Carol Larson - textile artist

I have been reading, on and off, as I am known to do, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. Because I am a visual learner, reading a book is often a challenge. My attention wanders and only the occasional read captures me and takes me into the pages. This book had that effect initially. I was in a hotel alone and I was immediately drawn into Twyla’s company. Since I returned home, however, we have been a bit estranged, and yet I am still processing what she shared with me initially.

She writes of establishing a ritual each day that leads to creativity. She hits the streets of New York at 5:30 am, when I am just starting my REM sleep, hails a cab to the gym, where she sweats to the oldies for two hours. Two hours?! Guilt by the truckload…well, okay she is a dancer.

As much as I hated to admit it, my own ritual is my morning exercise, which I do usually around ten. My body clock comes to life about 8-8:30 and by the time the house is warm it is about 9 and then I stretch, eat my yummy breakfast of almonds, fruit and yogurt..thanks, Rayna for the hot tip on Brown Cow…love it! And then I go exercise and begin my ritual towards creativity.

After that, I just go astray, often spending most of the day on the computer, doing various tasks for various groups and some for me, as well. Later this year I am relinquishing one large task; it will be interesting to see how I fill up that time! I often arrive into the studio between 3-4, leave again to make dinner around 6-7 and then return again after dinner and often stay till 11. Then I go to bed and cannot sleep, because that is when my creative habit is in overdrive. Last night, instead of lying there fretting about the elder parent issues, I designed art!

So indeed, my creative habit does need some fine tuning. My husband has suggested I just stay up and work till 2-3 in the morning, since I am lying there awake anyway. I might just try it when I have no social obligations; when I can sleep till noon without guilt! Or I could go back to my upbringing, rise at 6, and back in bed by 9, but how much fun is that?!

Additional to this body clock business is I am STILL dealing with the old childhood conditioning about play is allowed only when all the chores are done. Suffice it to say, we did not play much, and that is probably why I crave it so much! After all the spiritual growth and therapy, I recognize this old conditioning comes from the imprisonment of my mind as Dad is no longer there cracking the whip. I am in essence self-flagellating!

An acquaintance once told me that my art is my work, so it should in all logic come first. Work comes first. Art is work, therefore art comes first. Yet to me, art is play, glorious play when I am lost in the zone, free-floating. So in the never-ending list of self-improvements, giving myself permission to play EARLIER in the day and for longer periods of time, is at the top of my to-do list. Maybe that is just it, putting PLAY on the to-do list!

I’ve heard it said that we spend the first 20 years of our life being programmed and the next 50/60/70 years de-programming. It certainly seems the case for me and my creative habit.

We are being bombarded with constant reminders that we are just days away from SUPER TUESDAY, which in my book is always followed by AH SHIT, WEDNESDAY! Yes, ladies and gentlemen it is election year in the good ol’ USA which basically means if we can make it ’til next January without being pulverized, we will finally get these corrupt people out of office. Of course, it also means we might just get other corruptors in.

First off, I must say I am not a political animal. I figure life gives me choices and I choose to make art, not campaign for some bozo for public office. But I do, like many, have my opinions, most of which I keep in check, most of the time, but this morning, they have re-surfaced. Partially because of the East Coast primary results and because of last night watching “The Unreasonable Man” on DVD. This two hour documentary about Ralph Nader is so worth your time, if you have any suspicion at all that our gov’t is corrupt.

My aunt, who has lived across the street from Nader’s sister for nearly 50 years, has always said he is the greatest humanitarian she has ever met. He is completely selfless, in his quest for quality of life for all Americans. And yet he was portrayed as a pariah because people voted for him and not Gore so W ended up in office.

Which leads me back to apathy. In my 40+ years of voting, I have NEVER voted for anyone who won! EVER. It is extremely tempting to me, at every election, to not vote. But then I remember how women fought so long and hard for the right to vote; and how people in emerging countries put their lives at risk to vote. And who am I to just cast aside that privilege?

So today, I wonder should I change my stategy and instead vote for Ms. Hillary, as my husband calls her, instead of Barack Obama, who I feel might possibly be somewhat ethical? Because if I vote for Ms. Hillary, maybe my one measly vote might tip the scales for Obama? Or maybe I should vote my heart in the primary and my strategy in the ‘real’ election.

