Fierce and original

"Be steady and well ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work." Flaubert

I take this phrase to mean a tidy, organized work space; a regular working time; as few distractions as possible.

But what about my 5 and 3-year-old distractions? Whilst it can be a lot of fun being a Mom, young kids do not sit easily with creating over the long, summer months. Getting up early to create left me exhausted and totally out of phase with my night-owl husband so I have (voluntarily) lost my regular working time in favor of additional patience.

I'm left musing on how I can use this advice in my real world. I thought finding time to create would be easy once I was at home with kids. Now I realize it's never easy - you really do need to be "steady and well-ordered in your life".

So first I listed where I am, right now. This includes:

My most important role right now is to enjoy this time with the kids and try to gently teach them reading, writing, life skills (like tidying their room)

I'm about to be on the road for 3 weeks

I need the help of the people around me to get uninterrupted studio time

Then I thought of solutions that accept the world as it is:

I could work on projects with the kids. I'll be interrupted (constantly) but I'll have to deal with that.

I can draw more, drawing the kids as they play for instance

I can work small and in the kitchen, so no more acrylic medium experiments for now, they take too long to dry

I can get up early next week - it's preparation for jet lag and I can survive 3 early mornings I think

I'll be going back to that quotation of Flaubert's in a future post. Blogs and books I've been reading recently have led me to a series of realizations that are going to change how I approach, well, my whole life.