Balancing

  To Do: 
                write newsletter
                finish Coral pot
                laundry
                banking
                update resume
                contact Tilly about take down
                             -Tricia
                update website

Every day is a balancing act. All of us are constantly prioritizing and re-evaluating the things we need to get done. Some things take precedence, some have been on the list for awhile, and some we don’t even write on the list. Although occasionally, when the list is dense, I’ll write a few easy things on it just to cross them off and feel like I’ve accomplished something!

We all have some kind of routine we fall into with work and daily life and thank goodness! This means we don’t have to make decisions about every single thing we do. Some of our activities are just on autopilot, but some we do have to plan into our days.
Lately I’ve been working on balancing my life between daily stuff and work, and by work I mean everything that has to happen to make my ‘job’ my art career. And since I still have an outside job I have four days during the week to make things happen.

Luckily, I have a great model, working with clay! First there’s the initial construction, roughing out the forms for a particular idea. Then you have to wait for the clay to firm up so you can return and refine it. You have to look and evaluate whether your idea is working, possibly jump in and change it drastically, and always keep moving toward completion. All the while you have to keep the clay in the appropriate working zone–spray it down to keep it damp, unwrap it to let it dry a little more, set it in the sun to hurry up and dry for the bisque firing. And above all, get comfortable with the idea of uncertainty.

Clay is also a great teacher for balancing life because pieces and projects are ready to move forward at different times. One piece might be ready to move to the next stage while another needs to wait for awhile and achieve the right consistency. Sometimes I find I’m working on too many pieces at the same time. When I’m first building things I can move quickly. But, finishing and refining takes longer and I end up working on one piece with two in the background both at the right stage in the process for finishing and not enough time for everything.
That’s when I have to step back, look at what needs to be done, make a big list and prioritize. This helps me gain control again and see what is most important and needs to be taken care of first.

There are times during the process of creating with clay or working on your art career where you have to let go. You’ve worked on things to the best of your ability, using the best practices and techniques you know and now it’s into the kiln, and hopefully moving to the next stage. If you’ve done your work well, things should be fine and fairly routine. Then you can work on the next set of tasks to the best of your knowledge and ability until it’s time to send it back into the kiln for the next test of uncertainty. If you’ve worked with certain glazes and ways to finish things before, you might have a good idea how things will turn out. If it’s the first or second (or third) time working with a glaze, you don’t know how it will turn out. There are a lot of variables at play and some are out of your control.

So, I’ll continue working to find the balance between business things, daily life things, and studio time. I know I’ll always have to practice this but hopefully by paying attention I can keep moving forward. Even when I just want to run out to the studio and spend all my time making things!