Art in 15 Minutes
As I did my Monday morning clean-the-house-catch-up, finishing all the dishes and laundry that didn’t get finished during the weekend, I was reminded of The Flylady of flylady.net, who advocates getting your housework done in 15 minute increments.
“You can do anything for 15 minutes,” she says.
I’ve been wondering how I can apply this to making jewelry?
How can I take better advantage of snatches of time here and there?
Sure, we’d all love to have hours and hours of uninterupted time to create, but most of the time, most of us don’t.
Here are some of the things I need to do:
- clean my work bench and keep it clean, so that when I suddenly realize, hey, I have a free 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, I can sit down and work
- have my sketchbook at the ready, so I have a project or two to work on
- be as efficient as possible in my other work, to create more time for art
- Re-read Making Room for Making Art
How about you? Can you make art 15 minutes at a time? What can you do to make it easier to make art?
Hey Elaine,
I totally hear you. I know you know that managing a jewelry-related business doesn’t hardly mean that one sits around and makes jewelry all day. I WISH!
I’ve begun the practice of making my sketchbook readily available and having it on a blank page too. That one little thing does wonders for “making art.” Puts me one step closer to bringing an idea in my head to fruition.
I don’t know if you know about it, but you might want to check out the book, Getting Things Done, by David Allen. I’ve found that I don’t see where all that he advocates is possible, but a lot of it is, and that helps with making “make art” time more easily accessible. I’m still not there yet, and don’t think I can really “make art” in 15 minutes, but I see where I can TRY to work that in in bits and pieces throughout the day…
Actually, Tamra, my friends who rely on jewelry for a living (artisan jewelry) put in at least a 6 to 7 hour work day just making jewelery. They treat it like one would treat any other job.
I agree about the sketchbook, however. You should have one at hand at all times. Inspiration can hit you at any time!
Cheers!
Anne
One of the toughest things about working from home for me is the fact that little things seem to constantly crop up, like “I’ll just throw in a quick load of laundry,” or “let me get dinner going,” or worse, friends who don’t really consider that I may actually be in the middle of finishing a complicated custom order when they call (again) to have me “just pick up their kids from school when I go pick up mine,” (not that I wouldn’t help out a friend!). That said, I do most definitely set aside at least 4 days a week to work in 6 hour stretches while my kiddo’s at school.
One of the things I do to help myself get into the “making mode” (this as opposed to the “futsing mode”) is a couple of days a month, I sit down with my sketch book, several boxes of beads (mine are sorted by colors), my collection of tiny ziploc bags recycled from gem purchases, and earring findings. I spend up to 2 hours putting together the beads I will use for a pair of earrings with the findings I want to use, and putting them into the little plastic bags. At the end of the 2 hours, I usually have about 30-50 pairs of “earrings” ready to go. I find that when I’m in this “just putting together mode,” combinations just start to appear before my eyes. It’s a very liberating way to work because there’s no stopping and starting to assemble.
Since most pairs takes me about 15 minutes to make when I’m at my bench, it’s easy to grab a bag and make!