Sunday, February 05, 2006

Will this count as an excused absence?

It's been a crazy busy week, and I've really missed our random daily challenges, but I'll hopefully be back in the swing of things here shortly. I've been gone because the two performing arts companies I work with had shows that premiered this weekend, so the week before--tech week, or production week, we call it--is terribly busy. But I did carry my camera so you could see a little of what I've been up to.

In my day job, I'm the Arts Education Coordinator for the state's largest ballet company; last week we had 4 daytime productions that were attended by more than 5,000 students ranging in age from pre-k to high school...it was a full time job working with their teachers and the theatre where we performed to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. It did, and they all had a great time:




After work each day, I'd spend the evenings in production week for the area's only professional resident theatre company for families and young audiences, getting ready for thats show's opening this weekend. The show was Rapunzel, and it entailed building the set (including a tower that fits 4 actors), hanging lights, rigging special effects, running box office, repairing costumes, last minute publicity...it's a small company, so a lot of us do double and triple duty.













So I have been involved in creative pursuits this week, just not with the regularity and discipline I've been used to so far this month. I did, however manage to keep my camera with me and snuck in some experiments of my own while running errands and being out and about, so the week wasn't a total wash. I will post some of them in the next few days, until things calm down a little and I can get more time freed up for more in-depth creative experimentation.

4 comments:

Jackie said...

Yes! I can totally understand lack of time. Four kids. In fact one of the reasons that I have enjoyed peeking at yours and grafixcowgirls blogs is because I am living creatively vicariously through you two!If that makes any sence. I have decided to go back to an excersise that an old drawing teacher gave me years ago, which was basically " spend 15 a day in a sketch book I don't care what you do, just DO SOMETHING for 15 minutes every day" Wise woman she. I have missed it. So thanks for reminding me that being creative doesn't have to take a long time, nor does it have to be confined to one aspect of "art"

Jim said...

Well said! I love the idea of 15 minutes a day in your sketchbook. In fact, I have a whole stack of empty sketchbooks waiting for 15 minutes a day. My problem is that when faced with a blank page and not a concrete "assignment", I'll spend the entire 15 minutes trying to think of the perfect thing to sketch, so my short sketch session turns into like an hour. I'm hoping that this blog will help get me over that and free me to just create. Knowing that other people are seeing my output here (a HUGE hurdle I had to overcome) might make it easier for me to actually produce more art for myself. Thank you for your encouragement, and welcome to playtime! :D

Jackie said...

I am reminded of a workshop that I once took. It was a writing workshop and we were instructed to write of a set amout of time ( can't remember how long now, it was a long time ago) And our leader said, " just pick up the pen and write. If you can't think of anything to write, start with that," I was told to write, and I can't think of anything to write, and here I sit in the basement of the school with a pen in my hand...." " You get the idea. Every now and then, I take a tour of my old sketch books and I am amased at the variety. Collage, painting, melted wax, image transfer. If I found a new material at the local art store, I'd give it a whirl in my sketch book. I almost always spent more than 15 minutes in my sketchbook. Totally addictive!

Jim said...

Fantastic advice! I hope this blog will serve as therapy to make me less afraid of "ruining" a perfectly good blank sketchbook page. I mean, once a page is used, you can never go back! ;)