Day Three Hundred Sixty-Three

The best work days are when I have a good sleep, good food (not too much consumed not too late in the evening), an exercise, a time for writing, physical work, and a good company at dinner at the end of the day. The good days are made of these rhythmic activities - getting up early in the morning to spend an hour of quiet time by myself writing before going to the pool and meeting with myself to write down the day's schedule with coffee followed by a breakfast at the kitchen counter. For me it means that a solid uninterrupted work hours at the studio, writing and journaling before dinner, and reading before going to bed.  Maintaining good routines has been proven to keep me active and flexible physically and mentally. I am more energized, quicker in making decisions and more optimistic, and enjoy socializing more. Keeping the regular schedule also works for adopting unexpected visitors and events. All is good but it's so easy to derail from it.  The bad cycle starts and worse it sticks when I sacrifice first the sleep and second the swimming in exchange for "work" time. 

Why being busy seems to be praised? for the coming year I will aim not to be busy. Being busy seems, for me, relates to wanting affirmations from others - which gives me a certain level of comfort.  If I know what I want I would be happy without chasing after a project that invite other's affirmations, which ends up keeping myself busy - so I think now. 

Day Three Hundred and Fifty-Eight

I want to write a few things about what I have learned this year of making anything before it ends. 

Finding a way to receive feedback helps me follow through on projects. Interactions of feeding and feed-backing refresh motivations.

This relates to why I stopped wiring everyday for this blog after September. I did not need to publish to have a monologue, which I have a plenty of on my own without allocating the time to do it openly. Feedback encourages me to feed again and helps me keep at the project. It is the best if I can make the situation where it is almost impossible to stop. Salon at Forest is a good example of involving others and let project take its own life. It is difficult to keep at it if I work quietly without relating to others because if it is only to satisfy myself I can always decide that I have already satisfied. There will be always moments that what I would do seems meaningless and worthless, even if on a bright day I would know that 1 - it is meaningful and worthwhile and 2 - whether it is meaningful or worthy is not an important question.

Also deadlines are good and practical motivations that work. It is a good reason to decide if 1 - I quit it, or 2 - I complete it. Sadly deadlines work better for me if they were made with others.

Day Two Hundred Forty-Five

I have not written for a while and now it is strange to write to publish. I went back to my notebook - the writing of the morning - which I started in June 1st. it says "I make art because it calms me down." I do not remember writing it. it is approaching the last page.  It is fun to go back to find what I was trying to say. I am realizing that the year is almost over. it is actually 3/4 of the year that is gone but it has the different sense of time from the first quarter of the year to the last quarter of the year waiting to end. I do not have the exact plan for the next year yet. Now I try to remember why I wanted to start this blog. when I am writing I would imagine I was speaking to my future self, to a 90 year-old version of me, trying to explain how I am experiencing this time. I have many moments in my life that I wish I had recorded.

Although I set this out as a year to play and I think I have been pretty successfully at it, on planning for the next year I will have to figure out how I will sustain in. The finance. and think about what I am doing out of a habit and what I am afraid of doing just because it's new to me. Generally speaking I think I'm in NY for too long. This has become the world I know..

Day Two Hundred Thirty-One

Time does make an exception and goes slow for me. The herbs planted in the beginning of summer have now grown tall. In the backyard the peach trees are bearing orange fruits. I found another pit in the herb box - and now I remember seeing a squirrel appropriately descending down the fire escape a step at a time this morning. Somehow already it feels like fall.  

Though in the studio it is unmistakably summer. I thought about getting an AC again as I headed there this morning but it just does not make sense to install a thing to cool air right next to two big machines doing just the opposite all the time.  I do not get used to the heat and often it really wears me out but I like working and sweating and feeling sticky on my forehead. It feels rewarding at the end of the day, after the shower, sitting down by the window watching the sky changing its color. -- Rewarding? It just feels good, to physically work, and feel tired at the end of the day. Did I do good work today? My time is almost up. Have to use it. Use it well.

I'm getting ready for a show opening next month. I just got an acceptance notice yesterday. I"m running around in my mind.

Day Two Hundred Nineteen

The planner's page moved on to the next again. I came back to the apartment thinking that I finished only a half of what I set out to do again.  I have been making pieces with lots of holes the past few days. I have some moments that I finally beginning to make things of my own, that I'm not repeating something that's already done. It's not easy to relax those muscles.

Day Two Hundred Fourteen

This morning the sky was in a pink cast. From the east to all the way to the west, filling the gaps made by the buildings. Streaks of highlighter orange. Some people are up and seeing this pink orange sky, judging from the sound coming from the BQE. I stuck my head out from the small window over to the herb garden on the fire escape. People talk about meditations, I just want a quiet mind, an accessible one, Ideally going to the  the beach. to the forest where the earth breathes and whispers, not me. 

Day Two Hundred Thirteen

The beach I grew up in was a sleepy one, of dark sand of volcanic rocks, too hot to stand in bare feet on summer days.  At the Ruby Beach in Washington State two weeks ago I saw the superfine sand under my toes has the similar color. During the low tide the sand becomes a floating mirror, making people on the horizon hang between the sky and the ocean, the fog blends everything like a pool of monochromatic water color paint that is still wet on paper.  This week I started working on a project, the seascape. With this I try to be free from explanations and reasons. I don't want to use symbols to mean something. While building forms I want to think about the landscape and not the individual pieces. The forms do not represent actual shells or rocks or driftwood. I want to create the feeling of the quiet landscape that I have become physically far from it but know that it is still there. Such landscape for me is the beach. Yours is probably different from mine.