A Suggestion

(Attention! Something else to take our minds off of the Ascension of the Orange Menace to the Presidency! I must keep busy for four years...)
In light of the overwhelmingly positive response I've had to my (occasional) postings on art, artist's blocks, creativity etc etc, I decided to provide all my many readers with another foray into the workings of the creative mind and another exercise to pursue.
First, a suggestion- or if you wish, an assignment. This will sound really simplistic but it can be very effective. You may find yourself sort of stumped or stymied or even a tad weary of what has been occurring in your studio or work space, and what seemed like an effortless flow last week suddenly seems to have screeched to a halt and you're cosmically constipated. I know when I find myself occupying this cramped and awkward state, I often keep bulling ahead, as if forcing things to happen will make it all work out okay. (And sometimes it does!) But more often than not, it just makes you feel worse.
My suggestion? Do something entirely different. See? I knew it would sound simplistic but I mean REALLY different. If you paint, make a sculpture out of modeling clay. If you make sculpture, try making a video or hell, just draw on the computer and alter a few photographs, like I did in the above (heavily doctored) picture of a vase of flowers. The idea is to rearrange your thoughts so they're not so serious, but you're more available for play.
Often that's all I need to get things chugging along in the right direction. Let's face it: sometimes, I'm super fired up and ideas are pouring out so fast I can't keep up with the thoughts I'm scribbling down. But there are definitely periods where doing something/anything is tough. I can also find it helpful to divert myself by doing an activity NOT art related, like gardening or raking leaves or going for a walk. But that not art related activity can become an excuse or a dodge and take you away from the very real (and hard!) work of making art. I know that many people think making art is "fun" (and mostly for me it is. I'm pretty lucky...) But it's also lonely, isolating, and can be crazy-making.
And now a plug for an artist's book presentation (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy!!!) that I'm giving in conjunction with the inaugural Collector's Club meeting at Odetta, the gallery in Brooklyn that I have been showing with.

Now, this should be fun. Some friends and I are going to read selected excerpts from my latest opus, "Rita Valley's Guide to Collecting Art". I- like most artists- am always on the look-out for new collectors; maybe this is the chance to jump on that gravy train!

Free Ideas

I couldn't help by remark that I received tons of page views when I chronicled the subject of "Crabby Muses", in which I addressed artist's blocks. This leads me to meander back to an idea that I originally had for a blog, before I started this one, and that was to offer up an idea a day for any aspiring artists to use.
I think (sometimes foolishly) that ideas are cheap. There's lots of them- and (obviously) not all of them lead to the Garden of Good Art. Some ideas are simply good for that momentary "Hey! That's a good one" flash that evaporates a few minutes later, and probably for the better.
On the other hand, it dawned on me years ago that I have so many ideas and inevitably will be unable (and disinclined!) to execute them all. There are only so many days and years in an artist's life! This is where the idea of a blog  which I generously make available fresh ideas for anyone to use.
I know that sometimes you can spend hours in your studio (or garret or where ever you go to make art) and nothing seems to "click" or come easily. Sometimes, you just have to slog through a few uncomfortable, prickly hours (or days or weeks!) before things flow again. But my first rule is: stick it out. Just be available for your muses to visit, should they decide to deliver inspiration. Bob and I were just remarking that sometimes you need to rearrange shelves or clean out cluttered corners or tear up old work in order to be ready for the new stuff. It can feel like some cruel celestial constipation when you try and try and nothing happens but I subscribe to persistence ultimately will triumph.
I also offer the useful (or not!) suggestion that having several pieces going at once is a good way to avoid stuck-ness.  If the impetus to work on one piece dries up, this means there's always another to turn to. I have three, four or five pieces being simultaneously being worked on (or ignored) at any given time. This allows me to quit an artwork temporarily and come back to it later- or never.
The above example illustrates that. I started to work on "NIMBY" thinking it was a great phrase for me to translate. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good challenge to make fabric read as graffiti, as I like to play around with inventing/corrupting fonts and typefaces. (Rarely are they "real" ones; mostly I mash up several ideas.) But I got to a point and was stuck- the word looked good and I liked the back ground- which is actually to distinct different shades of red in rays- but I couldn't get the transition between the yellow behind the blue/grey of NIMBY and the red just right. It looked too harsh and I kept trying out various shades of grey and blue to echo the lettering. Still no luck. I almost tried painting on the fabric in between (glad I didn't! What a mess!!) Then I hit on using this striped material I had left over. I chopped it up every which way and ta-DAAA! It sang!
But importantly, while all this hemming and hawing was erupting in my head and my studio, I was at work on another couple of pieces that required really mundane chores. (F'rinstance: I am painstakingly sewing a million dimes all around the edge of the piece that says "Monetize Me". Pretty repetitive but needs doing and it allows all the subconscious parts of me to do other things.) So, I guess the point of this blog is keep up the slog.
And the free idea for the day? Start on a project that I swear by: Face-A-Day. Everyday for an entire year, make a face collage. Seriously. Whatever you're doing- going to work, being sick... whatever!- make a collage of a face. Do not edit or over work it, just commit to doing it. You'll be surprised. At the end of a year (which passes remarkably fast!) you will have 365 new collages. Some will be good, some will be bad and some will be ugly (hear that music in the back ground?) but it will get even the crankiest of muses going.