Monday, January 9, 2017

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness; Messiness....Leads To Creativity?....

Remember the saying; "cleanliness is next to godliness"....that was one of those saying used to get us to clean our rooms, school desks, lockers and just about any other place our "stuff" could be found.  Logically, I know that "feeling" I get when my studio becomes a disaster is a hold over from my upbringing; however as these photos will show you it is more than a disaster, I can justify the mess since there are very good reasons for how it got that way.  However, I must admit that taking the time to clean it up just seems overwhelming.

The major reason for this mess is that my computer had a total and complete melt down as I was making my grandson's Christmas gift.  I did get a new computer for Christmas and he was very understanding about an IOU, but having to shift everything around to set up the new computer has taken a toll.  Then there are still all the parts needed to complete those unfinished Christmas gifts still "stacked" around.
 
When this room was photographed for an article in Quilting Arts several years ago it looked really good, but very sterile not necessarily a true representation of a working studio.   Flash forward to today and my continued reading about creativity...there are many studies out these days that lean toward the fact that messy/disorderly environments (oh I like that second description) inspire creativity, may even be a sign of "productive genius".  Hmm...that could very well make my head swell, but it doesn't help with putting order to this chaos or the internal struggle with my upbringing to be neat.
 

As you can see there are organizational systems in place around the room such as this Ikea hanging pots/shelves, a commercial thread drawer barely visible behind the sewing machine or the stack of drawers on the floor.  There are other shelves, a chest of drawers, walk-in closet, etc; which make putting things in their place fairly easy.  The everyday problem is how to have the current working projects close at hand, especially when you work in various mediums at any one time so that you can easily shift from one to another without just tossing things here and there.  If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
For right now I will have to pick up as needed to complete a task at hand, because we are in full swing of show prep for the first half of this years shows....dyeing and processing will come before a true deep clean.  I think I can wrap my mind around that feeling of having to be neat, so that I can spend time on my "planner/art journal project" I mentioned last week.  I do have my priorities.

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