Ten Pieces of Creative Advice

Hey all!

Just finished a list of what I think are Ten essentials for creative growth and for working towards making your living in a creative way! I though I would share them all here with you first. :)

I've been around a lot of younger people lately who are hungry for learning creative skills and finding their own mode of self-expression and more than a few adults who are thinking of turning some craft or creative idea into a product for on line sales. The world is becoming more open to anyone being able to make a creative living but often I find the hardest thing to teach is not the techniques but the mindset that enables one to follow through with their plan over time.

This is my default list, as of now, of the thingsI would like to impart to every young creator or one who is new to creating at any age.

Hoping you are all well!

XO
nicolas

1. Create EVERY Day.

I am likely, for the rest of my days, to begin any advice list with this one!  I think it's the best advice. The best plan of action. AND I think most people could do it. The usual argument against is that the person has a job/homework/a family/hobbies/a life, and it’s hard to find time for creativity in the middle of all that.

Well, maybe I'm the oddball,  but it’s mind-boggling how many “busy” people I know these days- including people with full-time jobs, families or studies- who still manage to find time to go out, play computer games, go on road trips, play sports and watch hours and hours of movies and tv shows.

 We find time in their days for all of these things. If we dream of creating, shouldn’t we be able to find time for it as well?


2. Don't Put Too Much Into the Idea of Inspiration.

The old idea that there must be an air of “inspiration” or a visit by the "muse"to make anything worthwhile is just silly.  Some ethereal or, more to the heart of procrastination, elusive entity that everyone is waiting to come along and drop the great idea into their heads.

t's not true.

People can be “uninspired” and still create and make beautiful work when they're doing it for an art class or for a deadline like a birthday or a wedding gift. And in the case of that art class, no art instructor would ever accept “But I didn’t feel inspired!” as an excuse for a late project.

So create with or without the visits from the muse or the guiding hand of inspiration. If you really want to create on a given day and you know you’ll only have an hour to do so because of other commitments, then get ready to make something in that one hour.

3. Realize it takes time to build skills or flesh out an idea.

I’ve known a whole mess of people who sculpted, painted, wrote, cooked, drew, danced or took up an instrument for a few weeks or months and then gave up. They wanted to be good right away.

I don’t know why so many people resent the notion of needing to invest “time” to become good with creative endeavors. They look at the artists they admire the most and then imagine they will be right up there in skill and ability in a fraction of the time those folks put in.

Time invested most certainly = ability.

I like to think I’m a good maker-of-things and that some of the skills that go into my work I have been doing them since childhood. But if we look at sculpting, well, I took that up with the medium of polymer clay just ten years ago in my thirties. In between then and now it's been a lot of time and hard work.

It applies to every medium of creativity and then to the art of making a living from your art as well. Time has to be invested and not rushed into showing results.

4. Collect and Jot Down Ideas.

I have forgotten more ideas than I will ever see through to completion and, though I may not remember all of them, I have no doubt I forgot many of my best ones by not taking a moment and  recording them somewhere.

I get ideas from the art of others, songs, dreams, random things heard on the street, books, nature or just something I am imagining in a daydream. This is a kind of free play for the mind, but it’s where most of my creative ideas spring from for me. And by all means, THINK about that when you go out into the world! Don’t be a passive vessel. Actively go in search of them and when the come WRITE THEM DOWN!

5. Realize You Will NOT Like Everything That You Create

There are many things I made, even sold, but was not happy with the results when they were done. I am, of course, seeing every little flaw, every aspect of the piece that I did not pull off quite the way I wanted to.

 That doesn’t mean that when I make something like it again (and I will) that I should shelve them or toss them out. Often these are the ideas that I build on and work towards making better the next time around, which builds my skills. I often hear that people who hire illustrators or comic artists look at the hands (or lack of them)  in the drawings immediately because they are often the hardest thing to get right and, therefor, someone who does them well has obviously put the time in to do so.

Learn to love the imperfections now but strive to overcome them tomorrow. Taking either the view that everything you create has to be perfect and you should destroy everything that’s not, or that you can’t possibly create something if you’re not passionately interested in every aspect of it, is self-destructive and not worth your time.

6. Realize That a Good Portion of Creativity is Purely Mechanical.

Even if you are someone who manages to drill into an endless well of  “inspiration,” there’s going to come a point in the path to seeing it to completion, where that dries up a bit, and you’re left with what may seem like a mess. Yes, that happens. I don't know a single artist who didn't struggle with that "dry spell" at some point along the way.

