Lisa Call

Ta Da

Today at lunch I packaged up the photos and CDs and stuff and shipped my info off to the curator. I made my deadline – woohoo!

In addition to my kids coming home from camp a week early, I also ran into some issues with my website so the last few days haven’t been as smooth as one might hope but I had a bit of a buffer built in just incase.

My website has been quarantined off to the “you are hogging up the resources” section of the lunarpages world and if it doesn’t stop I have to pay more money. I can still run the website but some other things are a bit broken. Like email.

I’ve installed a caching plugin on wordpress and hope that fixes the problem. I didn’t hear back from them today so not sure if that is a good or bad sign.

In the meantime I can’t send email or access old emails stored in folders, kind of a bummer. And kind of not. I read the emails and then ignore them cause there is nothing to be done. A mini email vacation.

Estimation and Meeting my Deadline

I was able to easily make my deadline for this project because I had a very good idea of how long it would take me and the rate that I needed to get my work done.

This is one of the side benefits of recording and tracking my studio time. I know how long it takes me to make my artwork. It’s not an exact science but it is a good ballpark figure.

My original estimate was between 120 and 160 hours of work and it turned out to be 130 – completed in 5 weeks in addition to my day job.

Celebration

To celebrate completing this work I’m taking my kids to Santa Fe over the weekend as a last minute vacation. They were supposed to be in camp, I was supposed to be in Tucson so I had the vacation scheduled at work. Now neither of those things worked out so why waste a great opportunity to go eat some green chile. Yum!

We aren’t making any plans and the primary purpose of the trip is to eat (I grew up near Santa Fe, in Los Alamos) and an occasional trip to New Mexico is required as the food is beyond compare. Other than that we’ll just see if we feel up to doing anything other than going to see the new Harry Potter movie. Might just hang out at the hotel (they have wireless).

Nothing better than sopapillas to celebrate a job well done!

Structures #73 – In Progress
Textile Painting
©2009 Lisa Call
Detail

Holiday Weekend

This 3 day weekend I work in my studio 16 hours. It was the first weekend it felt like home again. I’ve loved having the space but hadn’t really felt it was broken in yet. Now it does.

I’m most thankful it rained all weekend, so I relieved myself of all responsibility for pulling the nearly 2 foot tall weeds in the landscape free yard. The day will come when I’ll have to deal with that issue, but with the rain I was free to just make art.

I’m nearly finished putting the surface stitching (quilting) on Structures #73 and started some new ACEOs. The first ones of the year.

I also made big progress on Structures #100. I decided to make it the first new larger piece I designed in my new studio and it went together well. The composition is done so now I need to get it basted so I can start quilting it also.

Planning

It feels great to be motivated to make art again. Seems like it’s been a long time.

After my post a few days about about adding some more structure to my studio time, I decided to set some specific goals for the year to keep me motivated.

For 2009 my studio goals:

- 550 or more hours of studio time (~10 hrs a week)
- 256 or more days making art (70% of the days in the year)

As of today I’ve put in 126 hours in the studio and made art 68 days this year. To make my goals I’m going to have to make art pretty much every day for the rest of the year and put in at least 15 hours a week.

I’m be in South Africa for nearly a month later this summer, so I’ve factored in that time away from the studio also.

As a point of reference, in 2007 I put in 870 hours in my studio. The year I had a very clearly defined goal of 20 hours a week in my studio.

In 2008 it was 446 hours in the studio. A year with the laid back “let’s not set specific goals” plan. I also sold my house, moved into a house with no studio and started a major construction project – so to be fair I was a bit busier also.

Next up is going to be doing some planning and setting specific goals for the business side of art. I’ve been very reluctant to do that in the past and I think it’s time to get more serious about tracking the hours I spend on the business and keeping a better schedule.

I have big ideas of things I’d like to accomplish – specific goals will help me get there.

