Week 29 - If the crown fits...

I dub thee Princess Artémis.
Without going into details, she is definitely a crown ahead of me on the messy stakes and doesn’t seem phased at all.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with my making?
Well, I seem to have a tendency to spread out. I use my studio and the house and my bedroom and occasionally the kitchen table or outside in the sunshine.
Mixed media is a blessing and a curse. The world is my oyster and just about anything can become a pearl. I have an abundance of tools of the trade, collecting is easy, regular making is challenging. Even the way I approach many tasks is back to front.


I have never really considered myself to be messy as such. Disordered and muddled, to be sure, creative chaos, most certainly.
I often chastise myself about my migrating piles of stuff that seem to spread themselves around over time and space.
Then, I come across some incredible book that inspires the tidy organIser within me and in eager spurts, I attack these piles and make more mess in an attempt to find order.
No doubt I am surely going about it the wrong way because that tidy organIser is a very tiny and largely dictated by social expectations, so I rejoice and smile contentedly when I discover such reassuring titles as the ones below.


A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and on-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson
The title alone does it for me!
I never got around to reading all of this but borrowed it many times.
Obviously got lots of comfort and reassurance just from the title!
I am not a hoarder as such though piles of things seem to trail about me...I've even found scraps of my writing about these stalker piles dated at times when they have bugged me most.
So I laugh and think must I simply embrace them as a part of me and do my best with them?
To be continued...

Mess
Keri Smith has published many creative writing journals that help you to explore and step out of your comfort zone.
A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life
I am always ready to live life and indulge in the moment...the dishes and co. will still be there later!
Messy
This sounds wonderful. I know a few colleagues who may find it reassuring too!
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying
This is the odd one out. I love the idea that there is magic in tidying, (is that the Mary Poppins in me?), and I am fascinated by the thinking behind many eastern philosophies such as wabi-sabi, boro, kitsugi...so much wise practical simplicity.
I haven’t finished reading yet but got a good laugh out of the extremely varied reviews.

Think Less Learn More: Unlock the power of the unfocused mind by Srini Pillay

And I’m taking notes while reading this gem. It touches on that nerve where we are all striving to fit into a social mould that may not correspond to us. Maybe my mind wandering, skipping and dancing helps me to be creatively healthy! We all know that there are many ways in which we learn, so naturally we think and function differently too. Why do we keep trying to shove ourselves into boxes?!


So rather than change who I am, seek the positive, make the most of my muddled self, embrace and accept, own it...and keep reading books like these!