Inspiration Smells Likes Peroxide

I am completely distracted in my own home. Oh sure, I can paint and assemble and color at home. But the ideas, the real thinking, the actual inspirations and subsequent designs just don’t happen there. Much as I’d like them to.

Here’s last month’s scenario: I realize I must come up with a new illustration in order to create a self-promotion piece. I know I need to start the idea process but as I putter about my house this seems to become my priority list:

1. Check email and Facebook. Must get messages out of way so I am free to work.

2. Clean drafting table.

3. Pick up every sock that my husband and two children have left balled up on the floor.

4. Snack to boost energy.

5. Check email and Facebook again. Someone important may need to reach me.

You can see where this is going. This all leads to a marginally clean house and a remarkably spotless yet empty drafting table.

The following day after discovering that cleaning products do not make me want to draw, I go to get my hair cut and colored. In order to cover the vicious gray that my hair has been blessed with since my early 20's my Miracle Worker, the phenomenal Russell of Russell Scott Hair Designs in Clark NJ, must gunk me up and leaves me to sit in the corner in shame with my head resembling and a putrid bowl of ice cream covered in Magic Shell. I look ridiculous. I reek. The Black Eyed Peas are pounding in the speakers and I am stuck sitting next to two Kardashian-wanna-be housewives who are deep in discussion about their jewelry. 

BUT there are no balls of socks. No dishes to do. No one calling me “Mommy”. And so, sketchbook balanced on smock-covere lap, I find that my mind is actually functioning. In fact on that one visit alone I came up with a slew of sketches for a series of animal musicians AND a sketch for a painting of Coney Island that I’ve been thinking about for years. AND the start of this blog entry.

Here’s where I do and have done my best creative thinking:

1. Hairdressers

2. Laundromat

3. Doctor’s Office

4. At the drivers wheel when on long drives by myself (rare but precious occasions)

So fellow creative friends, where do find your inspiration?
Where do you do YOUR best thinking?

National Tiki Day

I'll start by acknowledging that I am waaaaaay overdue for a new post. And believe me, more are on the way. But I have an excuse. My poor old emac computer (posthumously named Fergus) completely, utterly and totally fried itself. I'm talking toast. Flambe. It took 3 days for my attic to stop smelling like a weenie roast. Luckily some kind friends have helped me set up shop again and I'm back to work.

So until that new post is ready I give you some inspiration from my wonderfully creative 7 year old who, last week, declared a "National Tiki Day". It required the wearing of costumes during dinner, an abundant supply of fruit (perhaps to humor the hungry Tiki gods), and of course some great homemade tiki decorations. 

Given that a busy day of football watching and shelf dusting was already in progress we had to use whatever supplies we could find to make our tiki decorations. "And what would that be" you ask? (Go ahead, ask!)  Why, the cardboard inserts from toilet paper rolls and a strand of holiday lights. The results speak for themselves. 

Metamorphosis

This is supposed to be My Year. The Year I've Been Waiting For.

My children can officially dress themselves in weather-appropriate ensembles. They are now old enough that they cringe at the sight of me in a Halloween costume. Particularly when I wave at them maniacally from the curb. They can find their own snacks without setting the kitchen ablaze. These were my first clues that it had finally arrived. The Year of Paula.

Like Kafka's Gregor I plan to metamorphosize. Hopefully my resulting transformation will be more of a positive experience for me than it was for poor Gregor. For starters, I hope not to repel people. In fact, I hope the opposite to be true. Hopefully this year and this blog will be the start of a journey that will take me to new wonderful places and help me meet fantastic people. I hope to make it a positive experience for those around me and I want to pass my excitement on to the children I teach and those that I raise. And I hope to avoid setting off the smoke detector in my kitchen as much as possible.

I usually measure my year in school years. September to September. I don't think I'll ever stop measuring my years this way and since I intend to teach art in elementary schools, I suppose it's fitting. So from September 2010 to September 2011 I will attempt to do the following:

• Update my illustration website. (Thank you to web designer Linda Bradler, designer to the stars. And me.)

• Start substitute teaching.

• Get certified to teach art.

• Finish illustrating the children's books I've written.

• Continue to keep my family fed in the half-hearted manner to which they've become accustomed.

• Not get so distracted with all the above that, instead of art, I create roadkill.

• Keep you updated on all of the above. Particularly the roadkill.