new theory

This song so suits my mood right now! Such a great day. Tara Sophia Mohr – one of my fave new bloggers and writers (who is also a life coach and a lot of other things) actually commented on MY little fledgling blog and said she was happy to read my post about her EXCELLENT article. EXCITEMENT PLUS! I organised something random in regards to my house and living arrangements which was not was I was planning on but would be SO COOL if it all worked out! I bought a MASSIVE pumpkin and some corn-on-the-cobs from the supermarket and am proceeding to attempt to make (ha. Not really a chef) homemade pumpkin and sweetcorn soup (with chick stock? And thyme?). THE SUN SHONE ALL DAY!!! I had GREAT email brainstormy conversations (again) with my new and totally exciting and inspiring friend Ming Zhu Hii of Orlando&Ivy and The Public Studio (good, good creative pathway courses. Check them out). I went to uni and learnt a bit more about typography and negative space in design and I decided on what my ideas will be for folio assessment so now all I have to do is CREATE them. I am well into working on my design competition entry which I reeeeeally want to win (although entering at this point will be just as much of an achievement as well!!). I had a great conversation with my friend Sarah Madness (yes this is a pseudonym) about how freaking great and funny our ideas are (they are!) and about keeping each other accountable in order to achieve our current dream of working on all our awesome ideas in a big, collaborative, design studio together by the middle of next year. I………listened to this song. Again. The lyrics might be a bit obscure (are they happy? Are they sad?) but it sounds happy and I love the song name. New Theory. It’s everything that makes, and has made, life awesome for me and I’m pretty sure it’s what makes life in general better for everyone! Constantly evolving, ever-changing (but always growing) new theories. Right now and forever after. Bring it on.

(click to listen. Sorry no vid. They don’t seem to have one for this song unfortunately!)

making this awesome

This day I mean. Getting into it. Getting cranking. As per usual, my uber-productive hours of 3pm-midnight are nigh and I can feel the energy barreling down the hill. These mixcasts (number 41 and 42)  from the every-brilliant, free (!) collection of mixcasts by kitsune noir are suiting me perfectly. Happy Monday people. I hope you’re feeling as good as I am right now.

(click to jump to downloadable mixcasts. ps. LOVE the cover art. This is why I got into them in the first place but oh the music…).

harpoon in my heart

Slow day today. Did a bit of this and a bit of that and rode ALL over town achieving that (not such a bad thing. Amazing weather today!) but…the free wifi in town wasn’t working and then I lost the study mojo. So instead have spent the evening coming up with concepts for a curator friend’s identity and biz card which hopefully will also double as an entry into an AWESOME grad design competition which I wanna win! Wish me luck. Anyways, on a completely unconnected, random note, I was never a big Jebadiah fan – the singer’s voice was just never really my thing but….always loved this song. Actually, listening to it like this in the midst of study (or study-related work) kinda makes me feel like I’m at uni the first time round again! Grungebaby;)

must be a devil between us

Ahh productivo afternoon! More posts to come later on tonight after a big mega study session but…a fellow student at uni last night told me that it takes approximately two months for the human brain to unlearn one habit and relearn another. This is exciting! I estimate then that I have approximately 6-8 weeks  (allowing for making up initial slack time) of my hardcore work/lyf/study schedule and practice until I become a hardworking, highly functioning, OCD, A-type achiever! Which is SO great. Apart from a few other fundamental things in life (you know; life, love, fun, happiness, friends and survival), this is all I’ve ever really wanted to be! Yes I know it’s probably a weird childhood dream but….all the best people I ever known or know of have been exactly that. It’s just taken me this long figure out how to get there. But…the dream now is within my reach.

Which made this song accidentally apt. On high rotation today, the ever-perfect Pixies. Which song in particular? ‘Hey’. Which contains my favourite lyric which is also the title of this post. Me and my dream. Must have just been a devil between us;)

tired tired tired

I’m tired of learning, I’m tired of stuffing it up. Tired of lessons and more lessons and learning lessons and forgetting lesson and having to learn them all over again. Tired of remembering things, tired of trying to remember things. Tired of realising my mistakes after the fact, tired of trying to pre-empt the fact before the fact so that it doesn’t become a fact although does that mean I manifest the fact?… And none of this even covers uni yet. I’m just talking about life.