Page From My Sketchbook Used to Track Studio Time (click to see larger image)

Tracking Studio Time

I wasn’t planning on writing tonight but I want to write this down while I still remember the thoughts I had today thinking about the post I wrote last night and some of the comments that were left.

I mentioned several times on my blog that I track my studio time. The posts I wrote early in 2008 ( This One and Another One ) are very interesting reads.

These posts indicate a change I made in tracking studio time. I went from being very systematic about it, to taking a more laid back approach. It was all part of the search for who I wanted to be.

I’ve since decided that is a bunch of crap-ola. Yep – I’m going back to a definite plan for how much work I want to get down in my studio.

It Didn’t Work

I discovered that trying to take the "Oh, It doesn’t matter, I’m more floaty and creative if I don’t put rules around it" approach to studio time resulted in my getting significantly less done.

In Jan-Mar of 2008, right after I devised that crazy scheme, I did basically nothing in my studio. My kids were in Europe – I was home alone – there were no excuses or distractions. It was simply me being less systematic. As a result I would often say "I’m tired" or "I don’t feel like it" and stuff like "I’ll do it tomorrow".

None of that stuff really results in things getting done. Instead it’s a good way to get nothing done but have a lot of lofty reasons for why I didn’t.

Like "self care is just so much more important than making art". Hm – NOT! Making art is the #1 thing I say I want to spend my time doing. Not avoid doing.

Why Does A System Work?

So I’ve thought a lot about why my old way of doing things, with rules and precise tracking, worked and I think the answer is it is basically the same thing as setting a timer.

There has been tons written about boosting productivity by using a timers (check out these google results). I think my old plan was essentially that. I timed myself.

When I walked into the studio I trained myself to look and the clock. That was it – timer was running. I didn’t stop working until the time was a even increment of 15 minutes. And then I wrote it down.

Because the timer was running I wasn’t tempted to run off and do other stuff, like check email or do my laundry.

When I left my studio the timer was off – I wasn’t racking up minutes. So I’d hurry back to get the timer going again.

I know this sounds kinda crazy but after seeing it in action and reading all the timer and productivity stuff (my favorite person that write about this is Christine Kane) I’m convinced – it really works. And not just for studio stuff. I now use a timer for my writing and planning art business stuff now also.

I have been spending 15 minutes each morning entering addresses into my snail mail mailing list. Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot but over time it adds up and with no big drama effort, I’m going to have the last 18 months of avoiding this task whipped into shape.

Going with No Goals

In my attempt to be more floaty I also gave up setting goals for how many hours I would spend in my studio each week. I decided to just let it happen. As I mentioned – it didn’t.

What happened is the emotional side of me got all excited and it had a field day. Woohoo – we get to run the show and stop her from doing what she wants.

I only made art when I felt like it. Or when I magically had time.

Okay – really – I work full time as a software engineer. I’m a single mom every other week with 2 teenagers constantly wanting stuff. I own my home, have to pay the bills and do all those house things that need done. There is the yard (okay there was the yard – it’s now dirt). Family, friends, quack quack quack.

I don’t have time to put in 20 hours a week in my studio so of course if I give myself an out I’m going to take it. There weren’t any goals so it didn’t matter. No disappointment so why bother doing it.

Thumbs Up To Goals

So forget that no goals thing. I’m now setting my goal to 15 hours a week. I’m making it lower than before because I also plan on doing a lot more art business stuff than I used to.

By setting goals I have something to aim for. I may not always make that goal but by identifying it and writing it down I have a much better chance of making my goal than without writing it down.

By setting goals I am no longer giving the emotional side of me free reign to do what I want. I get scared or worried or anything about what I’m working on. Great – recognize the feelings – but I’m not going to let it stop me from pushing forward.

Eventually those feelings realize they aren’t in control and they get a little less loud.

By setting goals and being systematic I’m significantly more creative and make much more art than when I’m all new-agey. Trying to be like those non-driven people I sometimes think I should be like, who always seem more creative and spontaneous and fun, didn’t work for me at all.

I need structure and systems for my creativity to work.

