The life of a creative is not an organized one. Far, far from it, in fact. Admittedly, some are more organized than others. Personally? I am anything but. One only has to take a glance in my art studio to see the tables COVERED with jewelry supplies and the floor showered with packing materials and tubes of paint. My creative mind is not a focused one.
I want to make everything.
Steampunk Cuff Links - $10.00
My main category is jewelry, but as anyone who has ever done jewelry will tell you: there are a lot of different options! I try to stick with beading, but I have to try the simpler stuff that I also find alluring, along with the cutesy polymer clay jewelry that I have fallen in love with. There is just too much! My problem is I end up with a butt-load of supplies that I may or may not use before I have the urge to try something else and go out and fetch another butt-load of supplies. Hence, the tables covered with the crap.
Sparkling Bow Barrette - $14.95
There is only so much time in the day, and I can’t help but feel like I could manage to get more done if I could only stay focused. One example of my trailing off is my shop
SteampunkDream. Loving the style of Steampunk jewelry, I opened it up on a whim of making tons of awesome Steampunk style jewelry and accessories, only to fill it with a handful of listings and let it sit. To this day I haven’t gotten around to really filling it up to the point where it’s a booming shop or anything to really focus on. This is why I haven’t opened up a shop for my paintings yet. Painting take a lot of direct attention, and therefore is something I don’t hardly do anymore. I feel as though if I opened up a shop with paintings I wouldn’t really be helping myself much by listing my current finished canvases only to let them sit in a shop unattended. (Maybe someday…)
Footnote: of course now I want to learn how to crochet. Can’t I just let it alone? Of course not! I am pretty jealous of all of the amazing crocheters and knitters out there, and I feel like my dexterous beading fingers could handle it if I tried. So we’ll see how that goes. I’ll keep you posted…
Crystal Wire Wrapped Necklace - $18.00
So anyway, I have been feeling pretty guilty of my lack of focus lately. Maybe I should just make ONE style of beadwork and stick to THAT? But I also like *this* and *this* and *this*… and then I read an
article on The Chronical’s website about collaborative learning and how forcing the brain to multi-task can actually aid creativity. I thought, Wow! It’s like I knew this all along. Here I have been feeling guilty about trying to do too many things at once, when it may be just that which has helped me be as creative as I am, even in other aspects of my cognitive reasoning. According to the article (written by Cathy Davidson), “Multitasking is the ideal mode of the 21st century, not just because of information overload but also because our digital age was structured without anything like a central node broadcasting one stream of information that we pay attention to at a given moment.” The article argues that the one-task-at-a-time matra of 20th century learning and office work routines is lagging behind the modern way in which our brains are able to function. So maybe my all-over-the-place craftsphere isn’t such a bad thing after all?
Something to consider, anyway.
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Tagged: art, art studio, collaborative learning, creativity, etsy shops, jewelry making, jewelry supplies, multi tasking
I hear you, I used to make tons of things but after feeling completely burned out from making hundreds of items for craft shows I said enough is enough and kept just my most profitable and enjoyable to make designs! Doing too much takes the fun right out of it for me!
I have also had this problem through my life – writing, sketching, painting, making kites, crochet, back to sketching, writing… eventually I found beadwork, which had the most powerful attraction of all. Now I try to balance it with my writing any my career. Steampunk is so tempting, though…
sometimes being creative can confuse you , especially when you have several things going at once, I had to quit doing other crafts besides beadwork just so I didn’t feel like a mad woman with too much to do and no time :)
Shonette, sometimes I wonder if that’s what I’m going to need to do eventually!