Happy 2019! It’s the evening of New Year’s Day. I should be watching the “The New Year’s Celebration from Vienna,” like I used to so many years ago. Instead, I am still trying to overtake my to-do list from last year (and yes writing this blog post is on it)! If I can just clear out all the little things, I’ll be ready for the new year. I have my doubts as I don’t recall the last time I began a new year with a clean slate, and I’m certainly not going to finish everything tonight.
It got me thinking that I have this little problem — I have a really hard time creating new art if my space is cluttered. I mean, how can I get something sparkly and new accomplished if I’m being stifled by all the unfinished clutter? And yet, I’ve been trying to work around it for years.
I was thinking back to when I was single and living in a cute little one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. I had a bit of a routine. Every Sunday evening I’d strip the bed, grab the hamper, walk the laundry across the parking lot, put the quarters in, and then spend the next hour tackling the dishes and tidying the living room. After swapping the laundry to the dryer, I’d spend the next hour and twenty minutes making the bedroom look just like I thought a nice bed-and-breakfast would, before going out to haul the laundry back across the parking lot, careful not to drop any socks. I’d put on music or whatever was on Lifetime television while I folded and put everything away and made the bed. Then came the best part; looking around my adorable, tidy little space and breathing in the calm. I’d light a candle or two, and then the creativity and the art would flow. And there’s nothing so comforting as sleeping in the warm, clean sheets of a neatly made bed.
That was a long time ago. I now live with a husband who has his own tolerance levels for clutter, and my 5 and 7 year old kids who, well, enough said, really. But that only accounts for all the “stuff” left in my physical space. What I realized is that the problem is bigger than that.
We live among constant clutter of so many kinds — the noise of video games, binge-watched tv, talk radio, podcasts, streaming music stations, piano practice, shrilling children, cellphone alarms, high-decibel restaurant noise, marketing videos at gas pumps, thousands of daily promos and newsletters arriving at all hours into multiple in-boxes, scrolling infinity through social media, unending mental-load check-lists, adorable recipe blogs, not to mention all the multiple information venues necessary for work…
Not only is it ALL a distraction, the mental whiplash of constantly shifting focus between things that have nothing to do with each other minute by minute is mentally and physically exhausting.
And what’s worse? Although I’m already functioning with a years-long sleep deficit (I mentioned I have young children?) I found myself staying up too late to continue trying to absorb it all! It’s as if I never realized a million years ago that I wasn’t going to be able to read every single book in the library. As if I’d forgotten that if I’m still interested, whatever it is will still be there tomorrow. There will always be an infinite amount of things to absorb and a simple human can only take in so much. Once upon a time I was an extrovert. Not so much anymore. I’ve long-ago joined the ranks of people who turn to yoga and guided meditations for an occasional hour and a half of mindful head-clearing in a too-busy, scatterbrained world.
Back when I was single and living in a cute little one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, my brother, Harris, was living in a very cluttered converted tenement apartment in Brooklyn. Overwhelmed by the clutter, he had basically abandoned his living space to it, and when he had to be home, he lived solely in his bedroom. The problem he had was that he just didn’t know where to even begin cleaning up the mess. He was also an artist and a creative and he was also stifled by it.
I had a very simple solution for my brother. I simply showed up and resolutely dug him out. We got rid of so much garbage and junk and visual noise. Harris wasn’t the bed-and-breakfast type, but his mid-century atheistic just didn’t mesh with clutter. We moved things around and made the space breathe. Back then, I knew that the only way to clean up the clutter was to start with what was in front of you. To start SOMEWHERE.
In the past, I’ve proven not to be that great at New Year’s resolutions, so this year I have only one and that is to be resolute. I picked my personal and professional “defining word” for 2019 and was going to link to a simple definition of the concept in case you hadn’t heard of it but instead I turned up MORE NOISE! A website dedicated to an entire book about why a defining word will change your life, several blog posts about helping you pick your word (I linked to one last January. It’s in my blog archives), and a website dedicated to hooking you up with your virtual tribe of simpaticos who’ve picked the same word! Thanks, internet, for being you.
Anyway, my defining word for 2019 is “discipline.” There’s a lot that’s gong to fall under that heading but that is where I am going to begin sorting and cleaning out the clutter so that I can get on with letting the creativity and the art flow. I’ve got a lot of work to do!
#snapshakeshine
Voice Part 1 and #SnapShakeShine
You are unique and you have a voice – Sarah Davies
Let’s talk about the VOICE (not the TV show, although it’s probably relevant, I just don’t watch it so I wouldn’t know). I’ve been pondering this topic long before it was on the roster at the 2017 SCBWI Mid-Atlantic conference this past autumn. Here’s a brief synopsis of two presentations, one geared towards illustrators and one towards writers. I believe both presenters assumed that we are already vocalizing and seeking to fine tune our voices.