The Past

I used to put in 20 hours a week in my studio. Always. Every single week I’d prioritize the creation of art and I would make sure I found the time to make art.

Then I decided I needed to change my life. I wasn’t happy, things weren’t working. I was letting things into my life that I didn’t absolutely love. I wasn’t making choices, I was just letting life happen.

So I took some time to discover what I really wanted. The first step in this process was to eliminate things from my life that weren’t working. The boyfriend, the clutter in the house and eventually the house.

This lead to the remodel project, which I’ve been writing about weekly since last August. Wow. I contacted the contractor in July – we started the design in August. That is 10 months of construction on my brain.

The house has been 99% done since the end of March but I needed April and May to settle in, get the punch list finished and write about the process.

The Present

So now – here I am – where am I? I certainly have changed my life. I love living in Denver vs. the suburbs. I love living my life with intention. I love my new home and new studio.

The turmoil is over and when I look back it’s been 2 1/2 years since I’ve been at this place (the year prior to my move my father was ill and passed away, as did 3 other close family members) with no big things to distract me.

This is a very exciting and scary place to be. I know myself. I know this is the time when historically I am very likely to create yet another diversion to keep me from having to answer that scary question:

"What Do I Want?"

It’s good to know this – to have the awareness. Because this time, I’m not going to do it. No boyfriends, no more moving, no more building. This is it. Just me and my dreams. Time to create them.

The Plan

I’ve been working on answering that question last 4 months. Thinking about what I love doing. Writing, reading, thinking big.

I’ve made tons of notes on scraps of paper it’s been fun to hint around at the answer to the question. Wonderful fun ideas coming up daily.

This dreaming part, which is wonderful and fun and vitally important, is now ready to take a more definite shape. I have a good idea of what I want, now time to make it concrete.

I’m ready to move from dream to plan so for that to happen I am putting the following task on my todo list daily:

- Planning – 30 minutes or more

I’m taking all those wonderful ideas and pulling them together into a cohesive plan that I can take action on. Priorities and systems and schedules.

And all of this is very fun, but it’s also pretty scary. Cause it’s a lot of work. Because all the big dreams that my right brain came up with, my left brain is saying "You are going to do WHAT? Do you know how much work that is? Do you even know how to do that? "

So I think those thoughts and still I move ahead, cause in addition to distractions I’m not letting fear stop me either. I just think about the next 30 minute planning session and I am making steady progress forward – turning the dream into reality.

And, because first and foremost I’m an artist and love creating art, the other thing on my daily todo list is:

- Create Art – 1 hour or more

I am committing to returning to 15 hours (or more) of studio time every week. I debated going back to 20 but decided I’m doing more art business work so I’ll stick with 15 for now.

I’ll let you all know how things progress.

Studio Posts

I’m not quite done with my posts on building a studio. Next up will be a post on my studio storage.

Tomorrow I plan to catch up on all the blog comments I’ve failed to respond to the last few weeks and see if there are other studio topics I need to cover based on the questions.

Once that is done I’ll need to think up another theme for my blog posts for June. Hm. Somewhere I had a list…

Hand Felted All Wool Pebbles
© 2009 By Chrissie
Printed With Permission from the Artist

Five More Weeks

I sat down with Jim, my general contractor, yesterday and we went over the plan for finishing up the remodel/addition. Five more weeks to go. And pretty much right on schedule even with all of the things I added into the project. Having awesome weather really helped, plus the crew is excellent.

Although I’ve moved into my studio and new bedroom those rooms aren’t yet finished. I spent many hours today washing drywall off the floors as I’ve decided I’ve had enough drywall dust in my life. I’m far from done with this task but it’s good to get started and I think by end of the week I should have it cleaned up (just in time for them to come back and finish the new drywall in the existing side of the house).

I’m also going to start painting colors in my bedroom and office tomorrow and I’ll start moving my stuff into the laundry room cabinets and organizing my kitchen cabinets. (See the latest construction photos here: Feb 4 and 5 and Feb 6).

