Elegant Enigma
June 15, 2009 by Janice
Bicycling through Provence or sorting through the work load here? Hm…. Since I’ve also pulled in the mountains of that exclusive Yellowstone Club out west for the photo, you can probably guess that my wishes may not exactly lie in the office or the studio this morning.
Over the weekend I did my usual offline work with MY infrastructure at my desk. My notebooks have a lot of to do in them, and now there are new project sheets in about 4 areas just in the active studio notebook alone, all in different media. I promised myself I would use the materials on hand until they run out. Convert everything around me to use before I take on anything else. So I have the project sheets for most everything done.
Lots of tickles pulling me. Like riddles begging to be explored.
It’s no wonder I am fantasizing about riding through Provence. Sigh. Or hiking out somewhere. But I have a body of work to restore. I have ideas galore. A multitude of sketches and notes. Themes that recur. All calling to me. It’s the how to get them all done now. I am eager to do that. But it’s a lot to do. A whole lot of a lot. And there is only one of me.
The how to use things a little bit differently though that is the puzzle. How to work this new thing that is working in me and still honor what’s already there. Hm. Just felt that little tingle of excitement just in the thinking about that. I only have an inkling of a glimmer of that how. But those inklings… well they tend to grow when you get to the doing part of the to do.
So when I took a break from the notebooks this weekend and dipped into twitter for a sec and saw this tweet for me, it stayed with me a bit:
“ellenfweber @jancartier Great ideas [that] acquire feet and wings often come with mind-bending change tactics.”
Ideas with feet and wings…. mind-bending change tactics…hm… from a brainy kind of doctor. I like the picture that ideas have both feet and wings. I like that a lot. It’s kind of what art is to me… ideas that have enough substance to stand on their own, to become tangible… and enough spirit to take flight, to resonate with another heartbeat. Now about that mind bending change though, is it me or does that sound like it could take some agility to do that? Some willingness to take that on?
Of all the things she could have said to me, this person I do not know, this is thing thing she said out of the blue…ahhh, the blue of possibilities….yes, I am smiling.
I think it is another nudge, a good one. Because I am already thinking a bit differently about the how to go about it all. And I am liking what I see. It’s not in the what, the what has been chomping to get out. It’s in the how, definitely. And the how just got a nudge. A tweak not in specifics, just in pushing it a wee bit further in another place, letting go and stepping into that blue of possibilities again…and I love that.
So on this Organizing Monday, my elegant enigma is to play with possibilities of how. To take several complexities to simple. To take what seems to be diversity, disruption, and chaos ( ooh, juicy spots there) and give them feet and wings…And maybe, just maybe, that will feel like bicycling across France…and hiking on those Yellowstone trails…it’s an exploration after all.
Ooh, those tickles just turned to tingles and that inkling just started to grow.
How about you? How’s it going for you this Monday morning?
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5 Responses to “Elegant Enigma”
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Well it’s Monday evening so the morning obviously passed me by too quickly. I like your challenge: ” I promised myself I would use the materials on hand until they run out.” Seems like one that would do well around here, in craft as well as food (there’s cans of stuff I never should have bought, but really should use. And totally unfair to donate – they need better stuff.)
Fred H Schlegel’s last blog post..Abandon Logic, Create Then Verify!
Well I am totally behind as it’s now Wednesday but wow! I love Ellen’s tweet, and the thought of ideas having both feet and wings is a powerful image for me. Such a perfect way to describe that balance of firmly planted, rooted yet taking flight. Incredible.
Karen Swim’s last blog post..Personal Uses for Social Media
Hi Fred- It’s a Feng Shui thing as much as an economical thing…if you move things out, it makes more room for the next whatever it may be to come in. Just like breathing.
It would be fun to see what kind of menu you come up with for those cans.. LOL
Karen,
Don’t you love her tweet? It captures the moment of becoming. Converting ideas to something real. I like thinking of them now with feet and wings.
[...] I think because I spent a large portion of yesterday going through materials and working through those project sheets I mentioned on Monday. That meant processing ideas and maybes, into the next steps in different media. Cutting canvas to [...]
Sorry but that picture of feets and wings reminds me of the Bruegel painting of Icarus who fell to the ground with the wax wings…
c’est la vie