Lisa Call

Structures #91
©2007 Lisa Call
12" x 12"
Textile Painting (hand dyed fabric, batting, thread)
$700
Purchase Here

Weekend Plans

The kids are celebrating father’s day this weekend with their dad (and will be giving him the art they bought him). Which means I have the weekend to get lots of stuff done.

My todo list:

• Studio time: surface stitching/quilting on Structures #111 so it is 3/4 complete (estimate ~18 hrs)
• Dye fabric: for back of my next large piece + a few yards cause it’s fun (estimate ~3 hrs)
• makebigart.com: get the initial pages of the website done and first blog post written & launch (estimate ~6 hrs)

I’m exited – making lots of forward progress.

By my math that’s about 14 hours of stuff to do each day – which means it’s time to get moving.

Energy

The number one question I am asked is how I have the energy to do this stuff. So I wrote a series of blog posts on the subject and now seems like a good time to summarize them:

• Energy – Physical Health
• Energy – Organization and Clutter
• Energy – Attitude
• Energy – Personality Type
• Energy – Making Decisions

I think I could write more posts in this series as there is probably more to say. Hm…

But right now it’s time to get to the studio and get to work.

 
PS. I think Structures #91, above, has amazing energy – I think it’s probably that saturated red.

Lines #7
©2008
4" x 4" – Mounted on stretched canvas
Sold

Exercise and Art

Sitting in front of a sewing machine for 22 hours in 2 days (like I did 2 weekends ago) is pretty taxing on a body, or at least it is on a body that is in it’s 40s. Without exercise I couldn’t pull off marathon weekends like that.

Yoga and walking are my current favored ways of moving my body and keeping my blood flowing. Walking clears my head, adds images to my idea store for future art no matter where I walk – in town or in the mountains. There’s always something to see to be inspired.

Yoga is truly magical and by far my most favorite way to exercise. Stretching, strength, mind body connection and relaxation all in one. Perfect way to prepare for a day of making art.

Daily Habit

These days I haven’t had done much of either of these. My floor is really gritty from the construction and many days there isn’t enough floor space and when the kids are home I wake them up if I do yoga early, or the construction works arrive and the saws aren’t very conducive.

So basically I just make a bunch of excuses and have fallen out of the habit of doing yoga daily. A year ago I went 3 months without missing a single day of yoga, now I’m lucky if I get in a few minutes once a week.

I’m craving the type of life where yoga is again a part of my routine. A perfect morning to me would be to get up at 5:30 for a half hour of yoga then a shower, some journaling, time in the studio, breakfast with the kids and then work (and since we’re talking about perfect that work would not be the software job – it would be the art career). Soon – yes soon.

I know it will be easy to reestablish the yoga routine the minute the builders are out the door. The walking is a bit harder. Sometimes I walk during lunch at work (my favorite is to walk to the nearest playground and swing on the swings). Sometimes I hike on the weekends. Sometimes I walk around my neighborhood and feel a huge appreciation for being able to live exactly where I want to live.

But nothing is habit and I quickly forget and then I stop. There is nothing preventing me from establishing this routine now so starting tomorrow I’m going to make it a higher priority to get out and walk at least 20 minutes, 5 days a week.

By end of february I’ll check in and see if I’ve got a habit forming. Time to add walk to my joes goals profile.

Why Exercise?

In addition to the obvious reasons – the physical ones – I find exercising to be almost vital for my mental health. I’m significantly happier if I’ve been exercising. Yoga and walking aren’t as strenuous as what I used to do but given everything else I’m interested in, it’s enough for now.

After my divorce in 2002 one of the first things I did was lose about 15-20 pounds via the divorce diet, which is really quite miraculous although I don’t recommend it, and by working out at the gym.

Then I started running, and that I believe, is what got me through all the mental stuff of the divorce and the first relationship breakup 1 year later. The negative voices ran circles around my head as I hit the pavement every morning training.

In 2003 I ran a half marathon and around the same time I found a lot of internal peace having worked out all of the crap out there on the sidewalk.

I ran for a while after that but not long, my knees objected and I didn’t have as much time as the art career had really started taking off and the need to get the voices out of my head diminished.

I would love to find the time to start running again, on a much gentler pace, as I think it’s an incredible way to keep myself in balance and happy. It’s such an excellent way to expend any negative energy on something positive.

