Artistic problem

[Doreen Peri]

I have a problem.

I start artistic projects and never complete them.

Why? Because I get bored with them before I'm finished.

Examples -

I get all excited about learning a new piano piece. I work on it for a month and never feel like I've perfected it to my satisfaction. By the time I've practiced it over and over and over and it's still not to a stage where I feel comfortable performing or recording it, I abandon it and start learning another piece which I never perfect, because the practicing of the same tune bores me eventually.

I have ideas I start working on for books. I get excited about them! I start putting my ideas down on paper and expanding on the ideas and writing toward the goal of the manuscript. But I abandon it because eventually the thrill wears off before I have a chance to complete it. I get bored with it when it starts to feel like tedious work.

I start a drawing or a painting. As I work on it, the inspiration wanes and I leave it for another drawing.

My artistic projects are my lovers. I have a string of them left behind. New lovers wink at me and flirt with me and I move on to them feeling guilty for abandoning the others when their upkeep becomes tiresome.

Have any of you experienced something similar?

Why is the creative urge so fleeting?

Better said, the creative urge isn't fleeting, but the dedication to ONE creative urge is fleeting because there are so many going on at the same time in my head.

How do you discipline yourself to finish a project?

Maybe my projects are too intensive and extensive. Maybe I should choose projects which I can do quickly.

[mousey1]

Doreen meet mousey. Mousey meet Doreen. I have the self same problem.

I'll watch this thread and perhaps vicariously gleen some wisdom. I have many halfeaten projects, paintings, sketches, and carvings laying here, there and everywhere. I start gung ho, hit a snag, and move on, move on, promising myself to return and complete, oh I return alright, many months and years hence, but very little completing happening. I need someone to stand over me with a hatchet.

I think my main problem is that I want to slap and dash. I am a pecker and dabber who wants to be a slapper and dasher. I want to throw paint on the canvas, do a couple of swirling brush flares and stand back and admire the masterpiece. Heh Heh.

It all takes work, time and plenty of effort. Practise, practise, practise without the lulls in between. I have promised myself to keep at it this time, I have run out of excuses....well, no I haven't but I'm trying not to listen to them.

I'll pick anyone's brain if they'll stand still long enough.

My problem is frustration and laziness. I mean just look at me right now....what am I doing.

And really....who cares......who cares......

ME!

Anyway, Doreen, I've been utterly useless to you so I'm stepping back to see what offerings you are offered. I shall gather the crumbs and make a cake. I'm nuts!!!!!! A happy little nut.

[Lightning Rod]

doreen,

Part of being an artist is 'sticktoitiveness'

It took Captain Beefheat 2 years to rehearse and record Trout Mask Replica after he wrote the whole thing in six hours.

A concert pianist will play a piece 500 times (after he learns it) before he takes it to the stage.

It took Joyce seventeen years to write Finnegans' Wake (and I've been trying to understand it for more than that)

I've written tunes 30 years ago that I can't play properly yet.

But, how do you get to Carnagie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice.

[bohonato]

You know, Doreen, Leonardo Da Vinci had that same problem, too. Must be a trait of geniuses.

[Doreen Peri]

mousey1 - I knew you were my sistah! Maybe we should get together and do a show. You bring all your unfinished stuff and I'll bring mine. It'll be the avant garde event of the year! We'll call it .... hmm.... what should we call it? Hey, by the time we think of a title, the idea will start boring us and we'll have to think of something new.

Lrod - That's my whole point. Practice gets boring. There are too many pieces to play. Too many novels to write. Too many ideas to pursue. (but just to let you know, before you, they were all practice. )

bohonato - Nice to see you! He did? Really? Wow! Well, at least I know I'm in good company but genius? hahahaha.... geesh. Nah, I have more traits of duh than is allowed in that category. How did he accomplish so much if he had this same problem? Did he write any essays about this problem he had or anything? If so, I sure would like to read them.

I think we need to lengthen the day by 12 hours. A 36 hour day might work well. And we should shorten the time for necessary sleep to 4 hours. Then again, I get much of my inspiration from my dreams. My dreams are like movies. Complicated plots. Vivid color. Yeah, shorten the sleep requirement. Good idea, me! Less dream inspiration equals fewer possibilities of new project ideas screwing up the projects I've not yet finished. I think I'm onto something.

Who do I talk to about affecting these changes? Any idea?

[bohonato]

I believe Leo only painted like 12 paintings in his life. Some extremely low and unexpected number like that. He would come up with ideas, and write them down in his journals, but he came up with ideas so quickly the old ones bored him and he would move on. I couldn't say if he did ever write anything about it (he did get in trouble with his employers); I shall go on a quest to find out.

[Marksman45]

If artistic projects are like lovers, then I am one hell of a playa, as it were

I work on one for a bit then work on another. Then when I get bored with that I work on another one.

I also work very fast. But there's a lot of thought put into it. I spend 5 weeks thinking about something and 50 minutes doing it.

I take on so many projects at once so that no matter what mood I'm in, there's something I can put my energy into easily. I don't think it's good to force it. For the artist, making art is a natural function. You perform a natural function when its time to do it. You breathe when it's time to breathe. You eat when it's time to eat. You art when it's time to art.


Allow yourself some freedom. Enough freedom to create something then lose it (or even destroy it) and not miss it.
Children make up songs all the time. If they forget them, they just make up new ones.

I say follow your creative urges. Prioritize, put things on back burners, even abandon if you must. Perhaps you're not ready to finish some things. Maybe there's a skill or an insight or something that you need to learn first. In such a case, rushing it could ruin the piece's potential

And even if something stays unfinished, it's still good for spare parts. I'd say that about half of my work (that I'm satisfied with) is Frankensteined together from things I didn't finish or wasn't satisfied with.