I’m tired of the fact that you can’t just quit all this because there’s no other option in life unless you want to be stuck stuck stuck and never grow up. I’m tired of the fact that I DON’T want to quit all this because the outcome will be brilliant, even though I think I’ll probably sleep right through it because I’ll be so tired from the process! I’m tired of missing the YBAs; their energy, their almost-nonchalance, their dirty richness (or rich dirtiness), their fuck-you fuckisms (art can be so simperingly ‘cool’ these days. I’m SO TIRED OF THAT). This girl needs some holiday. Would definitely not be tired of that.

I know I know I know!

Sneaky post (work/study/lyf rule means I’m not supposed to be on here again this arvo) but…oh my god I just had a revelation! And I have to post Tracey Emin links to illustrate that! Why? Because Tracey Emin is a GODDESS and all her art is raw, self-revelatory, truthful at a most basic human emotional level, and GOOD. And that is how revelations generally feel. Tracey says things so simply yet somehow, no one ever seems to have spoken it like her before. Which is of course what good art – and revelation – is. We can all walk through a gallery thinking “yeah well I could have done that” but did we? Nope. Which means for that one idea, we’re not the artist that that artist is for thinking it, and doing it, and doing it first. Same regarding revelations (when they finally dawn on us). Tracey definitely exemplifies this. It’s why she is inspiring and why she is a goddess.

Revelation? I realised how I can get a summer design job or internship without giving up my day job! Would LOVE to give up my day job to follow my passion (design) but I gotta work up my skills first and as yet, that fabulous trust fund from a mysterious Scottish relative has not come through so rent and bills (and dentist and healthcare and food and clothes and…) are my full responsibility. But……I finally came up with a solution to this quandary which I’ve been stressing about for…oh, about 9 months now! And with it, maybe I CAN get my foot in the design industry door sooner than I think!!! Love when the brain comes up with a solution (finally!).

What is my actual plan? Well, let me get cracking on it a bit first. More detalios soon I promise;)

silence

Silence can be used for a lot of things – power, remembrance, thought processing. I left my iPod at a friend’s house today so I could not drown out the silence at work with the constant sounds of my beloved music. And while I’m not a massive fan of the constant soundtrack culture – I tend to walk around with only one earphone in so I can still listen to the sounds of the city – not having music in a relatively conservative, quiet, uneventful (in a more dramatic way) workplace can be a deathly, oppressive thing. Until I find myself smack bang in the middle of some work place that believes in the 70-20-10 rule, random flash mob sing-alongs, colour rainbow themes and collaborative projects which don’t require boxes (I am currently an archivist. Boxes is what I do)…I need music.

Funny thing is though, it’s not been as bad as I thought. Yes tomorrow I will be cranking Bowie again at the highest possible volume but….the quiet has been like being blissfully underwater or (since I am in a skyscraper) sitting on a cloud. I’ve still gotten a stack of work done (my work/study/lyf schedule has broken my mind in I think! I’m no longer SO badly mentally rebelling at this sort of stuff!). And since I’m on one of the higher levels of this glass wonderland, all I can hear of the city below is a constant hum and the occasional police siren. No distinct voices, no stresses or worries (except my own). It’s actually quite zen. It makes me think of how powerful and calming silence is and how very rarely we get it these days. Even if we are shutting out other sounds, I don’t think it’s so good for us to have the constant audio stimulation. Quiet is how our brains evolved and I’m pretty sure that one half century of portable audio devices won’t be evolving them very differently anytime soon. So perhaps a little more of silence in this mad, mad world is not a bad thing (although, I think my limit will still only be one day in the office environs).

Time Management

Lotsa thoughts on what to post but really, I have to study. I’ve got 10,000 hours (or thereabouts) to chalk up before I can be considered an expert at…well, anything. Except talking I guess. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a million times more hours than that alone. But anyway, came across this in the course of my studies (seriously!). Randy Pausch is an amazing speaker He’s got some fantastic talks on TED.com as well but this is a great one. Straight down the line, no bullshit! He would have been the most amazing mentor. And with that (and this video), it’s back to study for me now.

Muses and (not) burning out

• 11 things to do (and not do) when your burned out
• how to kiss up to your muse

These two blogposts are particularly relevant to me right now. They are from a blog called White Hot Truth which was sent to me recently by a fantastic new friend, the lovely Ming-Zhu Hii at the VERY gorgeous and new Orlando and Ivy store (in North Melbourne peeps. Go check it out and just you try to resist a purchase!).

