afternoon. I have my daily sketch journal on my nighttable and my pan set of watercolors and gouache next to it. I have a small journal in my purse that has thick pages that are lined on the front and blank on the back. I work out a lot of upcoming art projects in that and keep track of when submissions are due. I intend to rip down the watercolor paper I bought a few weeks ago to make a sample journal for Italy. I'm concerned about how much I want to carry around and I"m experimenting with binding pages.
I hope you all are finding ways to have a bit of this and a bunch of that during your work week, little things that perk you up. Gotta go dry my hair so I don't look like Emily Latella in court today