Don't give up and don't stop working through it. Remember advice #1? Keep at it! Just the act and the exercise of working on your craft is as important as those days of fevered inspiration.

7. Learn to Only Be Concerned With What YOU Can Accomplish

Yeah, simple, but when you know someone who can turn out painting a day or a drawing in an hour, and it takes you on average ten times as long, don't let that bring you down. You are only accountable to you. How someone else goes about their creativity is not your concern.

 I sculpt across the work table from someone who can complete one of their sculpted pieces in an hour or two. I'll take that long to make the assorted pieces of a fairy landscape or to sculpt a statue and then have to put them all together, paint them, add all the tiny details etc etc etc and I cannot charge as much for them as she can for her work because of the niches our work falls into. (that's a story for another rant!)  That is FINE. It's not a competition and if I held myself to someone else's standards in that way I would have given up long ago and most certainly have failed at trying to make  my living from my work!


8. Be Honest About What Distracts You.

Do you really have to go clean up the mess you’ve left sitting in the kitchen after throwing together dinner so you could keep working? Do you really only have an hour left before you have to leave for your walk or to meet a friend? Inventing excuses to keep from creating, waiting for that perfect time, is perfectly normal, but unless you learn to recognize that these are distractions and excuses and put creating above things you value that are mostly distractions from it, then your creative skills and your goals will most likely not grow as fast as they might otherwise when you make them a priority.

9. Develop Goals.

I have an old-school work ethic that pushes me to create for a certain number of hours each day. It gets upset with me if I don’t do as much work as I can and the one thing that gets in the way of me doing just that is not having goals set each day. Yes, sometimes that's not very much fun, going down the list and getting the things done, photo taking, making listings, shipping etc. These are the things that  I know should be done before I get into my remaining time where I can make whatever my heart desires. But there’s no one standing over me with a whip and telling me to create, which means I have to internalize the whip. I never, or at least very rarely, match what that work ethic expects me to achieve, but I do far more than I would if I only dreamed about goals and didn’t set them in writing.

And finally…

10. Love Creating For Itself.

Another obvious one, but one that many people don’t seem to get.

They dream about the day they will be making a living creatively, or at least selling their work as a side hustle or for extra income. Perhaps they dream about being featured in a magazine or on a web site they love, or about how much people will love a certain painting, Zine, handmade jacket, bracelet or ceramic sculpture.

But they don’t love the actual work of it.

That strikes me as the absolute most pitiful lack that someone who wants to be a creator can have. Yes, a lot of it is mechanics and skill development and discipline, but that doesn’t mean that something doesn’t surprise you in the middle of the sculpture or the illustration and make you laugh out loud or even start crying when you finally get it right!

And all of those dreams, as lovely as they are, are nothing to that moment you see the physical item you have been working on or developing finally emerge from YOUR fingers.

The Most Basic of Human Needs

Hey all!

Just a peak at the direction I want to take with my new Tumblr page when it's up.

I'm working on so much right now so my appearances here will remain spotty until the spring. The novel's first draft progresses as does the increase in business over last year which is very nice as well.

This post was inspired by a statement which I heard made on a podcast the other day by the author Matt Gemmell.

Hoping you find that creative spark in everything that you see!

nicolas


"It's almost a sad thing that a big chunk of society doesn't understand the sheer critical necessity for fantasy; one, for escapism in its own right, but also as a way of reframing what we're seeing in our own lives. I think it's fundamentally critical and a mental health requirement to have fantasy and fiction and stories and escapism. I think it's one of the most basic of human needs."  -  Matt Gemmell

There may not be any one thought about creativity that I agree with more than that.

It's been the constant in my world. From the earliest of days.

My escape.

My true north.

My polestar.

When I was working the minimum wage jobs, bussing tables, pumping gas, prep cook etc it was those creative outlets I returned to at the end of each work day that filled me with belief and made everything around me seem right.

When I was bullied in school, or more likely, ignored, it was the fantasy worlds and the activities dreamed up in my imagination and that I kept in sight that got me through each day.

When, as can happen, my whole world felt as if it were falling apart as an adult, it was the words, the images, the music I made in the space I created to pour my heart into that allowed me the solitude to heal and grow.

The only times in my life I've been mired in darkness were the times, few though they were, that I turned my back on creativity and began to focus on some other ideal, some other dream of a life that belonged to someone else and certainly not me.

 If I were to put all of the requirements of a happy life on the table and try to whittle them down to only the most necessary, creativity would be there after most others were removed. It might very well be the sole survivor.