It is tempting to wish one’s life away, in order to get W and his posse out of office. In just 11 months, they will be gone. And in just 11 months, I will be another year older and wiser. Nah, I am not going to wish my life away, but I am going to keep on hoping that a change will make a difference. At this point, though it kind of feels like believing in Santa Claus.

I am captivated this day on the resiliency of the human spirit. Despite a number of negativities in my days, I still see my mug of Tazo china green-ginger tea as half full. How is this possible? And then I remember a lesson from yesterday!

My husband and I trekked off to San Jose yesterday (as in do you know the way to?) with two goals in mind. We went to catch the last glimpse of the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit at the Tech Museum and to see the exhibit of Marian Clayden at the San Jose Quilt & Textile Museum. This little jaunt involved 5 hours of traffic and three miles of walking. It also involved dinner out to avoid the worst of the commute traffic. Any excuse from the kitchen is worth it to me!

All of the bodies in the Bodyworld 2 exhibit had been donated to science. There were diseased brains, hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs; cross-sections of hip and knee replacements, breast cancer and open heart surgery; athletic bodies and bodybuilders with incredible muscle development. The bodies were predominantly male so there was an assortment of petrified genitalia. And there was a room of fetuses and a young pregnant woman opened so you could see the fetus, etc. No matter one’s view on Roe v Wade, I doubt a person could not have been affected by that room.

Because my own father has done a swan dive into dementia, I was most fascinated with the studies of the brain. I was able to see exactly what we are dealing with, based on last week’s updated diagnosis at a major teaching hospital. For a visual learner, this was so valuable for me.

The part that most impacted me was about personality development, and how our life experiences create pathways in our brain, to the positive or negative. Clearly, I understand this on a rational level, but never had thought about how my life experiences might affect how I see my cup of tea as half full. I always thought it was more of a spiritual level determination.

Today… this dreary, wet, frigid cold, dark day in January, when I am wearing layers of sweats and wool socks, and esconced in working out details pertinent to my father’s care, I occasionally stop into the studio to sew a line or two. And I am dazzled that STILL, I find my cup of tea half full. It could use a 30 sec zap in the microwave, however!

What I love most about my life and the way I process is now that I am aware, how quickly I get it! For example, my last post about recent work made and work in progress was a huge mistake on my part. And I knew that, I had already learned that and yet I forgot. I forgot for one small second, and posted work in progress.

It is my personal choice to never show work in progress nor discuss work in progress nor detail, draw or otherwise discuss any new idea. It absolutely puts the lid on it, squishing the creative lifeforce out of the work. And I knew that! But I forgot and posted the work.

So in the days since, I have been totally unable to even look at it, much less work on it. I have vascillated between painting it or not painting it. I have basically been in a huge vortex of BLAH!

Two years ago, I did the same thing by showing a tall girl series piece to a group for a mini-critique. I shared my enthusiasm, they shared their silence and I was unable to work on the project for six months! So apparently I needed a reminder as I did it again this week. But alas, I remember now and will not be doing that again, hopefully.

The way I process wisdom in my life has always been to write about it. Often my posts on this blog are of such substance. So I am going to continue on this vein because I believe that somehow these two subjects are linked. And that is the dreaded word: competition!

We human animals all possess it. I suppose not many do dread it, but the way it factors into my life and my art, I feel the best thing I can do is not give it light and air or it might grow! I never thought I had a competitive bone in my body until about 10 years ago when I was coming home from a retreat with a really old friend, who had been annoying the hell out of me the entire week. At a lunch stop on the way home, I summoned up all my courage and said to her that I felt our friendship was in jeopardy because of her competiveness! To which she immediately responded ME? YOU ARE THE MOST COMPETITVE PERSON I HAVE EVER MET!!! Well, I was shocked, how could that be, because in my mind it was all about her!

In the years since, I have learned that (a) we attract people to us who will teach us what we need to learn and (b) the things that annoy us the most about other people are the things we need to work on in ourselves; which is in essence the same as (a) but re-framed! Since that time, and the demise of that friendship, I have learned that it is more important for me to focus on my own competitive energies than to be in competition with other people.

