untapped creativity
saturday, november 30, 2002


if we could afford it, i think i'd be joining the trend and picking up a digital camera. i've always liked photography, just never really got into it. i was always more of a sketch artist. course, i haven't done that in years either.

there's so many things i used to do creatively, that i don't do now or haven't done in a long time. i used to draw. i sketched in pencils (one of my favorite mediums). and there's other things i do only sporadically, me needlework, for example. i wish i had time to invest in all my creative interests. i miss my creative projects of the past, the afghans, the art, the clothing.

but to be a writer, to be (eventually) a published writer, demands so much more time. which is not meant as an insult to other artists, but i doubt most of them revise their work ten or fifteen times before it is declared "done." not that declaring it done means it's done, just means it's as done as you can get it until some editor tells you it needs fixing and you decide to listen to that editor.

i remember my mother's work when i was a kid and before she got sick. her pastels used to take home ribbons. beautiful stuff. for awhile, even when sick, she managed to have a small studio when we moved out to california and she made some of the loveliest black ink christmas cards. i wish my mother still had enough of her sanity left to continue her work. it truly was gorgeous. she's where i get my creativity from. i remember taking various craft and art classes with her as a kid (i mean, we were both students), things i'd love to do with my kids. i've tried to draw them into the writing, i wanted us to make a book of poems together. one wasn't interested and the other, though interested, couldn't seem to find the time or motivation.

they both want me to teach them the crafts i don't do any more: sewing, crochet, cross stitch. the only one i have any desire to do at all is the cross stitch and i just haven't had the motivation for it.

perhaps it's time for me to find the motivation. i have so many things that i don't do any more that i see the kids do or want to do. maybe it's time to find time for this one thing.

and once we have some money in the house, i think i just may take up photography. as much as i love writing, writing is also work. i need something creative just for me. something that doesn't require the work of my sadly neglected web design. something that allows me to use that untapped creativity without devoting a lot of time to it. and just maybe it's time to pull out the pencils and pastels and create my own christmas cards rather than wait till we have the money to buy christmas cards.

i can do this. i can make some room for it, i think. writing does require a great deal of time, but it doesn't need to be all consuming, does it? perhaps if i pick and choose a couple of smaller projects, i can delve into the untapped creativity and not miss it so much.

it's hard, sometimes, being so creatively minded and having to pick and choose bewtween them because it's so very hard to do them all.