It's that vital.

I don't regret a single thing I've done with my life. I dreamed big every step of the way, fell short, picked myself up and started again. I've tried more paths than most, failed more than most too, but kept going until I found the one that suited me best.

When you chose a path of creativity, people will question every decision you make. They'll sum up your dream through the lens of their own experiences and life. That's ok, they wrote that script themselves and cannot imagine the experiences of others being more true than their own. The person who gains most from a story is always the person who wrote it. Just allow them that and hope, for their sake, they've gotten as much out of that sporty they tell.

So you? You write you.

In the end, as I think back to all of those well-meaning folks who wondered how long I could go on making my way stumbling through the dark in the creative world, dreaming of something other than a normal job or existence, I am reminded that I've come to know hundreds of people, working in dozens of other professions, who all wished they could be making a living doing something creative but I've never known a single painter, sculptor, illustrator, actor, artist, mime, poet, storyteller, dancer or writer, at any level or stage of their own story, who wished, even for one day, to be anything else.

XO
nicolas

Making of a Maker - The Art of Packaging (Part 1) - Third Friday Post - January 19th

Hey everyone! Hoping this finds you all well and enjoying the winter days wherever you are!


This week I wanted to begin a two part post of my third Friday, Making of a Maker blog. For these next two third Fridays (February 16th will be part 2 btw) I wanted to talk about the importance of how your art/creation/craft/product is received when you send it out into the world.

Let's just say it here and now. . . I LOVE packaging.

I have had a few dozen ideas in my life that were just for packaging of a product. Ideas that had no product to go in them mind you. Just a name/look/design that I thought would be cool  or interesting. Jewelry, figurines, music CD's etc. They just come to me as any other creative idea might.

When I got into making art for sale, I knew that I would put a fair amount of time into how that art looks when it is received.

I have three different shops on Etsy, My Fairy houses/figurines/oddities, my Ancient Egyptian statues and amulets and my digital art prints. Each has it's own thank you cards and notes that I use with the items when they are shipped. I designed the cards and print them myself but there are a dozen good printing services out there too that you can use. I print my own more so I can tinker and play with the design over time and not have to have a large run of cards printed at any one time.

Today I want to focus on the packaging for pieces from Shadow of the Sphinx.

So below is the packaging and accompanying cards for a small statue, a figure of Bes, who is a multipurpose protective deity that is found in one form or another in many ancient cultures from that region. He's a rather jovial fella to my eyes but others find him a bit scary and I do suppose that was the purpose in antiquity.

With the exception of my largest statues, all of the amulets and pieces from this shop get packaged in very much the same way.

With each order, I make the gift box for it by hand so that it fits the piece and it's warping, perfectly. With each statue being completely handmade, no two are ever quite alike.

I use a black, smooth-textured, almost velvety paper called Plike. I order it in 12x18 sheets which covers most all that I do.  TO date I have made roughly 1200 boxes now so while I know it seems a daunting task to figure out how to make them, and it was at first, I have it down to a science now.

The box for the Bes took me 3 minutes to measure, cut (on my favorite packing room tool, a Fiskars slide cutter), score and fold.

Then I punch holes in the top flap for a gold organza ribbon for statues or black and copper raffia for amulets, and I attach a handmade name tag on the front. That tag is a two step process. First, on brown paper, I print the name of the deity in a hieroglyph surrounded blank space. So in this case it reads, "Bes Altar Statue". Then I cut that out and glue it to a frosted gold card stock paper and cut the final tag from that so that the gold is a border and then I adhere it to the front of the black box with a few super strong glue dots.

With each piece I include the stamped card envelope and handwritten thank you card, a business card with the Etsy address, a card that features a bit of general information that I've collected about the deity purchased and a slip of paper that describes the process of making the piece and my policies for future returns if repairs are needed or just to reapply the shiny patina if desired as they do dull/age further over time. If it's an amulet, I also include an "amulet care" paper for that since they are made of clay and fragile to wear on a day to day basis.

Now these all I print in small quantities ahead of time and have cut out and ready. I have over 60 different deity description cards and the box tags for amulets AND statues for most of them. The sometimes-amusing thing is how often I am out of the card/tag for the very one I've just sold.

I think there is a little gremlin who eats them because I swear I print mulitples and then they just seem to disappear!

