What time is it?

It’s time to get crafty!

I think one of the reasons I have been a little slow to craft this week is because all of my initial ideas from last week were put on hold.  Plus, my boyfriend’s apartment is too small for all my ideas all at once. 🙂

This past week I have spent a large amount of my time researching different items I need to complete my crafting “whims”.  I suppose hours of research on supplies might seem to take some of the whimsy out of it, but that work actually appeals very much to my left-brain paths and programming.  Being organized before I get messy makes me feel more comfortable with the idea of getting things done.  It helps me approach my failures—because there have already been some, hence the need for research and more supplies—with a feeling of exploration instead of mistaken or misused time.

Part of my research has led me to realize that what I want, and what I can get are probably going to be very different things.  As an example:  I’m looking for a closing agent—something that acts like the peel and stick strips that come on mailing envelopes.  I researched double-stick tape, but none of those seemed to have a backing that you could stick one side down and then preserve the other side for later use (the peel later part).  I came across bonding tapes, transfer tapes, mounting tapes (no jokes, please); fabric, rubber, or acrylic tapes; tapes with permanent hold, or ones that were repositionable; tapes for low surface energy or high surface energy (LSE/HSE) materials, ultra or very high bond (UHB/VHB) double-coated tapes; and, yet, I am no closer to finding something that works for my needs.  Well, I did find one thing by 3M, but the only place I can find to buy it sells it in 1000 yard rolls in case packs of 12.  Ummmm, I don’t need to cover my house in it.

Amazon did me a few things good, and those are all on the way.  Christmas gift cards from friends and Birthday gift cards from family make shopping there a lot more fun.  Delivery estimates say, Wednesday, March 28.  Until then it’s simply self-healing cutting mat wishes and pink X-acto knife dreams.

The source of inspiration

Last week, I was on a roll.  I was coding, I was writing, I was crafting–I was getting shit done!  Now……not so much.  Today I’m finding it difficult to really get motivated.  I’ve combed over some of the information that I needed to get through.  (I.e. I pared down my bookmarked list of possible jobs from ~150 to ~30.)  I took a nice long walk.  (To do: Exercise. Check!)  But what happened to that fire?!  That passion?!  That drive to get those other things on my list DONE?!

inspiration | inspəˈrāSHən | noun | 1 – the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative

Lists vs Flow

Again, I’m going to blame it on my left-brain-ness.  That “something creative” part is the hard part for my brain to recognize.  I have my checklists and my boxes and arrows drawing out the Visio map for today; I just don’t see the creativeness in it—I don’t find it inspiring.

My accomplishments and productiveness today are nothing to sniff at, but I need to find something that motivates my crafty side.  Where does a left-brain find inspiration?  Where do you find inspiration?

Left-brain art

So I’m sure many of you have already seen the very beautiful visual representation of how the left brain works and how the right brain works (and what I didn’t know was a Mercedes Benz ad–bravo to them, by the way).

The dry left and the colorful right.

Most of you were probably already aware of the general notion of the left-brain types being the analytical and logic-motivated types of people–the math brains.  Leaving the fun and very creative Art world to the right-brain set.  Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt like I’m not any good at creating.  Very early on in life I exhibited left-brain tendencies and was immediately placed in that camp.  People (see: Mother) have since told me I have my own type of creativity, but I never really bought that.  What I do?  It’s math, it’s patterns and geometry, it’s repetitive and specific; it does not draw out of emptiness or blankness the thing that the a lump of clay or canvas and paint already is.

My Eye© by Gabriel Serafini

“Compared to this what I do is liken unto paint-by-numbers,” I thought.  To tell the truth, I also never “got” most art, so how could I create it?  And, so, not until a short while ago, when I started dating a VERY right-brain artsy kind of guy, did I realize, “I really AM creative!”  My math brain just makes it look different than the capitalized type of art you go to see in museums and galleries and chichi coffee shops and wine bars.  The art I create is a visual representation of what is inside my math equations brain.  It is the soft and colorful edges of my sharp analytical mind.  It comes from the same place and emotion and amount and space of love that right-brain folks create from, it simply looks very left. 🙂

I promise there is no more meaning than its geometry

I construct art, I do not create it.

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