The Plan

With all the house activity there hasn’t been a lot of art or the business of art going on at my house, which is not okay with me. So extending the discussion from last month, habits, I’ve decided to create a daily plan for the next 5 weeks to keep me on track.

From now until March 13 I will be spending most of my non day job time on the house but I’m also including the following in my daily schedule:

Studio Time:

• M-F: 1 hour – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)

Art Business Time (not to include email – but making forward progress on other goals):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – immediately after dinner
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – late afternoon before dinner

Answer Email (I did pretty good keeping up for 1 week but am back to a long inbox):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – 9-9:30pm
• Sat-Sun: 1 hour – after dinner

While it’s tempting to skip the art while I’m in the last bits of hour stuff, I know I’ll be happier if I make time for art. Plan starts tomorrow. Goal is to make 6 out of 7 days for each of these activities and these are minimums – more time on art is always welcome if I’m so moved.

I’ll report in a blog post each sunday how I did for the previous week.

Felted Rocks

The above photo is one of my most recent new art purchases. A saw a link to these amazing felted rocks via twitter and immediately had to buy some from the makeyourpresentsfelt etsy shop. Chrissie custom makes the stones for each customer (how cool is that) and her packaging is amazing.

I collect real rocks and these felted ones are a must have for my collection. They are even better in person then they look in the photo so if you a rock collector I highly recommend them (she’ll relist them in her shop if they are sold when you check – so just check back later – it’s worth the effort).

If you aren’t a rock person check out this really cool bracelet made with felted beads – if I wore jewelry I’d buy it myself. Love the colors and the felted beads are too cool.

Sienna Skies
Oil on Canvas
©2009 Nicole Hyde
12" x 12"
printed with permission from the artist

Trade

In the midst of selling a bunch of art last week I also made an excellent art trade with Nicole Hyde. In exchange for the above painting, custom painted for me in orange and gray for my new bedroom, Nicole is getting Markings #11:

Markings #11
Textile Painting
©2006
18.25" x 19.5"

Yay! About the time my construction is done the painting will be dry and I can bring it home and hang it on the wall (Nicole is also a Denver artist).

Trading art and acquiring gorgeous paintings like this one of Nicole’s is one of the fabulous things about being an artist.

In addition to her website Nicole also has a blog and she’s doing this very cool project: Finders! Keepers? Art Project.

Studio Progress

Today I had a friend over for dinner, in the middle of construction. Kinda funny but what the heck. I wasn’t sure how it would go when I got home from work and I didn’t have a working kitchen sink, but the guys are awesome and they hooked up my laundry room sink temporarily and all went well.

[Today's construction photos - I have an island!]

I did manage to get in an hour of studio time today in addition to packing up purchased art to mail and dinner and that day job thing. I think another hour and Ascending #1 will be finished and ready for it’s unveiling. It will be my first completed piece for 2009.

Upcoming Week

If things go as I believe they will, this weekend will be the last of my concentrated studio time for my bedroom studio. I think they are going to rip down the plastic walls and studs that currently comprise my son’s bedroom next week. Which means he will get to move into my bedroom, which will really be his bedroom when we are all done with this process.

That will leave me a bit homeless but not for too long. They are also going to tile my bathroom next week and as long as they put some doors on the house I might move down to my bedroom, even though it still needs trim and carpet and paint.

Or maybe none of this will happen and they will build me a porch instead. Who knows. I try not to worry about it too much.

A Weekend of Art

Although just in case this is my last chance for some serious studio time these are my goals for the weekend:

Saturday
1) 12 hours in studio
2) blog
3) journal
4) yoga
5) walk
6) to bed by 9:30

Sunday
1) 10 hours in studio
2) massage appointment at 3pm
3) blog
4) journal
5) yoga
6) walk
7) to bed by 9:30

A Habit?