We’ll see if that happens after the construction is over. It’s not a super high priority but I’ve got it on my list of habits to form if I can find the time.

 
What are you exercise habits? How do you think they affect your art?

Lines #7

Today I finally rephotographed Lines #7 with my better lens. It’s just amazing to me how different the color quality is between the 2. I suppose this might be obvious to a photographer but I’ve got 0 training in that area.

A big thank you to those of you that bought art today as a great investment since my prices are going up on February 1st. I think I have the best blog readers in the world.

Preparing for the New Year

I’m not sure how it got here so quickly, but it’s December. I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to approach this month for a while and have decided to dedicate it to Joy. Absolute wonderful peace and delight in things that make me happy.

A snippet from my journal this morning:

Hello December, I’m happy to see you. This month is all about joy, peace, happiness. I’m going to have 31 days of delight. Each day my intent and focus will be to appreciate and do joyful things, have joyful thoughts and experiences and be a joyful person.

As I was writing my cat came over and silently sat next to me, her sign for "pick me up and put me in your lap so I can purr". My first moment of joy after declaring my intention for the month.

I will share my experiences with intending joy each day in our typically busy holiday season throughout this month of blogging and hope to hear from my readers about their joyful days also.

Pencil Holders

Driving home watching the beautiful sunset I was excited to see a package by my front door upon my return home. Aha – total delight – my pencil holders from Paula have arrived. I love them – look at the 9 new holders all in a row in the photo. I love it. I love repetition.

Paula – thanks for sharing your art and spreading happiness to this corner of the planet.

Thank You

And next a huge thank you to all of my readers as the pageviews for my blog topped 100,000 for the month for the first time ever. I’d been holding pretty steady around 75K-80K for a while and finally something pushed it over the top. Maybe spammers. Who knows, even if I cut that number in half to account for the noise, I have a lot of readers. Unique visitors are over 22,000 per month and average around 1300-1500 per day. Thanks everyone!

Thank you all for reading and commenting. I love what I learn about myself and my art when writing my blog and then I get more from all of your comments, rethinking my ideas. I fall behind occasionally on comments and I suspect there are questions I said I would answer that I forget about. Sorry about that – if it’s important, just ask again. Just wanted to let you all know every comment is greatly appreciated and my goal is to respond to them all.

New Beginnings

So what’s behind all the joy crap? Well a couple of things. The first is I have signed up for a year of coaching with Christine Kane and I suspect she might have been a baker in a previous life because most of us are are really getting a bonus 13 months, which means it started today.

I plan to get the most out of the upcoming year and I know that change comes from within, not from Christine, she’s just really good at holding me to the things I said I would do and calling out my bullshit. It felt right to dedicate the first month of the coaching to shear delight.

The other motivator is that my relationship with Jim has come to an end. It was time and while I’m sad I’m not surprised. I’ve gotten very clear about what I need and want over the last year and things weren’t working out for either of us. I wish Jim well and trust he will have a joyful life moving forward.

Clearing Out

Over the past few days, inspired by Colin’s rss cleanout, I’ve removed a large number of blogs from my feed reader. I think I was up to 150 or something around there. I was always behind and reading blogs wasn’t an activity it was a diversion.

I’ve got the list down to less than 70 and will probably weed out more as I find the ones I don’t really read. Now reading blogs is an activity – 10-15 minutes a day and I should be caught up. Feels great – it’s decluttering! I’m hoping this leaves me more time to respond to blog comments and look over the blogs my readers are writing.

It felt great to dump all the "you should read this if you are a real artist" type of blogs, like Tyler Green. I tried really really hard to care. I just couldn’t. It always just sounded like gossip and complaining, or it was just boring. Reminder – I am defining my art career, the only MUST DO things are the things I define.

I dumped most of the inspiration type blogs and the marketing type blogs as they started to sound repetitive. I’m really tired of blog posts with lists: 7 ways to have more energy, less hair, more clothes, less time, etc. That format has lost it’s charm on me.

Also, anyone that didn’t publish a full blog post in their feed got removed. Okay – 2 exceptions – but I still prefer you publish full posts. Katherine and I already had this conversation and agreed to disagree, darn. Colin, please, give us the full feed – save us from carpal tunnel having to click to read your thoughts.