[Doreen Peri]

bohonato - Really? That's all he painted? 12 or so? I thought he had a huge body of work! I'm so ill informed. sigh.... geezzz... I'd love to read his journal entries or any info you come up with about him! The Da Vinci Code thing was really stupid, though, I thought. Did you hear of that or read about it? Thanks so much for going on a quest... I appreciate any info you can give about this scatter-brained genius.

Mars - are you sure you're not a 75-year-old sage? You are wise beyond your years, my friend. I learn from you every time I read you. So, it's OK, then, to be doing 20 projects at once and never finish many of them and abandon them and use them for spare parts? Whew! I feel relieved and actually akin to you.... because that's exactly how I work! I didn't know anybody else out there worked like I do. What you've described is...... for lack of a better term..... ME!

Thanks for everyone's input.... I appreciate it a lot....

[Marksman45]

Bah, wise-schmise :p

I find that spare parts and fragments are excellent building blocks. I try to write down everything that comes to mind without passing judgment; I can fix it later or use it to build something else. I've recently started reading through my old files and putting critique at the bottom. I got the idea from my friend Buck, whose sketchbook is thus commentated (rather humorously, too. Buck is a very funny guy)

[Lightning Rod]

"nothing is wasted, all comes into use."--whitman

[judih]

the flit of a mind and intention from one all-encompassing project to another is one of the symptoms of ADHD. It's not the only symptom but many creative people are overwhelmed with stimulation and find it irresistable not to surrender one for a more urgent other.

Still, as l-rod points out, there is a huge difference between being a crazed artist who can do nothing else but art and being artistic and creative, loving to do art till it ceases to be fun.

G, who's been playing recorder since age 3, and flute when he finally got one from age 12, knows that practising is not fun, and he denies being ADHD cause of the fact that he learned how to concentrate and put himself into a routine of practising 5 hours a day.

i say, an ADHD can hyperfocus and get into the work beyond the first urge. It just takes coaching and discipline.

(ah! the 'just' word! when the 'just' word springs up, it means a helluva lot of agony to execute the 'just do it')

Still, in life, how much pleasure really is there? Does it matter if i'm not a one-track mind person? So, i'll never be pro. i'll never be as skilled at one thing as i could be. Still, a little dabble at theatre, a small entry into art, a quick survey of crowley, a jump into sufism, taoism and yoga - all bring me riches.

It's not the time: it's the length of my concentration that is clearly central to my flit-brain syndrome.

Still, all those little projects although not earth-shattering do sparkle in their 15 minute fame sort of way.

It's a situation that needs observation in order to change. Observation is always a good start.

j

[Lightning Rod]

judih,

I am famous for my ahdd and many other sicknesses as well.
I try to get over them.

yes, there is a thing called 'follow through'

an idea is a beautiful thing, but it is worth nothing unless it is completed.

Do you know what makes a pro? Amateurs.

[judih]

One thing my Performance Coach, Sandy Maynard, taught me is that though i may have 10 projects on my plate this week, if i manage to complete 2, i'm doing well. Two is a grand number. Even 1 is swell.

Yes, i may languish in self-recrimination for not doing the other 8 or 9, but self-recrimination wastes energy.
What i can do is re-organize, perhaps re-define the nature of the next project based on the experience i've gained in completing the one or two most recent.

It's all good.

It's simply harder to keep the faith when the mind is so split. But keeping energy of the positive sort feeds the ability to follow through.

i watch, i appraise, i look at what is and not what isn't and i proceed. This is the best attitude for getting there.
Living is an education.

and some of my best friends carry multi-diagnoses that would sink a ship. Still, when they complete a project, it is wonderful!

[sooZen]

Dor...my problem is not having too many projects uncompleted, it's getting them started...

I would always fall into the guilt phase, I see that stack of laundry, the dirty floors, the kid needs a haircut, the groceries...on and on and I would not allow myself the time to do something creative until the 'chores' were done. By the time I allowed myself to work on a project, I was too exhausted to do it. I have made a concerted effort to quit that shit. So what if the laundry stacks up? So what if the kid looks like a sheepdog? So what? Allowing myself the time to work at my art and forgoing the other stuff has freed me to create when I feel creative.

Unlike the ADHD folks that Ju was refering to, I have a one-track mind and get so focused on what I am doing that it takes an earthquake to get my attention elsewhere. Yesterday, I made 16 suncatchers, all a bit different and you couldn't have moved me with a car bomb. (bad humor, sorry) But Nate's pants have a hole in them and my lunch consisted of canned soup, as did his.

So, I can't help you because my nature is to focus on something and work at it until it's finished. I finish my projects but there is always another waiting in the brain...

Art before laundry is my mantra.

Peace,
SooZen

[panta rhei]

a one track mind... yes, here too.
the distractions only seldomly come from the outside - but from within.

my one stream mind distracts itself by all those tributaries that branch off from its own flow... outside distractions only rarely stop the movement; it's its own watery babies that create eddies* within the flux.

*grammar question:
"it's its own watery babies that create eddies" -
how could i turn that 'it's' into the plural form, or else, make this sentence fit grammatically?

should i say "it's its own watery babies that create eddies", or "it's its own watery babies that creates eddies", or "it are (UGH!) its own watery babies that create eddies" (to fit plural to plural... but what with the 'it'?), or do i have to forget about the 'it' completely, and simply say "its own watery babies create eddies"?