This was a week of making decisions from trim to cabinets to roof to lights to tile to countertops to stairrails. Above are some of my choices: the paint chip circled is the color I will paint the outside of my house – with the corresponding roof color. On the right my cabinet colors (cranberry stain on maple wood) and counter tops (a gray formica). These will be in kitchen and bathroom. The tile board is for the tiles for my master bathroom that were ordered today.

It was a busy shopping week so most of my plans for studio time didn’t quite work out.

As this month is devoted to habits, my initial thought about the next few months was that I didn’t want to make a habit of any of this stuff. While its fun and really exciting to build a house and pick out all the colors it’s not something to repeat any time soon. At least for me.

But there is a habit here I want to keep, and that is of being a-okay with the present moment.

There was a morning this week where we had no hot water. I just though "oh well, pilot light blew out again" and went on. Didn’t phase me at all. The builder figured I’d be upset. Well, no, I chose to live in a construction zone, how crazy would it be to be upset that it’s actually a construction site?

Stuff happens. No reason to take it personally.

ACEO #23
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

 
I write a detailed todo list every evening for the next day. It’s the only way I can juggle a job, kids, building a new studio, the business side of my art career and making art. Oh and Christmas. And all those other daily chores. I usually do pretty good at getting most everything on the list done.

I don’t feel like doing any of the things on my list tonight, like getting my passport application ready to mail, so I’m going to ignore it and head to the studio. So no photos of the newly completed Lines #10 and #11 tonight, it can wait til morning.

Three or four hours of studio time on a work night – that is absolutely JOY!

 
Oh – first – my construction photos for the week. It’s a little less exciting than the foundation or the framing because there isn’t a big huge change from day to day. But still it’s still pretty cool.

I missed the lifting of the stairs into place but they are there and it’s like a house now – not a construction site. They are even putting on the siding and the roof is tar papered.

December 5 and 6
December 8
December 9
December 10
December 11

 
Happy Thursday everyone!

Structures #99    ©2008    33" x 39"
 

A Studio Day

Hurray! There is no construction and no teeth to distract me this weekend so I’ve been making art most of today.

I completed 5 ACEOs that I started last week that are inspired by Structures #99, shown above. I really love this piece and wrote about it in my October studio newsletter. It’s inspired by a painting of buffalo at the Denver Art Museum. My textile painting isn’t about buffalo, it’s about the colors, and my usual fences and barriers.

Potholders?

The new ACEOs will appear soon on a webpage for an upcoming holiday sale I’ve decided to participate in, along with several other artists. Look for a posting on that in a few weeks.

I also worked on 5 small 3″ square pieces that I will be mounting onto these very cute little 3″ square stretched canvases. I’m going to play around with ways of presenting my smaller work on canvases and even with frames.

I like my larger work to be unmounted/framed as I really like how the work hangs on the wall, ie not perfectly flat, but pretty close. It’s fiber, it drapes, it has movement. For me this is a part of the artwork.

For these smaller pieces they are very stiff as a result of the extensive stitching I do on them so they aren’t effected when mounted and framed. Nothing is lost and maybe much is gained as they no longer look like a potholder. Course I don’t think they ever looked like a potholder but that’s the common phrase we textile artists tend to say about why we frame smaller pieces.

This is the first time I’ve gone down this path. Not sure how this will go but you’ll see it here first I suspect.

November Planning

After 5 1/2 hours in the studio I’m now taking a break to get November off to a good start by paying bills and setting art and art business goals for the month. I share this list with my mastermind art partners and we help keep each other on track every day. I’ve also decided to share this list with my blog readers so you can see the type of goals I set for a month.

I’m not sure how construction will go on my house this month so I made a list of goals on the assumption they will be working outside the majority of the month. If that changes and they do work inside the house I’ll just have to be flexible and see what I can get finished.

I will take the items on this list and break them down into tasks and put them on my taskboard. Then I’ll track how I’m doing via that method. At the end of the month I’ll review how I did.

