Once upon a time I used to engage in a whole bunch of different creative projects.
I made cross stitch pictures for weddings and Christmas gifts. I crocheted afghans and knitted baby sweaters. At Christmas I made gifts for everybody (well, okay, not everybody. But lots of people.) Gingerbread houses? You betcha, and none of that buy-the-kit business. My kids wore cute little hand knitted sweaters with pictures of trucks and animals. (I’m sure they are eternally grateful that I’m not still knitting, because let’s face it – the trucks and teddy bear sweaters aren’t so cool in high school and college).
Once upon a time I played the piano nearly every day. I took art lessons and was learning how to draw and was thinking about painting classes.
Now?
Not so much. Every now and then I pull out some yarn and try to knit something, but my brain goes wandering off into storyland and I lose the count, drop a stitch. I did start a baby blanket last year – no, not for me, before you ask. Simply because it’s a relatively quick project and is a straight knit stitch that’s hard to mess up. As for the piano – it’s been so long that I’m pretty sure I can’t remember how to play anything and I’d have to start all over. There’s no time to draw, and even if there was my drawing pencils have been absorbed into various corners of the house, appropriated by kids for projects.
If you’ve recognized the above as a string of excuses, I suspect you’re right. If I was truly itching to play the piano, or to make a baby sweater, I’d find the time and the attention to make it happen. I could easily buy more drawing pencils. Truth? At this point in my life, all of my creative drive is focused on one thing, and one thing only. When I have time, I write. All of the creative stuff goes onto the page.
I’m not saying this is the way it should be. Chances are good it’s not even healthy, and that my creativity would be enhanced by engaging in another type of project. But there’s also this other nefarious thing called time, of which there is somehow never enough.
Right now it is 4:52 am. Time to get this post up and clear the decks for an hour of writing before I get ready for work. Let me leave you with this question:
What types of arts and crafts do you enjoy? And how do you preserve enough time and energy to work on them?
I love crafts but I’ve learned that crafts create clutter. I really started writing again because I had stopped doing anything creative and realized that—but before that I was a crazy scrapbooking lady. Oh yes I was! Now I don’t do any crafts at all. Maybe I should.
As a kid, I went to arts & crafts day camps and LOVED them. But these days, my “craftiness” goes either into my writing or my cooking. That’s pretty much all I have time for!
Wow…again, talk about separated at birth…
When my son was little, I loved to needlepoint and cross-stitch. I also played the piano (badly, but I played). I still have a piano in my home office, but the keys are dusty from disuse. Since I started writing, all my arts and crafts have gone by the wayside, with the exception of playing with my aquarium, which I’m filing under “hobbies/crafts” – that may be cheating, but I have to secure the corals to the rocks with glue, so since there’s glue involved I’m calling it a craft!
Agreed, Susan. Anything with glue is a craft. Except sniffing it.
Kerry, I do have this strange theory gleaned from my days as a musician, that we have a finite amount of art/craft in us on any given day. Some people have more and some people have less but I find that the more I write the less I yearn to knit intricate lace and the more I long for the restful tedium of back and forth rows of stockinette. Sounds like you have a similar experience.