Sea Foam Green

Two of the new pieces of art I made over the weekend were sea foam green in nature. Looking at Paula’s pencil holders I can see what inspired me. Not to mention the same color on the mugs I bought from Cynthia. Hm.

Here’s my green:

Lines #7
©2008
4" x 4" – Mounted on stretched canvas
Sold

Lines #7 – On Canvas

ACEO #29
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

Available for purchase here, along with art that is not green in case that isn’t your thing. I think I had those old pink and green bathroom in my mind when I made these. Or maybe there was never a time when people had pink and green bathrooms. But it sounds good.

My daughter wants a neon orange bathtub. Do they make those?

 
Happy Monday everyone!

Structures #66    ©2007    22" x 31"

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Today was the first day of work after the clocks went back an hour (good bye daylight savings time until March) so as I was headed home at 5 it was already getting dark and by 5:30 it was all over. I had big plans to do tons of stuff tonight but found myself wandering aimlessly about the house for a while a bit disoriented.

I usually find this darker time to be a great period of motivation. I’m getting tons of sleep and it’s too cold out to want to wander about so my studio is the perfect place to be.

This year it feels odd. Probably the weather. Usually it’s fairly cold when this happens so it feels natural but this year it’s been in the 70s. It’s too warm for the days to be getting shorter! Which is really quite good in terms of pouring cement for the foundation of my new studio – I truly am very grateful the weather is on my side on this one.

Twitter to the Rescue

So after a bit of pacing and greeting the cats I naturally found myself in front of the computer instead of the sewing machine. No new email to distract me so off to twitter. I started to write something that felt whiny then realized I really don’t want to be that person.

So instead I found myself writing: First day home after dark from work. It’s going to take some serious energy to get me to that studio. Okay – no whining – off I go.

and headed to my studio for a little over 2 hours of art time today along with an hour of work on the website rewrite as I am determined this will be done within the next week.

I just had to decide to do it, and then I did. Thank you twitter for the chance to remind myself of that.

It’s a good day to follow up on my very productive weekend of 12 hours in the studio and 4 hours in the office. Kids are at their dad’s, boyfriend is out of town so no excuses to not stay focused and get stuff done.

Structures #66

I wanted art for the post today so selected a piece with a lot of black. I love this piece (do I say that about all of my work? Sometimes it feels that way, maybe because I rarely show the stuff that I don’t say that about).

I’ve never shown this textile painting in public and it’s pretty much lived in my closet it’s entire life. I need to find it a new home where it can get out of the darkness. I’m going to be putting all of my artwork on my new website over the next month (with prices – this piece is $1200 – which reminds me that I want to do a post about how I price my work) so I trust it will find a lighter place to live once the world knows it exists.

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.

The Achiever

I am a type 3 on the enneagram, The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type:Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious. So I come by my energy partly to fulfill all of that success-oriented drive that I have. Definitely that is the upside of being a three, but just like all of the types, there are plenty of downsides.

All the image oriented stuff. Ugh – yeah – at times that can be me. And the "never ever admit you might have a flaw" stuff. Yep – me also.

Threes are excellent at getting things done. I have a ton of energy and am always up for doing stuff. The flip side is I’m less adept and relaxing. This year I made creating space a priority and in addition to my (near) daily yoga practice I look for ways to slow down and relax. Finding a boyfriend that lives in the mountains has been a big help in that direction.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The photo at the top of this post is of 3 new catalog covers that feature images of my artwork (Structures #14, Structures #11 and Structures #46). The catalogs are teaching resources for a company that does a lot of Myers-Briggs training and testing.

I love this personality type stuff so was thrilled with they asked for images earlier this year. I just got the completed catalog covers in the mail this week.

I’m an INTJ the Myers-Briggs world. Which explains all of my planning and list making skills. And my geek side. My natural preference is to be organized and efficient which amplifies my energy as I rarely waste much of it:

INTJs are ambitious, self-confident, deliberate, long-range thinkers. They dislike messiness and inefficiency, and anything that is muddled or unclear. They value clarity and efficiency, and will put enormous amounts of energy and time into consolidating their insights into structured patterns.
…
INTJs have a tremendous amount of ability to accomplish great things. They have insight into the Big Picture, and are driven to synthesize their concepts into solid plans of action.

