Strange how the swirling effects of life’s other influences can sometimes fan the flame and other times fuel only the orange embers, one effect being visible to all while the other only to those who bask in the warmth of that fire.

I am curious how disruption affects the work of other creatives and how they parlay that into better fortunes.

For me it’s complex. Some disruption will stop the work outwardly while feeding it at it’s roots so that a burst of new ideas follows an apparent drought. An example is when I finally have enough of the messy state of things and stop all the musings and research and painting to clean house, organize, and do yardwork.  Or I suddenly get back to the cars and accomplish some long desired improvement on one or more of them. Greasy and ambitious, I dig in sometimes for weeks at a time effecting repairs, maintenance, enhancements, and renewal for the machine.

Other times, it’s a small change upon which time consuming alterations are built, such as when new furniture transformed a main living space from a barren echo chamber to “cozy”. One can not simply change one room. It causes necessary alterations elsewhere.

And then there are the repairs that the house demands. These can be serious attention hogs. At the conclusion of the weeks they demand, there may be a much appreciated creative renaissance.

When I was a kid, I noticed this pattern but I was new. Years were frittered away between the cycles, then it perplexed me that the artwork improved anyway. I attributed it to a replenishment of beginners luck. In fact, it was putting out root. I say this because during the unproductive period I was contemplating and observing things that could then be resolved on a page or a canvas artistically.

Stressors, pressures, and so called problems can have a valuable influence on the quality of creative projects at times, maybe because they polish up decision making tendencies.

Young mothers who take their roles seriously find that what was once impossible becomes routine as they master the demands that do not abate.

Still, I get thrown off the rails so easily.

Answers to critical questions I’d asked about art mysteries (to me) some times threw me off balance until I restructured my views.

When that happens, I do the nuts and bolts that get put aside when the rush of painting and sketches eats up all the time. I photograph paintings that never got documented, update catalogs, acquire supplies, and mount drawings on foamboard.

Toward the end of the familiar dry-spell pattern, a serious concern arises: what if the gift is over, what if it’s taken back? What if it never comes again? A life time of work, dead-ended!

Then an idea comes and I’m back at the easel immersed in a joy that nothing else brings, and the world seems right again.