This, I am a little embarrassed to say, is the EASIER/Less involved of the two shops to package items for. lol :)

Next month, on the Third Friday, I will focus on the packaging for a fairy inspired piece from Bewilder and Pine and share a few of my thoughts about why I think that packaging has been so vital to the shop's, and my own, success.  Also, because I am asked this more often than almost anything about my packaging, I will share with you why I NEVER put images of the packaging IN with the photos of my listings.

As for Shadow of the Sphinx, I receive quite a bit of feedback in the reviews people leave and in private emails about how the packaging made the customer's day when they opened the box or how they were so happy to give it as a gift.

The theme is simple, the execution not so much. Smooth black paper boxes and gold flourishes with a whole lot of personal touch. People really respond to it and it's become the branding for the shop. The few retail shops I sell thru are thrilled to have the packaging to go with the items. I've been told that the packaging  has even "swayed" customers to purchase my work, which is usually a bit more expensive in those shops, over something that is mass produced.

Well, that is all for today!

Wishing you all a magical weekend and thank you, as always, for dropping by!

Nicolas

(Typing pet peeve of the day: Auto-correct/spelling keeps changing the name Bes, even when capitalized, to Bestsellers! REALLY? Not "best" or "Bess" or even besties?)

Making of a Maker - Please Give It Time - Third Friday Post - December 15th

Ok so. . . most things I've done in my life, creatively,  felt like they came naturally to me.

Sculpting however, was NOT one of those things.  Not with sculpting clay, not with polymer clay and not with ceramic or porcelain.

I just was not very good at all when I began.

Given the multitude of other things I could have turned to, things I already had a fair capacity to do creatively, it might seem surprising that I stuck with sculpting at all.

I am so glad I did.

When I am asked advice about being a maker-of-things for a living, the first piece of advice I offer is to stick with it. "Please give it time" I'll say.  I know the frustration of the inner critic who's always sitting on your shoulder and telling you you can't do it, you won't ever be good enough. But you CAN. And you WILL.

In time.

I think many people give up way to easily on their creative desires, wishes and dreams. If you're doing something you love, something you've always wanted to do or just something you saw and were inspired to try for yourself, then just keep at it because you'll get better each time you do it, I promise!

You won't even realize it because it's a lot of little steps of progression that get us to the place we want to be. Only looking back in time can I see the growth by comparison. Even now, 7 years later, I still learn something new with each piece I create! A new technique, a new way to get a hippo's ear or a fairy house's rooftop to look just right. I expect that I will continue to learn and develop my skills for as long as I keep working at it and coming up with new ideas to try.

And when I say just keep at it, keep making,  I mean make A LOT! Repetition, honing skills and evolving your ideas, it's all going to pay off in the end. Though it might not be in the way you hoped or, as I did, you may end up going down roads you never dreamed of only to discover that those roads take you to a place where you are happier than you've ever been.

Then, one day, you get to look back at the first things you made/ sold and something recently that you sold and compare them. If you're like me, you'll shake your head and laugh because we all started somewhere. . .

Here, for you to see, was my sculpture starting point. A Bast statue made 7 1/2 long years ago. My first. . .  and that Bast did sell, surprisingly enough.

I had not developed any of the skills, the patina processes, detailing, a way of working out the stylizations or the techniques that allowed me to create the blue patina Bast right below it.  That's where seven years of making, working on it every single day, came in.

This is the first Bast statue I ever made and sold back in 2010. 

And this is the most recent one I've sold. Seven and a half long years later.

Next month I want to dive into talking about the one aspect of online selling that I always felt I had going for me. . . packaging.

Thank you, as always for dropping by!

 Keep making!!
XO
nicolas

Making of a Maker - Daydreams - Third Friday, November 17th

Once again I sat down with a particular post in mind and something else comes calling for attention.

For this monthly "Making of a Maker" post I want to say a few things about one of the most important aspects of my own creative process and one that, when looking at anything I have ever done, from making plays when I was 12 to my music-making/recording years to digital art to miniature houses, has been a major contributor to the realization of each of those pursuits.

Daydreaming.

To me, this is something other than what most might call inspiration, which tends to be more momentary and immediate, just popping up wherever and whenever without notice.  It's also different from intentional, constructive brainstorming with an idea or preconceived notion you want to realize. It's also not quite the same as actively doodling or experimenting.

This is also not to be confused with time that might be spent on pinterest or instagram though those are both excellent starting points for ideas and I have scores of images that have inspired my own creative world. . . but only in the same way that the words "Once upon a time" are a starting point for many great stories.

There are things that I believe we can only tap into when our hands are at rest and our minds are allowed to just vanish into the world of daydreams.