Last fall, I went to a meeting of the Art Cloth Network in Arizona and had a wonderful car conversation with a member about professional jealousy. She said Google it and I did, and 189,000 sites popped up. She had been invited to create and exhibit her art in a major symposium, and when she shared her news with others, she was met with things like so why didn’t they ask me? or how is your art any better than mine?

Frankly I had never heard of such a thing as professional jealousy! That is until six weeks later when I had the good fortune of selling five pieces of work to a San Francisco philantrophic corporation. As I broadcast the news to nearly everyone on the planet, I was met with a surprising amount of professional jealousy. At first, the back-handed compliments seemed a bit snarky, but then those comments separated from the sincere compliments like curds from whey. It became downright humorous to look at these two stacks of clearly different comments.

What impressed me the most was once again that lesson! The lesson about keeping one’s richness close to one’s self; about not giving away the most prized possessions, if you will. My artwork, my passion for my artwork and my passion for life are my greatest assets. Make the art and share it with the world, but only when my process with it, is entirely finished.

Realizing that it has been a while since I posted anything art-related, today I decided to round up a bit of loose ends and write about that. Recently, I wrote about revitalizing a finished work with screen-printing, and how it started out as a total disaster. Well, it is now finished and my husband and I both love it hanging at rotate right from where it was previously, so I need to re-sew the sleeve, which is minor. Here are the before and after shots of Ritual. Now that I have resuscitated Ritual, I have my eye on several older pieces in the closet which could use updating. And that of course makes for a lot of new work in 2008!

In the fall I designed and completed these two pieces, Summer in the City I and II with two different CFA exhibits in mind.
Then lo and behold when I was least expecting it, they both sold to the Irvine Foundation. For a short time I thought of just resting on my laurels for those two exhibits, but then the mojo got the better of me so I started to work on new pieces for at least one exhibit.

That exhibit has the theme of Dwellings, which ironically I suggested and the group chose. When I suggested it, I was not thinking houses in particular, although that is how the theme was presented to the group. Originally I designed the work about skyscrapers, which are often office dwellings and living dwellings. I also pondered a fabulous shot of an Italian cemetary, which in essence is a dwelling place for the war dead. That photo, not readily available, does still have potential, but in the ongoing process of pondering dwellings, I moved on to harbors.

And since I have been blessed with much world travel, I had many photos of harbors, so I started this little series of harborview quilts! Here you see Harborview: Hong Kong and Harborview: Matzatlan with Harborview: San Francisco still on paper.
As he is wont to do, my husband has gone bonkers over the fact that the dwellings on the coast of Mazatlan do not have windows! Of course my answer to any of his critique of my work is: IT’s ABSTRACT! I did ponder the windows a bit, and decided the piece had much more impact without the windows. It is a face without a nose or mouth or eyes, but still a face. Details…who cares!

So I continued on, still not passionate about the dwellings concept. There definitely are dwellings in each of the harborview pieces and yet I would like them exhibited as a group, and who knows how many there will actually be. Amalfi and Venice are both still in the recesses of my brain.

Then out of nowhere, I was on my shortcut to the track, which I take 2-3 times a week, through a neighborhood of starter castles. And that is when it hit me. I began another abstract, totally unrelated to the harborviews or the summer in the city. A dwellings piece about, of all things, houses! These monstrous houses, all painted in shades of sand, most with red doors and windows larger than the doors, and this piece is near completion and I love it.

And as if this was not enough, I also cast off my vintage PhotoShop 5.5 for a new version of PhotoShop Elements 6. Wow, I can’t believe the difference. I hardly have to think at all!

Next time I am feeling like I don’t do much all day long, I will come back and read this post!

My prince got the bad head cold last week and try as I might, I was able to avoid getting it until Monday when he left for a half-week’s skiing. Yesterday, I mostly tried to pretend that I really was not sick and really could do quite a lot actually. It worked until about 4 pm and then Kleenex box, dog and I retreated to the warmth of the wood stove, a warm quilt on the sofa and the remote control.

Before bed, I decided if I felt well enough today, I would go for a walk, and to a movie. I grabbed a fist full of tissue and headed for the track. The walk felt great, and the weather was cooperative; cold and foggy but not wet. Afterwards, I scurried off to the morning matinee of Enchanted.