My November Goals

General

• Work in studio daily
• Work on my art business daily
• Track time on business (# of hours per day) as I already do for studio time
• Blog 3 times a week or more

Studio Goals

• Complete Structures #73
• Complete Home #5
• Design Structures #100
• Complete 4 or more small works (8” square or smaller)
• Complete 4 or more aceos
• Investigate mounting small work on stretched canvases
• Investigate framing of small work

Art Business Goals

• Go live with new website design
• Website for holiday art sale
• Create postcard and mail to mailing list for small art sale/museum shows
• Send list of available work for Danforth Museum Show
• Send info those that have requested artwork info
• Complete 3 requested interviews/featured artist blog posts
• Visit galleries in town at least 1 day
• Read/Review Personal Development for Smart People
• Write article for Christine’s blog for word of the year

The big big goal is the new website design. I started this many months ago (too many too count) and the move and remodel have distracted me. Time to get this finished as it’s holding me back for many other things. Instead of aiming for perfection I’m going to get up and running and I’ll worry about perfecting it later.

I’m sure that I get in my way much too often with my need for everything to be perfect. So when the website goes live, please excuse anything that is broken about it cause it’s just me trying to get over myself.

More Construction

They did a bunch of digging around and messing with my sewer on thursday and on friday they poured the footings for my basement on friday. I’m so bummed to have missed the cement pumper truck but I had to actually go to work and do that thing I get paid for. They pour the basement walls on tuesday and you can be sure I will be home for that event.

The photos for Thursday and Friday are now on smugmug:
Thursday Construction
Friday Construction

In addition I got all of my "before photos online" and they are here:
Before Construction

I’m not done with the captions on for thursday and friday and I’m sure I’ll rearrange them a bit. See that perfectionist thing. But in a effort to avoid that, and to not be late to dinner and a movie with a friend, I leave it like this for now.

Progress in the Studio

Markings #21 In Progress

I’ve spent time in my studio every day this week. Making progress on Markings #21 (only 2 more panels at the top right to construct then the fun part of fitting the sections together. This final stage of construction is fairly important and I always feel I could ruin the entire thing if it doesn’t go well.

I’m also making progress on the ACEO’s that I’ll make available with my studio newsletter. I anticipate sending it via email on sunday. I had a lot of fun designing new work (first time in months) so I ended making 5 of them, all of them based on Markings #21.

Progress with Everything

Two weeks ago I posted the following list as my goals for the upcoming 2 weeks, during which my kids have been at camp. I have 2 days left to complete everything and so far I think I can get it all done. Depends on how motivated I remain this weekend.

Here’s how I’m doing so far:

• Unpack entire house. DONE – at least done enough to live comfortably until we move out again for the remodel. I’ll post photos soon to compare to the cramped look we had on moving day.
• Set up studio. DONE – although small and I have to juggle things around a bit ,it’s quite reasonable
• Make small art for studio newsletter. Very close to done – another hour tomorrow and I’ll wrap it up.
• Write and send my second studio newsletter. All I have here is an outline.
• Catch up with the very many outstanding requests for photos, info, etc of my art. I’ve put many many hours into this task – came up with a list of over 30 projects to deal with. So I won’t finish them all but I’m dealing with the most outstanding requests now and more importantly I feel on top of the business side of art again.
• Find all my dye supplies and dye fabric with my childhood friend, Kelly, over the weekend. DONE and very fun – see photos in this post about dyeing fabric.
• Process the 400+ pictures taken while in Montana (my kids went a bit nuts with the camera – I think well over half are to be deleted). I downloaded them to my computer then forgot about them. This is lowest priority for the weekend.
• Figure out timeline and budget for getting house repaired and possible addition added, talk to 3 builders and select one to do the work. DONE – the builder came and measured the house and is starting the ‘as-built’ drawings this weekend.

Saturday and Sunday I’ll be focusing on my newsletter and wrapping up a few more of the outstanding art requests. And finishing construction of the composition of Markings #21 (next up will be doing the surface stitching on the piece). Markings #21 didn’t make the todo list but I couldn’t resist working on a big art project this week.