“Style and Artistic Vision” (in illustration) presented by Giuseppe Castellano of The Illustration Department
Mr. Castellano began by discussing style (he hates that word) as “informed interpretation” and what that means in an illustration — how do we use our experience of [what we are attempting to illustrate] towards successful execution. We talked about finding the concept behind the illustration and did a few exercises to work on finding the base concepts. These exercises reminded me of a game we used to play back in college that we called “Metaphysical Win, Lose, or Draw!” If you’re familiar with the original home game, it’s basically the same except that the concepts we had to successfully convey couldn’t be nouns. Essentially you have to figure out how to draw “cold,” or “abundance,” or “spiritual,” (you get the idea).
Mr. Castellano also showcased examples of successful illustrations that represented both a focus on the concept, as well as successful crafting techniques. He explained that skill in drawing is the foundation of illustration, but the choices you make in conceptualizing your illustration with regard to the structure and layout, and the techniques you chose to employ will ultimately determine how effective your final work will be. He discussed conveying a message using clean techniques in gesture, directional stroke dynamics, and line weights; positive and negative spaces (particularly negative); choice of color palette; and how “pops of color” stand out from a limited color palette.
Final words of wisdom: Draw with conviction. Have faith in your abilities and your work. Don’t worry about what you think something is “supposed” to look like or let self-doubt show. The simplest decisions ultimately tell the best stories.
“The Magic of Voice: Tips on Finding and Developing a Unique Sound” (in writing) presented by Sarah Davies, of The Greenhouse Literary Agency.
I really wish I could have recorded Sarah Davies’ presentation on Saturday morning because I wasn’t fully awake. I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s because I’m still halfway still in dream territory – but I find that whomever gets that 8:45am slot at the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI conference always delivers the most fascinating presentation. Anyway I really hope Ms. Davies gets tapped for a TED talk because her presentation would just be so perfect for it!
Ms. Davies jumped right into the use of voice with comparisons to (and demonstrations of!) her own experience as a singer to illustrate how an author can find their narrative voices as well as those of their characters. She gave well-structured point-by-point suggestions so I’m going to bullet some of them.
- “Develop your ear,” by reading outside your comfort zone – including and especially genres you wouldn’t necessarily personally like.
- Really listen to the artistic choices other authors make in their choices of words such as using repeats for emphasis, cadence, and phrasing.
- Think about how you can effectively bend or break rules, for example using double negatives to define a character’s voice.
- Teach yourself to listen to your characters’ voices by telling (not reading) your stories out loud, acting out the parts using different voices for and from your characters.
- Get to know your characters well enough to be able to speak with their voices.
- Consider how different characters, for example a child and an adult, speak about the same thing from different points of view?
Ms. Davies also showcased examples of successful writing and discussed techniques for crafting an effective finished piece. One example was a flow of abstract to concrete concepts in entering a narrative which, to me, is exactly like a gradient of negative to positive space shown in abstract to concrete terminology! Other techniques Ms. Davies discussed were in finding the silence between words (hmm negative space again!); being concise and clear with word choices to convey a sensory or emotional experience; finding different ways to show and not tell – to paint a picture with words; adding rhythm; and sharing the storytelling with other voices.
Ms. Davies also gave the usual recommendation of daily practice – she called it playing or sketching – for 20 minutes each day. But specifically in order to help find and fine-tune our voices, she suggested experimenting in writing everything from every conceivable genre and from every conceivable perspective in order to explore what approach we would take to it.
Final words of wisdom: Write without restraint. Take Risks. Give yourself permission to fail. Write with passion. “A strong voice helps you stand out in a snot green ocean of boring”
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So What is Voice? How do I want to use my voice? What do I want to say and how do I say it? How can you tell that voice is mine?
In my last post I’d said that VOICE was going to be a blog post unto itself. What I really meant was that I’ll have to kick it off in a blog post unto itself but as it’s my creative word of this year, I’m going to talk about finding my own voice in my own art frequently throughout 2018. I think that in order to find and fine-tune my voice, I’m going to have to snap my perspective and approaches like a glow-stick – to break out of what it’s SUPPOSED to look like, sound like, be like – shake things up a bit and see what shines #snapshakeshine.
About the illustration. Originally posted December 14th 2017 on Instagram: Sketching before coffee today. No graphite. I envy folks who can make the time and have the focus to draw everyday. 🎨 My work is good but it’s not where I want it to be yet. Still, I’m always learning and growing, and hoping to push that snowball to the next level in 2018. #snapshakeshine
I welcome your input and discussion as I explore!