Yesterday I found refuge from all the sturm und drang of our house sale in the pleasant distraction of doing a little house painting.
A little bird house painting, to be exact.
They say when you’re feeling sorry for yourself the best medicine is to think about somebody else and do something nice for them.
Every year the Idaho Humane Society finds various creative ways to raise money to help find homes for all the wonderful animals that end up on their doorstep. This year, artists are painting bird houses to be auctioned.
It felt good to think for a change about somebody else finding their perfect people and future home.
When I started this blog I had the idea that I would be able to do frequent, if not daily, posts. Some wordy, some mostly pictures, but all dependably shared. Often.
Shhiiiiiit. There’s just no way.
This year I’m thinking if I can average one post a week I’ll be doing magnificently.
Worrying about this has peaked my interest in the process of procrastination. So, while I’ve been putting off writing my next post I’ve spent many delightful hours reading about the art of putting things off. On-line.
No irony there.
I’m not talking about putting off paying the Electric bill or going to the dentist. I’m talking about putting off that thing that you have defined as “What I Do.” For me that’s making art. And, doing a blog that’s sort of about making art.
All in all I no longer think of procrastination as being “bad.” Like boredom, it has its up-side. Where boredom can create the space for creativity to emerge, procrastination can allow for the time it takes for an idea to mature or evolve into something better.
The trick is to manage your procrastination. First, you have to maintain your awareness of the big picture — the dates of deadlines, the amount of real time you think it will take to complete your project (always multiply by 4, that way you can be pleasantly surprised if it only takes twice as long), your personal skill-set vs. your need for others’ assistance. Then, you have to learn to stop wasting time worrying about putting the project off until later. Let that mother go!
If you can do those things, then one of two things will happen. Either, by your own action or inaction, you will get it done. Or, you will move on to something new and never look back. QED.
I guess I’m starting to think of procrastination as a very useful filter for determining what I will be spending my time “just doing” vs. what will end up on my “Fuck-it List.”
This might help: pay attention to what distracts you. What are you doing instead of that project you are putting off? The things which consistently distract me are generally the things I really want to be doing. And the things I really want to be doing often lead to projects better suited for me, and often to better outcomes for those projects I do finish.
Whew!! Now that I’ve finished doing this, I can go back to doing that!
I guess I’ve been a wee bit distracted with things besides updating my blog these past few, … er, well…several days, but I’m back now, and I apologize!
Don’t I look contrite?
Yeah. That’s me, suffering at Tour de Fat this weekend.
Mike “Mr. Stripey,” with his bike “The Bee,” sacrificed his Saturday to accompany me.
We’ve ridden in the bike parade for 5 years now and it’s one of our very favorite things to do in the summer in Boise.
TVAA set up a booth at Tour de Fat two years in a row. We had the public paint tiny paintings of where they liked to ride their bikes in a grid we imposed over a larger painting of a bike we painted in advance. I painted the bike the first year, a red and white cruiser.
That painting hangs in the workshop at the Boise Bicycle Project.
Terry Burkes painted the bike the second year. It’s a bike made of tree bark. It hangs now in the new studio space in the offices of Boise State Public Radio.
My favorite painted bike though, is my bike. Which I painted in 2010. It always gets a lot of compliments during the parade. Especially from anyone in a tutu, and the under 10 crowd.
I’ve got lots more to tell you, but as you know, it is best to “take little bites and chew them well” — so this little bite will have to do for now!
On July 17, 1961 Michael Dean Chambers II was born in Vicenza, Italy. A simple lad, he thought he might one day become a world champion marble player, or perhaps enjoy the easy life of a garbage man riding on the back of the truck, his eye peeled for treasures hidden in the um, peels, and coffee grounds and such.
At least I warned you my blog presence would be spotty, and now I’ve got pictures to prove I’m really not just sitting around watching Netflix and eating bon bons — though I’ve had my fair share of that as well. (If I don’t give myself little treats now and then I pitch fits and stomp out of the room and quit, so it’s just easier to let me watch Netflix and have a bon bon.)
I have been working on my public art project for Treefort, which as you know is going to be giant tarps cut out to look like papel picado. Only I can only find the tarps in blue, brown, white and silver so I have had to paint 10 of them to get some fun colors.
It took 17 cans of Fusion (for plastic) spray paint in red, pink, yellow, purple, and orange to paint 10 tarps with Mike’s able assistance. My hand could barely grip my toothbrush this morning. (This could be a problem considering the number of bon bons I earned with that little paint job!)
Luckily we had a relatively warm sunny day and the tarps dried spread out on the lawn. They are now stacked in the loft in the garage awaiting the next steps.
I have 8 million, OK, 8 rolls of carpet tape to adhere the cut tops to the painted bottoms, and my crack team of assistants is lined up to help.
Honestly I wish I had a videographer to chronicle the process ahead and set the whole catastrophe to music. The plan is to take the tops which I have already cut out and ever so deftly adhere them to the colorful bottoms.
Here are the tarps I’ve already cut out, stacked in my sewing studio:
I’ll let your imagination run with that plan I just mentioned for a moment.
There is hope, however. The cut out parts look really cool, and IF we can actually get them to become one with the other colorful tarps then I think this will end up being one of my favorite projects ever.
I’ll keep you posted, and until then…I think I just heard a bon bon calling!
