Bed Time
Aspens #1
Textile Painting with hand stitched texture
©2002
16" x 13"
Private Collection
Sleep
Probably the most important habit I try to keep is sleeping 8 hours a night. I know that when I start slacking off and thinking I can get by with less sleep I really start to feel it. Generally I skip sleep because I think I can get more done if I stay up late. The reality is that the opposite generally results.
When I’m tired my brain stops working as well and I can’t focus on tasks as easily. The result is I am significantly less productive, which for me generally means surfing the internet reading art blogs and playing around on twitter and facebook.
Like right now, I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. Just now I thought, hey I should link to my twitter profile in that sentence. So I opened twitter and had to write a tweet about my son’s musical taste (he’s listening to the Beach Boys of all things) and then I thought I should add twitter to my sidebar so opened my dashboard for wordpress and saw they were doing a survey for features for 2.8. I started doing that when I realized. Wait – I’m writing a blog post.
I can go on like that for hours if I get tired enough. Clearly skipping sleep does not make me more productive nor does it give me more time to get things done. It just give me time to waste doing useless things.
Because I always seem to wake up at 5 or 5:30 and am a morning person, it is really important for me to be in bed by 9:30. So this is the first habit I’m going to concentrate on for 2009. I haven’t sleep super good the last 3 or 3 months and I need to get back into that habit. I think tackling everything else will be a lot easier if I’m well rested.
[hm got sidetracked again, but did get twitter and facebook in my sidebar, and updated my status on facebook while I was at it.]
The Hand Stitch
People have been commenting positively on my posts with the hand stitched work so here’s another one. I wrote a post about Aspens #1 a few years back that includes more information about what inspired the textile painting (a backpacking trip) and it includes a detail shot of the stitching. In this instance I didn’t add a second design over the top of the Aspens but instead echoed the shapes with my stitching.
I love doing hand stitching but it is hard on my hands so can’t do as much as I used to. I haven’t given it up but I haven’t done any in maybe a year. In the past I haven’t devoted much time to it but I really want to get back to it more. I have the idea to do a couple hand stitched Home pieces in the next month as I’m going to get kicked out of my studio soon so construction can progress.
I also have a heavily hand beaded piece that is a few hours away from completion. I’d love to get that done and show it to you all in the next couple of weeks.
But first – it’s time to catch up on some sleep! I’ll catch up on comments tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the positive responses the last couple days.
Posted by Lisa in: Being an Artist
Tagged: aspens, facebook, habits, sleep, stitching, twitter
It is the desire to create that keeps me up at night sometimes. Like a child who refuses to stop playing! Then I lie in bed and find my eyes are focussed on something up there, in the memory position. So I lower them to an imagined horizon, that works in most cases. — I share this experience: enough sleep makes us clearer, more concentrated, we work faster. Some may contradict. But even they should not let shortened sleep become a habit.
i appreciate your sharing so candidly. I actually find a lot of comfort in sleep and use my dream time productively. Ive seen design patterns in my sleep and have received good ideas there too…there is another way to look at downtime…
One of the best things about my recent 2 weeks sans computer was the extra time sleeping — though I admit, the new toys on my iphone did slip into consciousness. Even better on the short little 4 day trip into Northern Mexico, the town itself went to sleep about 8 p.m., so we found ourselves sleeping 10-12 hours each night. With no trouble. Sleep well!
First of all – Happy New Year Lisa!
I can relate to that feeling of wanting to keep going and going and then realizing at some point you started losing steam and you’re still “in action” but not getting a whole lot accomplished! My issue is I stay up into the wee hours and then OVERsleep which leaves me groggy the next day. A cycle of having a full blown over 14 hour workday-into night, crash for over 8 hours, wake foggy and don’t get much accomplished, sleep a normal night, wake with the energy to go for 14+ hours and away we gooooo!!! One of my 2009 goals is to turn that switch off maybe two hours before I want to go to bed and have some real off the clock chill time. To read, to snuggle, to relax and unwind. I always did that when I had a “real” job, why not now? So tonight I promise to get off the computer and make a cup of herbal tea and do something OTHER than work for the last few hours of the day. Deal?
Ditto the attention splatter with little sleep. I’ve got increased sleep patterns as one of my resolutions, too.
Lately, I’ve been up at 2:30 or 3, watch tv or work/internet, out the door for work between 6-7:30. I’m wiped at the end of the day struggling to keep my eyes open at 8:00 pm. Fall aslepp for a few houtrs, wake up at 2:30….. (repeat). Terrible pattern to fall into.
I’m trying to establish bedtime rituals; not just hygiene things, but also gratitude journal, day timer update and a little meditation before laying my head down to rest. Working hard to reboot everyday.
I know what you mean about lack of sleep. When I was sicker last week, all I could do was sit in front of my laptop and compose little short tweets and FB comments. Now that I’m starting to feel better, have more energy to get up from the computer so now tweet and FB posts are dwindling. Nice blue and colors on this one!
joyous new year Lisa-it’s true…enough sleep increases that feeling of true rest and the creative juices flow faster. several late nights in a row become a bad habit in our home-breaking that is challenging. love this older example of hand work on a textile painting-look forward to seeing your nearly completed bead piece.
I am with you on the sleep issue, I must get my eight hours a night or I’ll be paying for it the next day.
Love the hand stitching in these pieces! I first started to hand stitch so I could be in the same room with my husband after the kids go to bed and not drown him out with the roar of the sewing machine.. now I enjoy it immensely and use it as my meditative wind down time in the evening.
Happy New Year!
And don’t forget that more sleep means your bodies metabolism works better so you actually will lose weight! Or at least that’s what I here :)