Daydreaming, for me, is about allowing yourself to sit in silence and just work your way deep into your own imagination. In my life, I've met many people who say they are not capable of imagining things as vividly or as realized as I do but, with those I have worked with, I find that it's almost always a case of the person not being able to quiet the world around them enough to allow their daydreaming self to find footing.

Sometimes it seems to be more about them turning away when the door to imagination opens and they are asked to step inside. Sort of like that odd little back alley curiosity shoppe in that "found" neighborhood where you stare in the window trying to find the courage to walk inside. . . but then the door opens and you hurriedly walk away instead of accepting the divine's invitation to enter. . .

I cannot imagine doing what I do without taking the time to daydream. . . often. In fact, when I am feeling burnt out it is almost always because I have not allowed myself to look ahead and to daydream about new avenues, new ideas and to not put any constraints on that process.

This image, "The Bubble Factory" came to me almost just as you see it during a good round of Daydreaming. 

Writing, my latest pursuit, is no different. My storytelling runs in fits and starts and I am not nearly as productive when I try too hard to manufacture the story as I am when I first allow myself to "live " the story through a good bout of daydreaming. I will sometime give myself five to fifteen minutes before I get up at 5am to lay in the silence and the dark and think about what part of the story I want to work on that morning. I see the scene, the characters, the possible twists and turns and I allow it  run it's course, maybe two or three times if I am unsure where to go with it.

It's like seeing a film playing in my head. The characters move about, interact, speak. . . and I just follow along with them. It doesn't have to be a long process. Just a few minutes can bring quite a welcome surprise.

I don't have a long list to share for the "how to's" of daydreaming. I think it helps to have silence or only natural sounds around you and low light if possible but definitely not light that is not glaring, buzzing or emanating from a device/digital.

From a kid who always had one foot on the ground but his head in the clouds (or in daydreams!) I hope this will work for, or inspire, you as well! I can't say it enough.

Daydreaming is huge part of my daily creative world.

Keep dreaming (day AND night)!

XO
Nicolas

This too was born from a daydream exploring fantasy landscapes. 

PS - You know, I realized while writing this that I always stepped inside those strange/odd shops I used as a metaphor above.

One, in a back alley of a neighborhood in my hometown, was a new age store called "Sign of Aquarius".  I will tell that tale in full in the future but the retired couple who ran it were a treasure to stumble upon that first time I stood staring in their shop's windows and the old creaky door opened to welcome me in.  If I had run away, I shudder to think what my life might have been like. It was the first step into a world I never knew existed but was definitely in need of finding.

I'd like to think I may have found my way eventually but there is something about the depth of impression made at 13 that would never have been the same even just a few years later.

Never run from the unknown and strange! : )


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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:

1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)

2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me) 

3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)

4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)

Turning a Page

Hello everyone!

So, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on something exciting as it pertains to my blog!

I have struggled for years to find a rhythm with keeping my blog active.  I kept wanting to discover some magic structure that will allow me to be more regular and offer more of what is going on in the creative world around me.

With the wealth of new projects, ideas, undertakings etc, I have once again allowed my posting here to slip and I want to change that going forward.

So here is what is happening. . .

I am pledging to post each and every Friday of the month. To try and make this a reality, I am going to give each Friday of the month a "theme".

Starting with October, (my favorite time of the year), I will be offering posts on the following general topics based on the number of the Friday of the month.

1st Friday of Each Month - New work. This will not just be newly finished creations but I a peek into the actual making of one of those new items each month. From start to finish. Photos, materials, techniques etc.


2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities - Links and topics that I've come across that inform my work, my writing and just my insatiable curiosity for the strange and wonderful in the world we live in, past or present, and beyond. Research is a big part of my creative world and I can think of no better way to stir that "making pot" than to share those things I've found.

3rd Fridays - The Maker-of-Things -  a look into how I got "here", from an over-reaching teenage dreamer to being a full time creator.  So, snippets of those early childhood memories, the long and winding road of experimentation and failure along the way and all of the other creative ventures I tried and moved on from.  Plus some all-around advice for creating a life that supports living as a creative soul and working maker. This will be only my experience so it will not resonate for some, I know, but I think it worth expressing to hopefully help those who wish to follow in those creative footsteps.

4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine! - Many of you know that I have been focused on writing a novel and short stories centered around the world I created, the Bewildering Pine. So these 4th Friday posts will offer small peeks into that world. Details about the folk, the place, the history etc. Where these things come from in me and where I'd like to see them go in the future. Eventually, maybe early next year, I'll even offer snippets from the book itself as it moves forward.