White Hot Truth is quite great. Motivational and inspirational in equal measure but with a very strategic, planned and business-world manner which I really respect and appreciate. The author is a businesswoman, business owner, public speaker, business practice workshop facilitator, writer, and all round action-based, project managing superstar. She writes not only about owning and running her very successful business, but also about emotionally based things like feeling burnt out (yes), inspiration (please) and chasing your muse (trying) like they are business practices to be approached just like any other business merger or meeting.

And THIS is the kind of stuff that will make the art world thrive. If we, as artists and creatives, want to feel ambition and success, we need to be more businesslike about it, just in a way that does not compromise our fabulous, ethereal and untameable creativity. Why? Because ambition and success are not just about money or conquering the corporate world – it is something we all feel, whether it is for money or recognition, or for affirmation or something else. I want it for happiness and personal creative satisfaction (and a slightly higher standard of living where I don’t have to worry so much about how to pay the rent). You might have a completely different set of goal posts though and therein lies the beauty of us all having our own version of ambition and striving for success. It means we can all get it.

Anyway, the fab White Hot Truth sent out its regular blogpost out this morning and it linked to these two previous posts which completely made me stop and think for a little bit. One is about what to do (or not do) when you’re burnt out. This I can definitely identify with right now (but I’m proud to say my current hardcore work/study/lyf schedule totally works in with her advice!). I also loved the other one about “How to kiss up to your muse”. The tips are great tips but they are also set out in a nice, corporatey, bullet pointed list because, the thing is, ambition and success (YOUR ambition and success. The only reasons you personally would ever accept visits from your own personal version of inspiration or muse) are very strategic, considered, totally corporatey concepts. And some of the most hardworking people I know are corporatey people who realise that their egos are NOT the end goal (and no, it’s not always money either). I say that if we (artist, creatives, non-corporatey world types), want success and ambition in whatever form we interpret that, we shouldn’t knock the processes of the people who do it best. So yes to bullet points and planning out creativity. Why not! No one ever said artists can’t be ambitious or a success.

Ps. Not only was I inspired in all this by the blog posts of which I speak, but also the latest Orlando and Ivy blogpost by Ming about ambition and feeling it. I told you she was fantastic!

Last night.

You’ll have to excuse the current run of introspective blog posts. It’s not usually my style but I’ve been inspired recently by similar blogging and, since I’m thinking about the possible direction/directions in which I can let this blog organically grow, it seems fair enough to let the inspiration run its course!

Last night I got an excellent grade and feedback for an assignment which in particular meant a massive amount for me in my studies. And I’ve done a WHOLE lot of study throughout my time so that this means a lot means…well, a lot! It was all about identity and our creative process in ultimately representing that. The lecturers really pushed us which was great – you could feel everyone’s minds turning over in great heave-hos of imagination which we had rarely utilised in this way before, or had only used so long ago that our minds were not used to thinking like this all over again. Everyone’s output was so fascinating. Each brought their own persona –  abstracted, distilled and refined (sometimes apparently through quite painful mental processing!) – and laid it out on the table or performed it for the rest of us; bare, exposed but ultimately proud. I thought it was the most fascinating process and I think I will forever in some small or large way, hold it accountable for helping me define and refine my own creative persona and process at quite a synchronistically perfect time.

That said, now it’s time to keep on proving that process. And result! It seems this hardwork, hardcore, work/study/lyf timetable thing is working for me though! It’s amazing how much you can force the physical nature of your brain to start working in a completely different manner. I love it. It’s an amazing process and I can say it feels the same as when I mentally forced myself to start viewing the world differently (and thus changing my reaction to it) a few years back. During that time there were honestly points in the day where I could feel my brain muscle almost physically keel over with the effort. l I don’t know much neurology and neurosciences but I used to imagine I was literally forcing the creation of new synapses in my mind and forcing the electricity within to travel down those new, open pathways instead. It was hardwork and exhilarating in equal measures and, if I’m not completely offtrack in thinking this might have been what was happening, it was totally worth the months of brain-crunching thinking and the physical exhaustion that constantly resulted. It was worth it to move into, quite literally, a different way of being.

Anyways. This current hard work process feels almost the same, except far more productive in a career sense! I LOVE thinking I might end up being like all those friends of mine whom I love and admire and who work their ARSES off every day (and every second within it). I’ve never thought there was anything bad about being a workaholic because everyone I admire and respect has loved their jobs so much that it doesn’t even feel like work anyway. That has always been my driving factor (well, that and a very relaxing trip to the Bahamas). I’m so excited I’m getting closer and closer to that way of being and outcome.