Time for Change

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
Where the heck the flowers is?

This ditty from my childhood, which somehow seems fitting on this first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere, might make you think I didn’t get much culture growing up, but you’d be wrong. When I was nine we went to see Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. I sobbed my way right through the tender love stories and across the street to a family restaurant where we ate fried chicken and biscuits before we drove home. I can still sing this song from the movie by heart:

When the sky is a bright canary yellow
I forget every cloud I’ve ever seen
So they call me a cock-eyed optimist
Immature and incurably green.

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead.
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my head.

I hear the human race is falling on its face
And hasn’t very far to go
But every whippoorwill is selling me a bill
And telling me it just ain’t so

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my heart.


According to psychological research It takes ten weeks to forge a new habit. So forget New Year’s resolutions. Why not start something new today – on this, the Vernal Equinox? Let the optimist in you OUT and claim a little incurably green for yourself, while you’re looking for those flowers:

1. Guard your creative space. You can’t make if you don’t leave time for making. There will always be too much to do. Small blocks of time add up. If you can’t set aside big blocks of time, go for short but steady. People who can’t find time haven’t usually made any effort to make time.

2. Get over feeling sorry for yourself. Maybe it’s not enough studio time. It is what it is. Refer back to Item #1. Only you can take care of you.

3. Give something up. Honor yourself and care about making. This doesn’t have to be forever. Only long enough to see whether it works. Chances are very good that you won’t even miss whatever you gave up.

4. Rebuke the tyranny of unfinished projects. If it isn’t finished there is probably a reason why. Screw up your courage and get out all those UFOs. Sort rigorously into four piles –

1. I want to finish this and I am eager to get back to it.
Good. This is a great place to start working a little at a time until it’s done.
2. I want to finish this but I’m stuck.
Pin it up and think it over. No one can critique from the back of the closet or the bottom of a drawer. Give the piece a chance to speak to you.
3. I don’t care enough about this to invest more energy into it.
This is why they invented trade days at the guild, and also Goodwill.
4. I hate this and I hope I never see it again.
This is what scissors and matches are for. And also Goodwill.

5. Claim your right to be an artist. Resolve to answer the question “What do you do?” with the answer, “I am an artist.” when it comes up in the next ten weeks. Say it defiantly and with zeal.

6. Show a little respect for your Mother Earth. Are you recycling to the full extent of your abilities? Paper, plastic, cans and bottles? How dare you buy a crappy iron just because it’s cheap? How many crappy irons does one person have a right to toss into a landfill? Right now the human race IS falling on its face. So help out. Get right with the planet.

7. Quit kidding yourself. Get some perspective. Make a list of what you do during a week and arrange it in order of preference. If making is low on the list it must not matter that much to you. If it doesn’t matter that much, quit worrying about it and proceed with your life. There is enough bad work in the world already. Don’t feel an obligation to add to it. Feel free to attend to the activities that made the List’s top five.

8. Let yourself off the hook. If you love whatever you’re making, that’s fabulous. Drop judgments about whether it’s meaningful enough.

9. Look for meaning. On the other hand, eventually you might get to a place where you just aren’t getting that jazzed about making anymore. If that happens maybe it’s time to think about message, and how to get it into your life.

10. Clear out your creative space in real time. Stuff weighs down making. Yes, it IS possible you will need those bags of denim scraps as soon as you get rid of them. Once again, this is why they invented Goodwill. Get rid of one thing every day for ten weeks. This studio diet will result in a leaner, cleaner space and will return spaciousness to your thinking. Your creative self will thank you.