5th Fridays, on the rare occasion it happens, well, we shall see!

Hoping Autumn is shining in your worlds!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. . .

nicolas

New Work - July 2nd

Welcome everyone!

Summer is on it's downward swing already, days getting shorter as we're headed to my most favorite season of all, Autumn.

This month, instead of just a string of new work, I wanted to share a few images and thoughts with you about something I think is often misrepresented in the art/craft/maker world.

The creative workspace.

In this internet age of "lifestyle blogs" where people do their best to present their life, their travels, their world, their day to day activities as an unending stream of peaceful moments and perfectly placed home bliss. I'd like to offer the artist/maker-in-waiting, a slightly different viewpoint. . .

THIS is what my work table looked like one day last week, as it does most days.

An average workday of projects old and new, many in process and this is a LIGHT day! Includes paints, files, craft wood, brushes, and two drawers filled with miscellaneous magic. 

Every surface I work upon is speckled with paint, or patina or clay!

A separate work area for sculpting-in-progress and tools. That is the potted Medieval Walled Village in it's beginning stages front and center. You can see the final piece below. 

There is never a day where the tables are clean or neatly arranged. Not totally. An organized chaos is as close as I get.

The point I want to make is this. If you want to be maker of things, a painter, a sculptor, a writer, a woodworker. Whatever it is. It's going to be a life and pursuit filled with messes. Some literal and some figurative. Too many people, I believe, let the fact that they don't have the "right space" or enough space, keep them from moving forward.

There is such a desire in life to present the picture perfect side of ourselves but ART, my dears, in any form, is found mostly in and thru the messes. Not in the perfection.

So set your life up to allow for and accommodate the messes. That "studio" you see in the above pictures takes up what would be the living room/dining room of our place. What would be our "spare" bedroom is the packing and shipping room and is wall to wall packing materials, wash tape, glue dots, paper cutters, metal shelves, boxes, tissue papers, bubble wrap and another shipping work table too.

I know people who have tucked their art away for years because the thought of taking a room in their house to dedicate to it is unthinkable. "Where would guests stay?" "Where would we eat or watch tv?" Well, our guests have to sleep on a fold-out couch (which is crammed between the work space AND a FULL SIZED, 4 heddle, weaving loom!)  and we crammed a tiny pub table in between all the work spaces for ourselves to eat our meals at. We don't have dinner parties and we don't have a bedroom for long term guests. Those are the sacrifices we made. And might I remind you, we do this full time.

In a world where people are more and more given to trying to present their lives, their homes, their  every waking hour as an instagram moment. . .  we offer you the unending reality of creative MESS.

A creative Etsy friend of mine calls herself a "maker-of-messes".  And I like that very much.

Here's to the mess-makers!! The "perfect" ones in my book!

nicolas

And here are a few new work photos including the potted Medieval Walled Village! Enjoy!

The timbering is all done by hand, tiny strip by tiny strip!

I don't make these often but oh I DO love them when done!

A traditional Slavic amulet but a little stylized my own way!

A new addition to Shadow of the Sphinx. My own design, not taken from an ancient example. 

Ram headed ancient Egyptian deity Khnum. Another favorite to create.

This was FUN! A custom request for an Edgar Allan Poe mini tombstone with a raven!

We Need Secrets

I read the following a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me ever since.

"I’ve written in other venues about the “thrill of the hunt.” And by that, I mean the hunt for that one back issue of a comic series you loved, that old album by the band you loved, or that out of print book by that author you loved. These “hunts” were a big part of my youth, and the very concept is gone now. Everything is easily found on the Internet with a few keystrokes.

But there’s more to the phenomenon than just the hunt for material goods. Just a few decades ago, it was hard to be an expert on something—even something frivolous. If you wanted to deep dive into something, it took time, determination, and sometimes a bit of creativity. When my friends and I could quote Ghostbusters verbatim back in the day, it was because we went to see the movie over and over again in the theater. If someone knew about a rare, alternate track by Elvis Costello, it was because they immersed themselves in Elvis Costello fandom over the course of years. When my friend could recite the names of all the First Age elves mentioned in The Silmarillion, it was because he pored over the book and made the list himself. 

Now, all of those things could be accomplished with a quick Internet search.