Having been raised entirely on Walt Disney films and the promise of happily ever after, I was anxious to see this modern fairy tale; and to see if they are still pandering this line of crap! I did not expect a lot of people to be there on a Wednesday morning in January, but imagine my surprise (gasp!) when I walked into a completely empty theatre with the film blaring away. Although there was not a soul in the place, I politely waited until my eyes adjusted so I would not accidentally sit on someone who was not there.

I chose a seat in the back row and settled into the modern fairy tale, when not thirty seconds later, I began to feel unease about being the only person in the theatre. And not long after that, the lesson was not lost on me. Here I was facing one of my life-long fears, with an old teacher.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of the dark and the “boogeyman.” The only dark I could endure was at the movies, which was only Disney; unless of course it was an Edgar Alan Poe film, which we occasionally snuck into as teens. So here I was, all 60 years of me, sitting alone in this big dark theatre watching a Disney film. What was so frightening about being the sole occupant of a room in the back of a large multi-plex, I asked myself? Had I not been sexually assualted in college, I probably would have been able to reason with myself much quicker. Instead, I continued to think about how creepy it was to be in there all alone.

And then I thought about how in other places solitude is revered, like the swimming pool. To be all alone in the swimming pool is pure heaven. To be all alone for a few days while mate is skiing, is heaven. To wake up on one’s own schedule is heaven. To be in the car with no noise is pure delight. To be alone in the movie theatre was far superior to sitting near people who yak through the film.

And then I got into the film. And dang if they aren’t still pushing that same happily ever after. After the movie, I created my own happily ever after I got take-out pad thai and came home to my box of Kleenex.

This morning while doing my daily morning stretch, I decided the time has come to integrate all of my body conditioning into one great plan. It has only taken me 15 years to reach this conclusion, and who knows how long to fully implement it. Well, that is not quite correct. It took me maybe 12 years to recognize, two years to procrastinate and one year to mull it over!

Right now I walk, swim, practice yoga and exer-cycle. I strive to do one thing every day, because if I do not move my body, I do not make art. It is that simple. I tend towards preference of one modality at a time. Just like living in a city with a multitude of great restaurants, I have just one or two favorites which I go to time and again.

So the big AHA of this day is to do some of each in the week; in other words two days of strength training, two days of swimming, two days of walking and a day to rest! Ah, but the good witch says, surely you could do a yoga class that 7th day? The way I have been doing it with an emphasis on one activity leads to disintegration of the rest of the body parts, which is not good either. Since I have been actively walking, my strength has dropped off, and so on…

As a kid, I was not role-modeled in physical fitness. I remembered President Kennedy’s (yes, as a matter of factor I am THAT old!) Fitness Program for all Americans and we were certain he was talking about all Americans but us! It was rather fortuitous for our family when my parents purchased land and built a house right next door to a womens P.E. instructor and her family.

She quickly went to work trying to whip our family into shape, and succeeded in teaching my folks’ to square dance, play tennis and ski. She encouraged a love of the water by inviting us to swim on hot summer days in their sparkling pool. The only physical fitness I had was high school gym class, however.

When I was 45, and a skinny vegetarian in the chiropractor’s office every Friday at 3 pm, I figured out that maybe if I joined a gym and hired a personal trainer, I might get strong enough to break the cycle. The trainer encouraged me eat chicken again, to build muscle which took some getting used to, but I figured strength was worth it.

I joined Gold’s Gym, which was where all the hard-bodies worked out (what was I thinking?!!!) and after growing weary of some clown hitting on me all the time, I switched to a sister gym, that had an indoor pool. So I switched from strength training to swimming. Then I wandered into a yoga class and that became my primary exercise obsession (an oxymoron if I ever heard one). Then I broke my wrist and could do neither swimming nor yoga, so I begrudgingly took up walking, which I had always hated. Now, a year later I love walking at the expense of the yoga, strength training and swimming.

So now you see where I am going with this tired tale. This year I plan to do a little of all, at least twice a week. Yet, I hate being so structured!!! This is where I start arguing with myself, because in reality I am just so disciplined in moving my body, at all. And then I congratulate myself that it has taken me only fifteen years to figure this out! And they said I was a slow learner…