No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. ~Eric Hoffer
There is something both healing and empowering when we share conversations with a kindred-spirited person … When we know our baby steps are being witnessed, that we are affirmed in both our intention and progress.
Earlier this month my friend, Angie {aka visuallyoriented} and I conversed in response to an Instagram photo of hers:
- {me} This would be a marvelous print … #mystyle
- {Angie} – thanks, and I agree, but too bad there is so much clutter to go with it!
- {me} Well … I am somewhat fond of clutter myself. I prefer “lived in” to its various alternatives.
- {Angie} that’s a much better way for me to put it now, LOL
- {me} At this point in my life it is my intention to embrace that my creatively needs the comfort of imperfect and eclectic surroundings to flourish and to grow … I have resisted that for various reasons and necessities. Not anymore. #noapology
- {Angie} I have been doing more writing lately, so I am trying to clear out things that distract me. I am a collector by nature, so I like to have favorite, treasured things around me. So I am trying to stay decluttered so I will work more. It’s not easy in either direction! I have learned to embrace that I am messy, now if I can learn to accept my words, my art, myself I will be so much better off.
- {me} Oh. We are such kindreds! ♥ I, too, need some proverbial white space. My solution was to clear the desk where I write; I focused all my decluttering on that one space until it was clear. This also means I have a box which contains those items I could not decide about.
I asked Angie for her permission to post the image of her studio {in the evening light} as well as this exchange of “testimony” because I know it is such a common experience with creatives. And yet … we convince ourselves that we are “the only one” with clutter or wrestling with overwhelm as we eke out space and time to refine and to create.
Space is the breath of art. ~Frank Lloyd Wright
Artists and White + Space
(noun) – An element of art, space refers to distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece. Space can be positive (white or light) or negative (black or dark), open or closed, shallow or deep and two-dimensional or three-dimensional.
Sometimes what we define as “space” or experience as space is an illusion …
I vividly remember my first {and last} year of design coursework … I remember entire lectures about white space: elements of the unoccupied …
I remember times in my life when I viewed white space as unnerving, unnecessary : a space screaming to be filled or dripping with the frightful unknown.
White space is a definite element of the process of artistic expression.
The white space of time, as we move in the direction of the dream {we only see in our mind’s eye} … or when we feel like a failure amidst the unfinished tasks that clutter our various views within {and in our studios, homes — and our dailies, our very life}.
Either way … space to be embraced or filled or — space to be cluttered with proverbial {or actual} stuff, white space is indeed a gift.
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift. ~Mary Oliver
Just as cluttery studios are. It is simply that sometimes it takes us years to understand that {the positives and negatives of} white space, too, is a gift.
A place where random piles and boxes contain answers regarding our indecision — awaiting the precise time of unpacking.
The appointed time — even as we struggle to believe that we are not behind, that there no “catching up” … That we are precisely where we are supposed to be in our one wild and precious life, Braveheart. ♥
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