This isn’t “back in my day” complaining. I love the fact that all this information is readily available at our fingertips. We’re better off now, despite the loss of what I’m talking about. But I think there’s still something in human nature that wants to discover. To hunt. To learn some secret not easily found—or, perhaps more importantly—not found by someone else. For some of us, we don’t want to read about someone else’s discoveries; we want to make them on our own.”

- Monte Cook - MCG game design blog

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I could not agree more with Mr. Cook and what I also identify with in those thoughts above is the core of what makes creativity such a compelling pursuit for me. Everything I do, I realize, is about the slow discovery. The unfolding of time, abilities and the way we grow incrementally closer to what we create the more we put ourselves into it.  The secrets within.

For me, hand crafting in the internet age is an absolute salvation. I have been blessed by a lot of wonderful twists and turns along this road to making a creative life and the internet and technology are crucial in the avenue of selling, marketing, even offering inspiration. Yet one of the most refreshing discoveries was that folks, for the most part, still love a handmade item over something easily reproduced. 

I am befuddled by the number of people who set out to try something, creative or otherwise and, if it is not an instant success or at the very least, if it does not quickly show signs of being so, they move on. Now, I've done my share of "moving on" in my own life but we are talking about moving on after investing years in something before making that ultimate decision. Really taking them as far as I thought I could go, sometimes further. And all those things I left behind still play a role in my new discoveries at times today. The same way that a 16th century map informed the 17th century cartographer and on down the line. 

When I look at the sculpting and making-of-things that I have invested myself in over the last 8 years now, and I see those first pieces that sold, that people actually gave me money for, I am truly amazed.

I never questioned if I would get "here" one day. I knew that from experience and from the fact I grew up in an era when you HAD to put the time in. For anything. Nothing was available with such immediacy. And for that I am extremely grateful. 

It just takes time.

When I sit down each morning to work on my book, I know very well how far I still have to go. I'm new to that creative form of expression and I have to learn things on the fly, stop often to seek out a reference or sidestep the story to explore a character, setting, idea, grammar usage or ancient myth. It takes time, yes, but it has to be done.

In a day when folks are abandoning the well written blog left and right, the hard form of writing, for the ease of instant I-phone photo glam, for the lifestyle account and the Instagram fix, I feel grateful to have been brought up in another time. At the very least, one that bridges both worlds.  

I am so grateful for the fact that the one thing the internet will never change is that, to be good at something physical, something creative, be it sculpting, writing, RPG game design, painting, illustration, dance, cosplay, architecture, acting, landscape design, and on and on, you are going to have to be willing to sit down and put in the time. All the instruction, how-to tutorials and step by step instructions won't give you the skill without the hours of application. And they won't give you an original voice/style/expression either.

In the work of almost all of my blog friends here I have been given the gift of seeing YOU uncover those secrets in your own work over years. I've watched them grow and reveal themselves in time. There is so much beauty in that and it sustains me and inspires me as well. 

Those who are just starting or still dreaming of a creative life.  .  . you are going to have to take that deep dive, start at square one and do the work, try to refine that technique or reinvent it until you think you can't possibly do it again, then go ahead and do it again anyway. 

You'll pore over the hints, tips, instructions whether they came from a 100 yr old book or from a website. But trust me, it WILL be worth every moment you put in down the road.  By all means, embrace technology as a tool, just not as the means to the end. It will never be creative in and of itself. People made it so. People opened that door and refined it for you too. Now go further.

And if you, like me, want secretes to be revealed? 
Stick with the art. 
Stick with the practice.
It will make you so glad that you did one day.
I promise you.

And along the way

You will make those important discoveries

You will improve and know yourself better

And you're going to learn those secrets.

The most important of which will be the ones locked within yourself. 
The ones that nobody else can access for you. 

And those, no matter what the internet and our digital age provides for you as far as information at your fingertips, THOSE secrets will be the ones you will cherish the most.

XO

nicolas

New mini woodland Muridae Market mouse. Chettes is the first but more to come soon!

One continuos build/sculpt, layering colored clay, onyx eyes, a culmination of 8 yrs of secrets revealed and discovered.
Worth every moment spent. :)

A Short Epiphany About Inspiration

Last week I received a message from a customer asking what inspires me. . .

I must have answered this question a couple of hundred times over the last 20 or so years throughout all of my creative endeavors.

But this time as I went to respond, I had a little epiphany. There used to be some "things" and things here meaning external input, that inspired me. While this certainly remains true, I had to really think before answering because, after all these years, the external is now internal and the inspiration is now a part of everything in my world.

This was, I should say, a very conscious decision.

