Struggles of the Creative, or just a Lack of Tenacity?

I will never be a Mozart. I have come to terms with this and have realized that my continual need to change may not be a bad thing so long as I know what to do with it. Nevertheless, I ended up watching this TEDx talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, questioning whether my desire to move on before my 10 years of constant work and study takes me to the pre-determined "mastery" stage is really ok. In a New York Times article, one quote was really poking me in the brain as I wrestle with the question of whether it's more important to stick with something I have lost interest in or knowing when to throw in the towel:

People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit.”

This is something I struggle with. In college I ended up with my major because I decided I didn't really like taking tests and visual communications was just one of the many things I was interested in. By the end of my five years of college I was so ready to move on to something else that I really didn't quite know what to do. I knew I wouldn't do advertising - three years of vis-comm classes taught me that - and since film/video was an area we merely dabbled in and I found that I enjoyed, I wound up searching for jobs in the post-production field. Fortunately I landed a job doing what I wanted.

I said I'd give the job two years. After that amount of time I could start looking for other jobs if I wanted, but I felt like I needed to at least give it that. Reality hit when I was rejected for a job I really wanted, then was told I wasn't ready to pursue a master's degree by the one person who would make that decision should I apply, after which my art was rejected from a couple of juried exhibitions. Don't get me wrong, I did get some encouragement from other places, but this succession of rejections were like pouring salt on open wounds. *They* say that rejection is what we need for growth, so I keep trying to make sure that's true.

Amidst all this self-doubt and worry, I searched out lots of self-help books on making career and life choices. There was one book that really sang to my innermost questioning: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine. (From her site, you can download the first chapter of this book and related articles.) In this book she talks about being on a scale with Mozart on one end and Ben Franklin on the other. I would venture to guess I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't lack the ability to follow through, but I also lose interest after reaching a certain level of accomplishment. As she put it, renaissance souls like the uphill climb, or as I would say, the act of learning. Oft-times when I have a real hard-core goal that I'm after (getting good grades in school, finishing college, saving money for something I really want, etc), I can maintain the grit so long as that goal continues to be desirable. Once my interest starts waning, so does my tenacity.

I think it's definitely time to set some "hard-core" goals. Rather than new years resolutions, I'm taking up all the advice I keep reading about setting some year-long goals and stepping stones to those goals. Now let's just see how well those stick!

Note: I began this post in October 2011...

TED's Ads Worth Spreading

TED, have I told you lately how much I admire you? Probably not. I am often amazed when I talk about TED videos to people and they have no idea what I'm talking about. It's almost inconceivable to me that there are people who don't know about TED. But that's not really what I intended to talk about today. I was merely going to praise the great people behind TED for starting a new thing called "Ads Worth Spreading" (it's a play on the tagline for TED, "ideas worth spreading"). Their first ten winners of this competition are posted here, but I thought I'd share my favorite with you. It's all graphics and music, which I love. All the pieces work together: the story, stylization, music, and execution bring about this really fabulous piece of work. Though I can't figure out how to embed the video, I encourage you to watch it:

TED | Ads Worth Spreading | Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking

Think outside what box??

Currently I am struggling. I am feeling in one of those depths of despair about choosing a creative profession. Call it design block if you will - and it is a lot of the reason I began this blog in the first place - but when it hits, it becomes more than that. It becomes a life block and usually leads to depression. Last night I was wondering why I haven't been able to get a new personal website created and on the web. And I think there's just too much pressure there. It has to be so many things - and then I start to question if I try to be too many things.

Today I thought that I would try to find some favorite websites and pull what I like from each the most and somehow combine them into my own design for my website. And so I started with a CSS showcase and clicked on one of the pages that looked intriguing to me. The site I had chosen is in fact a personal website for designer Rob Morris. It's beautiful, direct, succinct, easy to navigate, and his journal is filled with words of wisdom!! The first one I read was "How I learned to become a failure" and it spoke to me today. I would also recommend the short Ted talk by Tom Wujec that was included in the journal article I just mentioned.



Now I should try some brain teasers to get myself out of this rut. I think I finally get why my design professor made us do 100 thumbnails for a logo of one company. I remember getting to about twenty and feeling so utterly tapped out that there was no way I could possibly get to 100. And quite frankly from about 18-100 the sketches completely stunk but they did get me thinking outside of the box.

Eat, Pray, Loved it!

Today I took half a day off work. Why? For me. For the opportunity to go see a movie with my mom. Even better, we were joined by a very good friend of mine whom I rarely get to see anymore.

I will tell you that I read Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love after it became a mega-best-seller, but it really didn't matter. After reading that book I wanted to collect everything Gilbert had ever written and read it because I not only loved and admired her for her courage, gumption and life, but I also loved her style of writing.

Last year I came across the Ted talk she gave and re-realized why I want to know her. I listen to this talk whenever I'm feeling down about being creative and feeling like I'm not good enough.



This summer I read her follow-up book Committed while I waited as patiently as I could for this movie to come out. You might think that my expectations were set so high that I couldn't possibly love the movie. Well, you would be wrong. I did love it. I enjoyed it no matter that I already knew the story. I got excited when I recognized direct quotes and when I didn't recognize events because it has been so many years since I read the book. We weren't even under the best conditions to see the movie. The audio in the theater was a bit on the low side and quite often things were blowing up in the theater next door - of course during the parts that were already hard to hear or understand. But those things can fade away when you realize you are experiencing part of a really incredible story. That's what movies are about for me - getting sucked into the human story.

Was it the best movie ever made? Probably not. Was it as good as the book? Probably not. But it can't be compared really because they are two different mediums for storytelling. They just happen to be two of my favorite mediums for experiencing a story. I love finding a character I can believe in and I love finding a story that is beautiful. How amazing to know that this one is true!!!

Art meets Environmentalism

We all know about the gushing of oil that is daily affecting marine life and the earth. But no one really knows yet how tremendous the affects of this disaster are. I've watched some of the news reports but I find that I can't keep up with the news on this continuing event because it is so very depressing. Even still, I have watched Nightly News reports, read articles in Time Magazine, and watched toxicologist Susan Shaw talk about the efforts to prevent the oil from reaching the marshes on TED.com

In fact, there was a whole TEDxOilSpill conference, which I will have to go back to and watch.

But as of today, I hadn't found anything quite as exciting as seeing that one of my favorite local artists has put his talents to this cause. Paul Jackson has created another beautiful painting which he is promoting via facebook (and possibly other places) in response to the BP oil spill disaster. He and other artists are selling select works and the proceeds go to the Wildlife Rehabilitation & Nature Preservation Society, Inc who are working to clean up this mess in the gulf. Check out the site.

 Foul Language by Paul Jackson

This is where art meets environmentalism, and where my heart is leading me. I think it's time to get back to my landscape fiber art and figure out how I can talk about environmental impact through my art!