Tag: creativity

sketchbook : week 35

November 16, 2015
by annwood
sketchbook : week 35

Week 35  in my yearlong sketchbook practice.  I accidentally took a 4 week break from my sketchbook practice.  I wish I hadn’t. In a week that was impossibly busy it seemed like the sensible thing to do. I wish I had found a way to squeeze it in but it felt like the only option.  Once the wheels came off I slippery sloped into avoidance and stuckness.  At the same time I missed it – more and more – that little part of my day and all the good things it brings me even when I don’t feel like doing it.  I got back on track last week. Lesson learned I hope, about the perils of letting go of a discipline that is working for me.

sketchbook : week 35

my big creative year : the power of uncertainty

November 9, 2015
by annwood

the power of uncertainty

Two great enemies of creativity are inertia and certainty. The fix for inertia is simple, not easy, but very simple – start, move, take a step forward. Certainty is trickier. Our brains are built to be efficient, they categorize, assume, learn, repeat and create habits and rules. It is work to notice – really look at things, consider them outside of their familiar context or history or purpose. Auto pilot is easy and comfortable and I catch myself slipping into it, in little ways and big ways, all the time. I see what I expect to see because subconsciously – it is already a certainty. And often I feel myself bumping up against rigidity in my thinking because I’m headed somewhere that conflicts with what my brain considers a given, a known quantity or a proven or even familiar course of action. Certainty isn’t open, it isn’t creative and it isn’t curious – it doesn’t have room for possibilities and possibilities are magic.  I wonder:

What would the world look like if we could forget everything for just a moment?

What would my own possibilities look like if I could un-know all I believe about myself?

 

my big creative year : doll part 2 – fancy unmentionables

October 26, 2015
by annwood
tiny doll

mini doll

I have lots of ideas for dolls ….. traditional, contemporary, something mysterious or dark and ideas in experimental directions. As I started to play with the idea of dolls there was an insistent desire to make a doll my 11 year old self would have loved. A doll with layers of fancy unmentionables under her gown.  To have the fun of dressing her, to indulge in tinyness and nostalgia. I got lost in it.  All the while feeling – more of this please.

I love her like you love a doll, an odd little doll.

antique lace doll slip

tiny doll

miss thistle

miss thistle

 

 

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my big creative year : doll – part 1

October 5, 2015
by annwood
doll experiment

Historically,  I’ve gotten hugely annoyed when described as a doll maker. Nothing against dolls – I love them so much – in all their forms – and there are so many incredible doll makers I admire. But still, I have felt resistance about creating anything that could very officially be called a doll.  I told myself – it just isn’t what I do.  Except it keeps coming up….   So I decided to make a doll.  And ran right into a bunch of nuttiness and resistance – all the usual suspects:

  •  I had a million ideas – I wanted to make LOTS of dolls – it felt impossible to choose where to begin – I was overwhelmed.
  •  I got all weird about what people might think.
  •  I wanted to make the best and most perfect doll ever – right out of the gate.

I stayed stuck and thinking for quite a while and then got past that the only way there is –  by starting. By taking a small action – gathering supplies.  Sorting through boxes and boxes of old garments and fabric with doll in mind made me see all sorts of new possibilities and qualities in things I’ve looked at a hundred times before. I got a lot of momentum from that exercise and started drawing, drafting and experimenting – in that good place of letting something evolve. You can see the very beginnings  of  the thinking, experimenting, drafting and refining process – my wonky first steps – below.

doll drafting

Stay tuned for doll #1.

 

my big creative year : the forest and impermanence

September 21, 2015
by annwood
forest passage

The pace of time seems to escalate in the spring and fall – the shortest and sweetest seasons. Everything changes so quickly. I went into the forest last week with the intention of soaking up as much as I could and spending time making something that wouldn’t last.

forest loom

forest loom

I began to experiment  with something small – sort of a mini loom – to get a feel for manipulating things. I made a frame from twigs and string and wove in what I liked, looked for more with fresh eyes and tried things.  It made me look at everything differently, more thoughtfully and with deeper appreciation. I saw qualities and details of grasses and vines and mosses I had never seen before.

forest loom

The next day I went back out wanting to try something larger, with only what I could find in the forest. I walked and gathered and felt my mind ticking briskly along, seeing lines, shapes relationships and intersections I hadn’t seen before. I chose a spot and started experimenting without much of a plan, the idea that it did not need to, and could not last opened me to all sorts of possibilities. I played for hours and it turned into a sort of arch – a magic passage for creatures who might come upon it before it blew away.

forest passage

I went out with a lantern that night for a look and to imagine what it might be like to come upon such a thing in the forest unexpectedly.  The next day the huge golden ferns and most of it’s other finery had wilted or blown away and it wasn’t much more than an odd pile of sticks. I had a marvelous time.

my big creative year : the magic of small

September 14, 2015
by annwood
miniature donkey

miniature donkey

I am deeply interested in what happens when things get small. I always have been. Mini is intriguing. There is a lot of magic in smallness.

When the scale changes – our ideas and presumptions about lots of other things change. All sorts of fresh possibilities are revealed. It is an invitation to look harder at everything. Scotch tape dispensers can become a perfect glass display case for this melancholy little scene.  I get excited about that sort of thing.

hair hut diorama

hair hut diorama

Of course this works in both directions but I’m much more attracted to small – I think in part because it is accessible, it can be approached in a personal and solitary way. For me that is part of the beauty of small. Big leaps of imagination are possible and mood and atmosphere can be fine-tuned  because the scale is manageable.

dioramaSo much of what I love to do has been about this kind of play – it has always been a deep drive and fascination for me. Even at it’s simplest I find it compelling.

terrarium

But why is it magic? I think because things can exist at an intersection of real and pretend by virtue of their unorthodox and unexpected size. There is instant mystery, instant story – what kind of world might this tiny thing be part of? You can see it and touch it and if you choose to, be nudged a little further down the road to make believe.

sketchbook : week 29

September 7, 2015
by annwood

Week 29  in my yearlong sketchbook practice.  The point of this daily exercise is to play, experiment, to try things in a small un-intimidating way. But sometimes it is still to much and it’s hard to sit down, hard to make a mark – paralysis. There are a few useful tools to get myself started – like ink splatters or a random word or color and one of my favorites is number piles. I paint a series of numbers – one right on top of another at different angles, without  much thought, and then respond to the shapes and spaces that the pile creates.  It never fails to get me unstuck and open. The square – second down on the right is a pile of 3 numbers: 187.
sketchbook : week 29