My first job out of college was as a project manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working on hazardous waste cleanups called Superfund. This job was intense like being thrown into a hot frying pan or a pack of wolves. The wolves were the powerful corporations I had to work with to get them to do the cleanup. They were older very experienced attorneys, scientists and project managers who had a very different agenda than me. Mine was cleanup. Theirs was cost savings and reducing the scope of the cleanup. This was how I learned to become a project manager on the fly. By nature, I prefer to be a little more free-form with my time but all that changed in my first job at the U.S. EPA. Then three small kids really put me over the edge and I needed some serious time organization skills just to get everyone out the door on time. When I say I have been looking for a time management system that works, I mean I've been looking for decades.

First, you may be thinking, but what does this have to do with creativity? Everything. 

I spend a lot of timing thinking about why we create. It seems to be a human trait that we all share. Some of us wear our creativity on our sleeves. Some deny they are creative, but always to their detriment. Creating in your own unique way is one of life's greatest joys. 

As I have written before, I am fascinated by other people's way of being creative in the world. It never ceases to amaze me.

Last week, my daughter Maggie and I had an Open House for our joint art show Abstract Ecology. We decided to interview each other about what we learned.

What message did you want to get across with your art in the show? And did you feel you did?

Maggie

During the art show, I wanted to get across a message of inspiring conservation action and spreading awareness for different species in our backyard.  This illustration series focusing on Midwest flora and fauna is more about spreading awareness to conservation in our own backyard and I think people are going to have a newfound appreciation for species that they see every day. Making those personal connections makes the art pieces more effective.

Kathleen

My mission is to encourage creativity in all of its forms. I started my Every Day Project to bring creativity into my daily life in a consistent way.  My hope is that seeing my art may get people thinking about how they can use self expression as a tool for joy in their lives. I set up my Every Day Project to reduce analysis paralysis.  I explained how every 25 days I start a new series with a color palette and design parameters. Using these guidelines reduce my decision fatigue. Studio time is all about playing with the parameters and testing the limits of the designs all while using unusual color combinations. This makes it fun. If it is not fun you will not want to do it every day.  I am so grateful people got this idea of create more and stress less.  

As I was preparing for this Abstract Ecology show, I reread some of my first articles on my Studio Notes blog from January 2016 which focused on my art show at Congregation Solel last year. In this article So, tell me about your art? Umm...Ahhhh... I focused on the preparations for the show. In another blog post, What I Learned from Writing an Artist Statement, I talked about writing an artist statement and the questions I asked myself in doing so. By the way, I still dream about designs. For this Abstract Ecology show, Maggie and I both wrote a combo bio and artist statement, sort of mingled all together. We wanted a more informal feel given the audience.

I'm always on the lookout for articles, books or podcasts about creative habits and daily rituals. Recently, I came across a podcast, Good Life Project devoted to this topic dear to my heart. This episode is called Uncertainty Anchors and was posted just last month in March 2017. I've listened to Jonathan Fields for several years and highly recommend anything he is involved with. He is just that good, wise and articulate. Click the highlighted episode link above to take a listen and find out for yourself. He mentions most of my favorite authors on the topic of creative habits, Twyla Tharp and her book Creative Habits and Steven Pressfield and the War of Art. All in an 11 minute podcast. Most of Fields' podcasts are interviews about an hour long but he disperses in shorter length podcasts with just him talking once in a while.

I am currently on Spring Break on a college tour visit with our youngest son. Everyone needs a break now and then. So I have put the Every Day Project on hold for the week. I have big plans for when I return because it is time again for the 100 Day Project which will start on April 4 , 2017. Like last year's 100 Day Project and the year before that, I have a four part design in mind.  To get people interested in starting their own 100 Day Project, I am including an article I wrote last spring to encourage my readers to jump in and join me. It really is a game changer. I created such a strong creative practice that benefitted me in so many ways that I never stopped (except for Spring and Winter breaks😄). 

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. The key to success is defining a do-able scope of what you will be doing every day to be able to keep going and how you will use it at the end for a satisfying conclusion.  

Mid-March finds me steadily busy completing my 25 Day pieces for our upcoming Abstract Ecology art show with my talented daughter Maggie Warren. My mind is full of details of rod pockets, fusing on quilt labels, etc. The best Studio Notes I can offer with my cluttered mind today is an article from last spring about my Four Elements series. These  four 25 Day pieces have been on my mind since I am busy getting them ready for the upcoming art show.  The article talks a bit about my thought process behind the designs. At the end of the article I talk about one of my favorite design elements of adding small pieces of fabric into the daily square design for visual interest and texture. I am including a photo of my favorite 25 Day piece in the series that I just completed, Sky.

I must not be explaining my 25 Day series very well. Here's why I think this may be true. For over 15 years, we have been getting our coffee from a local coffee shop, Newport Coffee House that roasts their own coffee onsite. I gave the manager one of my cards with my website information and said I would be happy to add some color to his walls with some of my art. The manager emailed later and asked if I was interested in displaying my art in his shop.  After looking at my website, he said the squares are small so we would need quite a few to display. When I read this, I decided I have not been explaining the 25 Day series very well. So I will try to do a better job in this article.

My daughter Maggie and I have a Mother Daughter Art show coming up in April 2017. We are both showing our work at a local Park District building in Deerfield, Illinois. The facility is called the Patty Turner Center and has a lot of meaning for our family because my dad is an active member of this senior center.

As people who read my Studio Notes know, I am an artist who makes abstract art with fabric. My daughter Maggie is an artist proficient in many different media.  She is an illustrator who draws animals and their environs.  Her wildlife photography is wide-ranging from birds in local prairies to cuttlefish in Australia's Great Barrier Reef to turtles on Florida beaches. 

My next series, Four Corners, is loosely based on a painting I saw by Helen Frankenthaler. My Instagram friend Brianne of @briannealves posted about Helen Frankenthaler last year and I have been hooked ever since. I have decided that whenever somebody mentions an artist I'm not familiar with, it's in my best interest to check that artist out. In this case, Brianne has a fantastic sense of color and design and I've been following her since I started the 100 day project in April 2015. We share a love of the color blue. So I knew I would most likely be fascinated by Frankenthaler's art.