Lisa Call

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.

Morning Aspens
by Stacey Peterson
Oil on Panel
9×12″
2008
reprinted with permission by the artist

Being Decisive

I think one reason I get so much done is I’m good at making decisions, meaning that when presented with choices I don’t spend days or weeks or months deciding what to do. I just decide. Then I do it.

When I decluttered my house at the beginning of the year I had no intention of moving at that time. But once the idea that I really could move came to me, I didn’t ponder it forever. I simply decided to move based on how that decision felt to me and within a week I had a Realtor lined up and got to work making it happen. I went from thinking "Hm, maybe I could move" to living in my new house in only 3 months.

One of my strengths is my intuition. I rarely sit down and make lists of advantages and disadvantages of doing something. I just listen to my feelings and pick the choice that feels right and move forward. I do journal and find writing (not list making) helps me listen my desires.

I don’t believe that every decision has a wrong and a right choice. I think there are pros and cons to all choices. So I focus on the positives of my direction and don’t let the negative aspects stop me.

This isn’t to say I don’t sometimes decide my choice wasn’t the best for me. So then I just change my mind and do something else. And once that decision is made then I just move forward in the new direction.

It’s hard to make forward progress and put energy anywhere if I don’t make a decision as to which direction to go. So step one is to decide. When I’m feeling low on energy I often find that I haven’t gotten clear about a decision that needs to be made. Making that decision releases all sorts of energy and starts propelling me towards my future.

If you are feeling like you don’t have the energy to devote to a project are you fully committed and have you truly decided that is the direction you should go? Maybe making a solid decision is the first step in boosting your energy.

Construction Zone

Tomorrow’s the big day – construction on my new studio begins. I spent a large portion of the weekend preparing my house for the event.

First up will be removal of the asbestos siding. Originally I thought I’d do this work myself. Then I decided that was a bit insane so I’ve hired asbestos removal people to do it. Once the siding is gone the builder can start and will begin by ripping the moldy shed off the back of the garage, which will create a pathway, through the garage, for the big digging thing to get to my backyard to dig a basement.

Pictures of the progress will start tomorrow and if things go as intended the artwork will also continue.

Morning Aspens

I love Stacey Peterson’s paintings of the Colorado landscape and have been saving up to purchase one for about a year. When she posted the photo of the above painting on her blog I knew instantly (there’s that intuitive decision making thing) it was the one I wanted and am happy to report it arrived at my house this week.

Stacey’s blog is one of my favorites. She’s my role model: she quit her technical job to support herself with her art and she lives in the Colorado mountains. Plus she’s really organized and hates clutter – my kind of person!

Depending on how messy it gets around here during construction the painting might have to live somewhere else for few months but right now it’s on the wall in my living room and I’m definitely enjoying it.

Now time to start saving up for the next artist’s work I covet.

Went for a hike in the Mt Evans Wilderness this weekend through a huge grove of Aspen trees. It was magical. I was completely in awe of these amazing trees.

I hope the colors looks okay in these – just calibrated my monitor and I’m thinking I’ll redo it in the morning cause it’s looking a bit weird.

That said – the golden light from the leaves of the aspen trees incredible. Photoshop isn’t believing the sky was as blue as it was and leaves as gold as they were. High on the list of todos for post host remodel – learn to use my camera and photoshop correctly.