More Retreating (”Run away…run away!”)
Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes for my Retreat Week in June! I’m happy to report that I managed mostly to stick to creative work and not to doomscroll news.
Each one of these Retreat Weeks I learn more about what I need to support myself in the studio. You might think after 36 years as a metalsmith and 55+ as a being who makes things, I’d have a total handle on that by now. Not so.
Creative work comes with what Maria Popova describes in her book Figuring as a “gladsome blindness” to what and how long is actually required for artists to take a project from idea to completion. It’s a type of functional denial that Everest really isn’t as intimidatingly tall when you’re at the foot of it, and oh so excited about climbing it.
What I learned last Retreat Week is that I can’t possibly get in the zone if I’ve scheduled 5 Zooms that week, even if they were all classes I was excited to take or friends with whom I very much looked forward to catching up. I have a tendency to believe that if something is fun, which all of these Zooms were, it will provide me with energy to keep going in my solitary endeavors. Unfortunately, they tend to be time sensitive.
Between teaching and taking courses plus running my whole business, I average 5 Zoom meetings most weeks. Logging in and being on camera means showing up at a particular time, when my intent had been to set myself up for flow states of open ended creative work time. For me, anything on a calendar means looking at a clock or setting alarms instead of embracing the “gladsome blindness” that is the wellspring of all flow states. So next Retreat Week, I’m metaphorically running away from home, which means watching recordings or saying ‘no’ to scheduling things when I often want to say ‘yes!’
Perhaps by the time I retire, I’ll have figured some of this stuff out.
Things to say ‘yes’ to:
My exceptionally talented colleague Rauni Higson MBE is offering her absolutely stellar Anticlastic Raising Course beginning July 28, 2025.
If you have any desire to fully grasp how metal curves, curls, and compresses by hammering, this is a thoroughly unique opportunity to learn from an incredible master of the technique. In fact, she so good, she’s getting a medal from King Charles III for services to heritage crafts before the course commences.
Rauni’s courses are structured like mine with recorded demos and live support sessions via Zoom, all accessible for a limited time through a Padlet course dashboard. I took the pilot version of this course last year and will be in it again this year – although perhaps I’ll be watching the recording if a Zoom session falls during a Retreat Week!