Playing to Strengths

There are a lot of people that find these personality indicators to be a bunch of junk and admittedly there is no scientific proof they are accurate. But I believe they are useful in helping to identify patterns and preferences and when used to aid in personal growth they can be extremely valuable.

This information can be used to identify the positive parts of my natural inclinations. Knowing what I might be good at is helpful in taking those those strengths and expanding them.

Not an Excuse

Even more helpful is understanding my weaknesses so I have a reference point for how to move forward past those potential road blocks.

It’s easy to read personality type indicators like the enneagram or myers-briggs and use it as a way of staying stuck. Easy to think "Oh well I a _____, might as well accept this is the way I am" and just be that way.

While I don’t think I can change who I am fundamentally, I know I can change my thoughts and my attitude and the past year I’ve done a lot in that direction.

Using these tests as an excuse for bad behavior or using them to limit my choices or abilities is not acceptable.

Home #4
©2008
4" x 3"
Sold

Plan to Have Energy

My daily schedule:

• 5:30: Wake up
• 6:00: Yoga
• 6:30: Prepare for day
• 7:00: Work in Studio
• 7:30: Breakfast and get kids out the door to school
• 8:00: More Studio
• 8:30: Leave for work
• 5:00: Home from work
• 5:00: Dinner & family time
• 7:00: Studio
• 8:00: Art business/Office Work
• 9:00: Write Blog Post
• 9:30: Read 1/2 hour then sleep

My life isn’t always exactly like this but in general this is what I get done each day. My kids live with their dad every other week in which case family time is replaced with more studio and art business time.

When I first started working the day job I didn’t do anything when I got home other than watch netflix movies. After 6 months to a year of this rather sluggish behavior I decided I’d had enough laziness and I got rid of my TV.

Then I told myself I was not exhausted and that I had plenty of energy to make art. So that is exactly what I did. I’d get home from work and head to my studio and work for hours.

Now I do this daily. On my drive home I visualize myself working in my studio. I tell myself I have a ton of energy and I focus on the positive. I don’t participate in conversations where people complain about being too busy or tired to do anything as I feel it has a negative impact on me.

Having a positive attitude about what I can get done has been a big help in have all the energy I need to do anything I want.

Art For Sale

I stitched Home #4 along with Home #3, posted yesterday, with the thought it would be an ACEO to offer for sale via my studio newsletter in December. But apparently I can not measure and it turned out too big. I haven’t yet mastered the diagonals of these little houses so I do a lot more resewing and recutting than with my Structures and Markings series and they still don’t always turn out as I expect.

So now this little single house textile painting gets to be called Home #4 and is for sale for $35. Please send me email if you are interested in purchasing it. Shipping is $1 in the US and $2 elsewhere. I accept payment via paypal or checks in US dollars.

I was going to point out the stitched doors in the houses yesterday but forgot so check them out on this little piece. Maybe windows will be next as I had a discussion about windows with my builder today. We also talked about all sorts of other things, like bathrooms and keys. We’re getting closer to starting!

Insights

This evening is interview #2 in the Insights Artist Interview series with Alyson Stanfield. I love getting a chance to hear what these artist have to say about their careers. Success stories are wonderful motivation to keep on going.

Home #3
©2008
10.5" x 8"
Purchase Here

Organization and Energy

When people ask me about having a lot of energy, one of the common threads is to ask how I have the energy to stay so organized with everything I do. I think the answer is that because I stay organized, I have energy for other things.

I find that clutter is a huge energy drain. Be it clutter in my mind or the more concrete piles of junk all over the house. If I let things get into too much disarray, all of my energy is spent thinking about what I have to do or hunting for stuff I can’t find and there is little energy left for doing anything. Staying organized frees up a ton of energy for other projects.

Mental Clutter

When my mind is full of unresolved issues with people or events or projects I tend to be low on energy. Or maybe more accurately, all of my energy ends up going towards ruminating about these situations.

Yesterday when I got home from work I ended up doing very little. Watched old episodes of The Office online. I never watch TV and I had 5 hours that could have been spent on studio time but something was off.

When I find myself stalled like I was last night I don’t beat myself, instead I look around and try to figure out what is draining my energy. I made a list of the things that were nagging at me and will spend today cleaning up those lose ends so I can get back to focusing my energy on making art, not worrying about stuff.

