The Artist's Way 003

This past week I've been training at my new job. I think it'll be a really good fit once I get familiar with the rhythm of the place and my coworkers, so far it's kind of just awkward fumbling around while I shadow my manager and write notes in my little book. This week was really fun though- I feel much happier than I have in Seattle so far. I've been getting all of my sleep and eating breakfast in the morning like normal, I even went to a figure drawing session on Sunday that I enjoyed a lot. It's in the back of an art supply store nearby so people were walking past and talking to employees while the model did her poses. It was fun and very necessary, I was pretty rusty.

Week 3: Recovering a sense of power

This week's exercises were all about the identification of shame, largely in shame rooted in childhood or youth. Shame being described as the poison of creativity and the killer of finished pieces. I was raised in a pretty open household. As the oldest daughter I was never held to the responsibility of inheriting the ranch or my mother's business, which I was very grateful for. But I grew up in a mining town surrounded by fields of wheat and cattle, and there were few in-person resources for someone pursuing animation to utilize. I think that began to clash with my academics, so I think I had a few teachers who didn't like me hehe...I was my only outlet for it so I had to indulge pretty intensely!
I did all but 1 of my daily pages, only because that morning had been rushed and I'd forgotten about them by the evening. I don't really mind. They've been helping plenty. At this point, where I'm feeling better and better, I'm not sure what to point to that's helping me most. On one hand, these exercises have been fun and useful but on the other, I got a completely different job that I demanded specific hours for. I think the latter has been the most life-changing at this point. My artist's date was a walk around a plant nursery with my roommate. It was very lush and large, it even had a cafe in one of the greenhouses. I got a big Pothos named Sal. 

Week 3 Tasks:

Describe your childhood room. -What was your favorite thing about it? What's your favorite thing about your room right now? - As a kid I loved dolphins, so when I was 11 my mom bought a huge roll of peel-and-stick wallpaper with a beautiful painting of dolphins. It went on the largest wall in my room and stayed there for years until the panels of wallpaper began to get old and peel. But that was my favorite thing then. I think my favorite thing now is the TV stand I bought from Offerup that fits perfectly under my windowsill for Duma to sleep on. 

The mural on my wall was something very similar to this. I don't think I'll ever find the original though. It's from the 2000s.

Duma on the sill

Describe 5 traits you liked in yourself as a child. - Pretty self-explanatory. 

List 5 Childhood accomplishments and list 5 childhood foods -My childhood accomplishments were fairly boring. Just little things to do with extracurriculars at school. The foods I listed weren't very specific either, mostly anything my mom cooked with the fish my dad would catch or the beef from the ranch. The only outlier is those big chocolate chip muffins from Costco. The first time I ever had one was in middleschool. They'd started selling them to kids who were hungry in the morning and I thought it was the best thing ever. I would get a stomachache every time after eating one though. 

Trying to think of things about my childhood was hard so I went looking for any memorabilia I had. Here's my sister and our cat Sparky in maybe 2007? We both had little bikes to putt around the ranch on. Sometimes the neighbor boys would join us on scooters.

Take a look at your habits.- List 3 self-sabotaging ones, and 3 that may serve you.

Make a list of friends that nurture you. - Which of their traits particularly, serves you well? I'm very lucky to have a long list of people, mostly old classmates, that have stuck around. 

Inner compass - She explains the inner compass as an 'instinct that points us toward health' and then after a few more paragraphs my eyes kind of glazed over. It's essentially 'shower thoughts' while doing something creative. So I did something mindlessly creative for an hour (figure drawing) and wrote down all of the little thoughts that surfaced while I zoned out. The consensus for me was that I was hungry and I wanted to buy a real journal to decorate because I liked it.

List 5 people you admire, then 5 people you secretly admire - What traits do you see in them that you can cultivate in yourself? 

List 5 people who have passed that you'd like to meet - okay. sure.

After those two lists are complete you're supposed to compare them. Taking "a look at what you really admire and what you think you should admire" Eh. I see the point of the exercise but I don't really view my idols that way. I adopt things from my friends all the time just because I think they're fun and smart.

Going to keep trucking on my commissions this coming week- since I've gotten a much healthier amount of off days from my job they've been smooth sailing. I only hope I can keep this up when they're done and I'm faced with personal projects...it's been such a long time since I've done something that's been pushed only by my drive to see it.