Celebrity Bunny Bowling

Creativity requires a willingness to be a tad silly. When I find myself mired in a problem I can not solve, I try to give myself a little brain break. Answers to vexing problems usually pop into my head after about ten minutes of this silliness. My favorites:

• Train a video camera on a group of Bowling Bunnies by Schylling. Record the little guys as you peg bean bag cabbages at them. Use super-slo-mo, if you have it. Think of new ways to stack them up, and whack them again. Play back your video and study the faces of the bunnies as they fall. Find other characters & props to add to the mix, and whack 'em again. I usually laugh myself all the way to the bathroom. Repeat as needed.
• Fiddle with an Etch-A-Sketch. Start by filling the screen with a cross hatch of diagonal lines. Then trace over it a second time, trying to stay as close to your original lines as you can. Erase the whole thing. Draw concentric circles. Erase again, and write your name.
  
• Blow bubbles. Keep a cheap bottle of bubble soap & a wand on your desk. Blow and release the biggest bubbles you can. Take a deep breath and try to use the whole thing on a single bubble. (My 3 1/2 year-old tells me to breath in orange & blow out blue.)
  
• Put on a silly hat (like a beanie with a battery-powered propeller, or antenae) and try to write a trip or status report, or something more uplifting, like a dirge.
  
• Practice juggling. If you don't know how to juggle, pick up a copy of "Juggling for the Complete Klutz", which comes with three little blocks.
• Keep origami paper and patterns on hand. Make a few paper balloons & blow them up.
  
• Pull out a coloring book & crayons. Color outside the lines. Use unexpected colors. Work with your non-dominant hand. Also try using any small manipulative (magnetic poetry or dress up dolls, felt or paper shapes, lacing cards or beads, magnetic blocks) with your non-dominant hand.
• Other brain-relaxing toys: small pin ball or marble games, peg puzzles, blacksmith puzzles, Wheel-O, or Gyroscope.

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop thinking about it. (Whatever you do, don't look at the ceiling.) These games and activities distract the big brain, and let the wildly creative, intuitive small brain take over for a while.

Have fun!

How to Handle Getting Stood Up

Has this ever happened to you? You make a date. You eagerly anticipate the day, maybe buying a special outfit or a new journal, and you are all pumped up to see where this will all lead.

You look up from your daydream, (your computer, your book, your taxes, whatever) and are shocked to discover that the long-awaited time has passed. You have been stood up. By yourself.

How often have we signed a contract in yet another book on creativity, only to never open the book again? Or promised to spend twenty minutes in the studio, only to fail to show up. Vowed to start an exercise program, diet, dance class on Monday, and then next Monday, and then next quarter, or maybe when the kids are back in school... Morning pages, anyone?

What should you do? You could get angry with yourself, but that won't accomplish much. I wouldn't want to spend much time with someone who was always getting angry with me, would you? Lighten up.

If this recalcitrant date were a member of the opposite sex, I'd tell you to avoid planning dates more than an hour ahead of time. This works because the spontaneous offer to do something unplanned pitches the activity into the "fun" category -- and it doesn't leave your date enough time to develop cold feet.

So, try it on yourself. Google "dance classes", "yoga workshops", "pilates", "watercolor classes", "woodworking" in your area, and see if a drop-in class is offered somewhere in the next hour. Move away from the computer. Invite yourself to an unplanned trip to a museum or art gallery. Pull out your sketch book, right now, and doodle something. So what if the clock reads "9:00pm"? Flip out the journal, and write one of those "morning pages". Be a little naughty. Tell your boss you need a one hour mental health break, right now, and run back to your studio to keep your twenty minute promise.

If you don't give yourself an opportunity to procrastinate, forget, stall, or get scared you will launch yourself into the chosen activity with all the joy that drew you to it in the first place.

And laugh like hell, because if this works for you, you really are choosing to create.

Mount Malarkey: Just Make Stuff.

Oh, I've heard all the excellent reasons for not working today. I've created many new ones, too. Malarkey, every last one. If we can get into the studio, we will get work out of the studio.

So, here are ten little reasons to go to the studio that have nothing to do with making things, and everything to do with fooling yourself into accidently working on a project. Make a twenty minute commitment to go to the studio. Set a timer and do ONE of these things for fourteen minutes:

1. Sweep the floor.
2. Doodle with your non-dominant hand.
3. Take snapshots of your work-in-progress.
   
4. Pick one square foot of clutter (on your desk, in a file cabinet, near your drawing board, on your workbench) and clear it out.
5. Throw three useless items away. (old paint tubes; scraps of wood, paper, yarn, fabric, glass metal or other material you hoard but don't use; dried up pens or markers; old catalogs)
6. Play one favorite recording.
7. Put your feet up and relax.
8. Brew & drink one cup of tea, coffee, or chocolate.
9. Drink twelve ounces of water.
10. Maintain one tool. (Sharpen a chisel; restore a neglected paint brush; flatten a waterstone; lubricate a machine or airgun; empty the trash baskets or dust collectors)

With your last six minutes, pick one:

1. If you have a current project, go look at it. Rapidly write down three items (preferably on a white board) about what you need to do next on it. Look hard at that list. Can you do any one of those tasks now? If so, do it. If not, write down one reason next to each of those tasks. Can you (will you?) do anything about any of those items? If so, do it. If not, you are free to leave for the day.
   
   
2. If you do not have a project in progress, rapidly write down seven deeply daft ideas for your next project. Put them on little scraps of paper, toss them in a box dedicated to this purpose (or add them to a box you've already started), mix them up & pull one out. Rapidly, jot down three good reasons for assigning this project to a student. (You may have to dig a lot!) Can you make yourself that student? Have you shaken loose any ideas? If so, try to capture them in whatever way makes sense for your discipline (sketches, outlines, prototypes). If not, you are free to leave for the day.

This process will either get you going for the day, or it will focus your mind on why you are blocked from further progress. Even if you find yourself leaving after twenty minutes, you will create a little puzzle that will roll around in the back of your mind until you find a way to resolve it.

Tomorrow, make the same twenty minute commitment and see what pops out.