Getting the jumble out of my head and down onto paper, including my thoughts on how I feel about some of these things, is a huge help in plugging up the energy drain. Just recognizing all of the things that are pulling me into different directions is very freeing. Now I can prioritize the list and deal with the issues in a sane manner, instead of freaking out and shutting down.

Physical Organization

It’s not just my brain that need to stay organized for me to think clearly and have the energy to get things done. I also work better in an organized environment.

I’m a big believer in "a place for everything and everything in it’s place". When I don’t have that my things end up in random spots and I spend too much time looking for them, which is a complete waste of energy.

Just because I know a piece of paper is in a huge pile doesn’t mean it’s a good use of my time to dig through that pile every time I need it. Getting and staying organized is a way better use of my energy, so when I need something it is easily found. No distractions about clutter need enter my head when I’m in search of papers. I was able to pull together all the documents I needed for my construction loan in about 10 minutes because my files are so organized.

I had to buy an new quick release thing to attach my camera to my tripod as the old one disappeared. In my old house that thing had a home, if it wasn’t on my camera it was in it’s home. It had no home in this house so it apparently felt neglected and went on vacation. I spent over a month hunting for that thing, worring about taking pictures without and in general letting it annoy me. All of which was a huge waste of energy. The new one just arrived and first thing I did was decide where it will live in my house during the remodel. Energy drain plugged by a bit of organization.

This might sound like a silly example, but when a huge number of silly little things like lost quick release plates pile up together, I end up with a life that is only about distraction, not about making progress.

Home #3

These thoughts about clutter and organization tie in nicely with my thoughts about what makes a home. One thing I ask myself is why I crave so much space in a house. Why is my 900 sq ft house so in need of being made bigger for me to live here?

One of the answers I came to is that in 900 sq ft it is really really hard to be organized and uncluttered. There is simply not enough space to put things. Or to be more precise, given the things I own, there is not enough space to get organized. If I were told I had to live in 900 sq ft I could do it. But I would get rid of a lot more stuff. A huge roll top desk is not something that fits into a house of this size.

Fortunately I do not have to live in 900 sq ft and it turns out with the addition my house will be closer to 2300 sq ft. I’m pretty excited about that as I love big clear open spaces with minimal stuff. So while the frugal, virtous part of me feels like a big american pig for wanting such a big house, the efficient, productive artist in me is excited that in a few months I’ll be able to get really organized again and hence have more energy for making art. My energy is not best spent riffling through a cabinet crammed full of pots and pans to find the right one.

I’m ignoring the voices in my head that tell me there is some virtue in living small. I’m listening to the voices that say there is virtue in living large and honoring my desire for space for making art.

I completed Home #3 this morning and find it interesting how this piece of art, which I subtitle in my head Big House, Little House, and this posting came together at the same time. Rather serendipitous. And it’s the first photo I’ve taken in about 2 months with my tripod. Woohoo.

I think the question I receive most frequently is "where do you get all of your energy?" The last person to ask me this was Susan via twitter. I promised her I’d write a blog post on the topic and when I sat down to write it got really long so I’m breaking into multiple parts.

Food & Exercise

I think physical health is very important. When I feel tired or sick or physically not up to par it’s very hard to be motivated and have energy. So I take good care of myself. I have an extremely healthy diet, I exercise a bit and I have body work done on occasion (such as acupuncture or massage).

I don’t drink caffeine, I don’t eat much sugar, I don’t eat much white flour, I don’t eat meat except fish and I drink very little alcohol or soda. I eat super healthy for the most part, not just because I know I will feel better, but also because this is what comes naturally to me, I like simple nourishing food and have been doing it for 23 years.

I never feel like I’m depriving myself, so when I want to I’ll go on a cupcake eating binge. Or fritos. Or have a couple beers. Everything in moderation is fine but I find if I eat like this for an extended period of time I don’t feel great and naturally gravitate back to healthier simple food.

I don’t exercise as much as I might like but am managing yoga 3 or 4 times a week and some walking, my goal is 3-5 miles a week at a minimum. I’m not in the awesome shape I was in 5 years ago when I ran a half marathon and hike several 14ers but I still feel good.

My favorite form of exercise is to walk over to a playground at lunchtime and swing until my head clears. Usually it’s full of to-do lists and I don’t need that in my brain all the time. Probably the best way to spend 45 minutes while at work and it’s about 1.5 mile round trip.