The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

Breaking Through The Box: The Way Was There All Along

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Lon w/ 5x7 placemarker squares 4tlr

Finding clarity: abandon what you think you know.

Maybe the main reason I love my husband is that he knows me so well, he always seems to know the perfect thing to say to get me out of whatever creative/mental trap I have put myself in. For the record, he would probably prefer I name a  different main reason I love him – at least publicly – but life is full of dissapointments.

Here was my problem.  I had a wall space to fill, I really wanted 16 small paintings, but I only had a corporate budget for 12. Using pieces of paper the same size as the paintings (5 x 7-inch acrylics by Father Bill Moore) I started arranging them on my wall at home. Didn’t work. Hated it.  No flow. No way to arrange the pieces to make the wall work as one cohesive unit.

Father Moore 5 x 7s 4tlrjpg

Small acrylic paintings by Father Bill Moore, Los Angeles.

So I said to Josh, “I really need 4 more pieces, but it’s not in my budget at this tramadol point. I just can’t make it work with 12.” He knows me well enough to know that I would now obsess on having 16 pieces, and no other solution would crack that obsession. So he said,  “Well, if you can’t add 4 more — take 4 away. Do it with 8. Maybe a more sparse design – with less clutter – will work better.”

Suddenly, trying to imagine the space with fewer pieces, opened up the possibilities that I had closed off by my obsessing about the “magical 16.”  Within 2 minutes, I found the elusive 12 painting layout. It was there all along, but I couldn’t break through the mental block formed by my  preconception that this was a project that needed 16 pieces.

So often the phrase “think outside the box” is interpreted to mean “do something that has never been done before.” The more useful definition for me is literally “think outside the box you have created for yourself.”  When I remember that, good things always happen.

Artist Trashes Her Own Work! Justified?

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You be the judge.

If you’ve ever taken an art class, you know that sometimes the “crit” can be a bit harsh. I suppose we can chalk it up to the ultimate learning experience, but artists, by nature, are particularly sensitive. It’s the reason we love them and the reason they see things most people can’t. It’s why , through their art, they can creatively comment on society, the human condition, pop culture, and the status quo. They spot trends and buck them. They know BS when it crosses their path, and they send up flares when they’ve had enough.  In the grand scheme of things, artists lead the way and help the rest of us navigate and formulate thought.

Art critic - spouts artspeak BS Pastel by DeWilton_4tlr

“The Art Critic” – Pastel drawing by DeWilton, 2004.

It’s a considerable cross to bear, but most wouldn’t have it any other way.

Still, even wielding that kind of power – artists can crack when a critic lashes out or tears them down. With one insidious question the critic can annihilate the artist and send him crashing down into an unforgiving abyss of pathetically low self-esteem. (I happen to love the drawing to the left titled “art critic” where the subject’s twisted mouth is basically flying off his face.)

But as an artist, your only mission is to make art from your heart. “If you hear a voice within you saying, “You are not a painter – then by all means paint … and that voice will be silenced – but only by working.” — Vincent Van Gogh – in a letter to Theo van Gogh,in 1883.

 ”Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway .” — Eleanor Roosevelt

 

Find Your Moment – Improve Your Day

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LL keke and fidge patio for TLR

It’s as easy as stepping outside. (Photo by Josh Kaplan)

I have a confession to make. I was wrong. Totally wrong. When I launched this blog 2 years ago, one of the first posts I wrote was about carving out 10 minutes a day to feed your creative soul.

I got up on my high horse and said that anyone – everyone — could find ten minutes a day to do the thing he or she loved most. I was wrong. I am in the middle of a corporate consulting project that is requiring all my waking hours, and I haven’t painted in weeks.

The work is creative, exciting and satisfying. But I face many hours of pure paperwork, detailed budgets, cost analysis, and insane deadlines. The stuff I hate. And because of those hours hunched over my laptop – inside and alone — I was beginning to go a little ultram nutty.

Then it hit me, I may not have 10 minutes to drag out the paints and create something interesting — but that doesn’t mean I can’t create a little oasis within the confines of the tasks I’m facing.

I grabbed my laptop, my chai tea, my folders, and my cats, and simply moved my headquarters — out to the patio.  Suddenly, with the sun shining down, the bougainvillea in bloom, and the cats pitching in, the assignment I was dreading morphed  into a little moment of bliss.

I’ve written a lot of posts about the need for artists to change their perspective: turn up into down, whole into parts, black into white. But this little exercise taught me it is just as important to do that with my attitude. By turning my life’s canvas upside down I found underneath it the one thing that always helps: gratitude.

Done preaching – my spreadsheets await.