I was determined to honor my artist-friday. No email, no work, just a complete creative diversion. After being in the bahamas I was reminded how much I need this for my creative health. The artist in me can easily get buried by the business person in me and then I wonder why I am miserable.
So today I did something that both exercised a creative muscle and celebrated our bahamas dream at the same time.
I pulled out my torch.
There is a section of my studio that has a workbench set up for silversmithing (a past creative life) but it was covered with junk and boxes, etc. I decided that I needed to make a pendant to commemorate the Mondo Beyondo. This pendant will hold some of the sand from our beach.
So I spent the morning cleaning off the workbench, dusting off old tools, testing my torch, and picking through my old supplies.
It is so weird how you can do something for years and then forget it all. Things that used to take me minutes seemed totally elusive. So I didn't pressure myself because that would have totally ruined the whole artist-date. Instead I treated myself like one of my metalsmith students (I taught a few people back in '92) starting with the most basic principles of heating and bending the silver. Soldering and filing. At first it felt so foreign, like my mind knew what to do but my hands had forgotten everything.
Then it started to feel familiar. A long way to go but I didn't accidentally melt anything (which is usually the novice thing to do) and I managed to put something together that I am pretty proud of. But most important was the creative exercise that I got. Only once did I feel the urge to stop "because there were more important things to do". And I ignored that. I hope to finish the pendant next friday.
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