I’m not inspired to write today, or often actually. But ‘practice’ means honoring your intention, whether you want to or not, whether or not you feel inspired, whether or not the results will be worth showing anyone.

I’ve been thinking about housework lately. I had a house full of people over the holiday, which is a shift from the mostly quiet, peaceful routine I enjoy. I was reminded of my mothering days, with all the chores of making the house a functional, healthy, appealing place to be for my family. Housekeeping is an art. I’m not talking about the fancy magazine stuff, just the basic practice of noticing, paying attention, constantly figuring out how to make things work smoothly and happily as possible. Managing time and resources continually. If you’re lucky enough as I was not to need a full time paying job to make ends meet, your home can become a manifestation of your creative energy.

I think about this now, as I’ve had a few years of the freedom to prioritize getting into my studio every day. A friend of mine has a plaque over her sink that reads “Art Before Dishes”. It’s a good reminder for a busy person to make sure they give themself that time. But doing the dishes is part of the art of keeping the home healthy, safe, welcoming to others. It’s always a balancing act.

Unlike with the practice of housekeeping, where the work goes unnoticed unless it’s left undone for too long, I’ve chosen to basically show all the work of my art practice, posting my daily drawings. Whether or not I was inspired, whether or not the results are anything to be proud of. If you’ve been following me for a while you’ve probably seen plenty of misses, and seen times when I rework things different ways, runs of various themes, stretches when I focus on something and then points when I take breaks from that focus. I suppose it’s like being in the house while someone practices an instrument. Every once in a while you might hear some real music, but there’s an awful lot of awkward working through phrases over and over until they become part of a song.

I really hope that showing my work will at least be interesting; everyone’s journey is different, and I often wonder how someone got to where they are with their art. As I try to be open and unapologetic about what I’m doing, maybe it will encourage someone else toward dedicated exploration of their chosen practice.

Here are my daily drawings since my last studio blog post:

It seems to me that my dive into wax resist drawings has a darkness that’s suited to the mood of the times. The layers have a metaphoric resonance. First the hard pencil lines engraved into the paper provide the drawing with a structure. The next layer is colorful wax crayon, mirroring my deliberate embrace of optimism. All is then covered by the black sludge of ink, which needs to sit and dry till it forms a shell. Crappy stuff happens in this big old world, and it sometimes overwhelms everything. But then I scrape that darkness back off, finding the colors beneath, which glow all the more profoundly when they are offset by the dark.

It doesn’t show up in the scans I post, but I’m using fat glitter crayolas in almost all of the drawings, so they have a little sparkle that reminds me of the cheesy advent calendars for which I am a sucker.

My studio surfaces are getting cluttered with stuff dumped and not sorted. I’ve spent the past week and a half staying connected with my various communities as well as I can. It’s a very good time to check in with the people you care about and make sure they’re doing OK. I don’t think there’s much I can say that hasn’t been said better elsewhere, but if you’re reading this, I thank you for being a part of what has kept me going on this daily practice. Sometimes bad stuff hits where you live, and you just have to do your best to take care of what you can, fix what you can, protect what you can, and do whatever makes life worth living.

Here are the drawings I posted in the last week:

I started posting my drawings as a way of keeping myself accountable for drawing something every day. Five years on, this is pretty much built into my routine. Even when I struggle with the blank paper, I still look forward to my (usually) evening drawing time and don’t feel the day is complete without it.

I want to expand on this foundation, spending more time in my studio doing other projects.

I’ve always struggled with the feeling that making art is self-indulgent, and there are many more useful and important things I could be doing with my time. That feeling is probably never going to go away, any more than the chorus of critics in my head whenever I make a drawing.

If I’ve learned anything from my drawing practice, it’s that the most important thing is just to do it, whatever it is. So here’s my declaration of commitment to doing other work in my studio and telling you about it about once a week.

Here are my daily drawings from the past week; they should link to the original posts.

Kind of fun to see a visual diary of the past week!

Until next time, happy autumnal equinox (if you’re in the northern hemisphere)

xoxox from Kate the ayespider  😉