These days and, shall I say, for the last five years or so, I have been weeding out anything from my life that is simply not inspiring. I do not read books or watch anything visually that does not fit into the world of imagination and what I create.

People too. . . be they Etsy folks I follow or friends in the flesh. . . I've always had very strong boundaries about what got into my inner world and while people are the hardest to master in that regard, I have had that down for awhile now too. Not a minute is spent with anyone who does not understand, appreciate or add to my creative world.  Of course, there are the unavoidable times when the car needs fixed, the groceries need bought or the door needs answered for deliveries.  . .but other than those sort of encounters, it is a very small circle of people who get in.

The point of this all is really just to say that I have made my entire world a source of vibrant inspiration.  I have left no time, no room and no reason for anything else.  The results, I must say, are that I am as happy a creative soul as I have ever been. Life gets better each day and all I could ask for is more of the same each day going forward.

So now the answer to what inspires me is simpler than ever.

Everything around me.

And if I could give one gift to anyone else it would be to say you have the universe's permission to do this too!!

nicolas

And maybe that happiness is why this fellow, another commission  I finished yesterday, though He is the God of Chaos, has a rather satisfied and almost "cute" look on his face. . .

Set / Seth / Sutekh

The Stories We Tell - Part II

(Continued from yesterday)

Why so many people carry the worst of their lives forward is hard to grasp.  Sometimes I think it's a fear of letting go. . . or perhaps an issue of scarcity. If you don't have the past to hold to and define the present and the future is completely a mystery, , what do you have?

Well, in my world, that has always been answered with "limitless possibility." One that is not present when the past casts it's shadow over the present. It's soooo like the Vashta Nerada from Dr. Who. Shadows that swarm, consume and grow by feeding on our life force.So I always like to remember the good Doctors words. . . "Stay out of the shadows!"

So the items we sell are extensions of our lives too. The light of them actually. Our creations become part of the story and even in my world, retelling ancient Egyptian tales, sifting through the nostalgic past of my childhood, making up new fables about Fairies, Elves and inventing and sharing worlds that only I know all fit into the story of who I am now. They all, quite simply, make me happy.So why would I not sink into them completely?

They are at the heart of the version of "me" I care to express most of all. And the more I delve into these worlds. The more I allow them to rule my days and my day dreams, the more happiness I find in life. . . the more the shadows receded and lost their power. . . and the more successful my endeavors become.

The world of our human leisure/spare time revolves around, and is immersed in, stories. Travel, TV shows, theater, movies, song lyrics are all about stories. The products you buy, the labels, the name brands, the reputations we believe in. . . all stories. All created.  And even hobbies and the skills learned thru them have a legacy and history behind them too. . . more stories. . . all of it is a tome that we are intrinsically a part of. A world that we escape into and through.

And THAT is what people want in the things they spend their hard earned money on.

Take two crafters who make the exact same thing. Same price, same style. If one tells a story around their work and one does not, the storyteller will, all other things being equal, be the more successful of the two.

Tell someone why they want your work. Give them the slightly open door in. It's no different than how we sell ourselves in the "real world" through how we dress, how we speak, how we treat others. . . these are all stories we tell too.

And it's why I believe in the happiness they can and do  create.

It's a choice, obviously, and one that each of us has to make.
My point is simply that we are doing it whether we think we are or not.
We ARE storytellers.
And we are all capable.
And we are all deserving.
That's MY story.

The Stories We Tell - Part I

Anyone who knows my work knows that it is inherently connected to the stories I create that go with each piece. I will hold a finished item back from the shops for weeks if I do not have the story that goes with it ready for the listing as well.

Many times when I offer the advice "Create a story for your items"  to sellers and artists about their work it is met with, "Oh, I am not a storyteller" or 'What sort of story could a piece of jewelry or an abstract painting have to tell?"

For these folks I like to give them an exercise to try that I remember from writing workshops past.  Head out to any thrift or Goodwill store and pick out a simple little doodad from the knickknack shelf and take it home. Sit there for 15 minutes and write a story about it. Where it came from, who owned it, where it has been. That's it. No editing, just write!

Inevitably this is far easier for people than writing a story about their own work and creations. It almost always ends up with a fairly well imagined tale about the piece they just bought. Histories, legacies, treasures of the heart etc etc. Wonderful stuff!

The truth is, most people tell stories ALL the time. Every tale we tell and retell from our lives is really no different than the ones we may create about our offerings in the art world.  With the exception that the ones we invent can be anything. . . there are no boundaries and no limits. I think, often, it's THAT which keeps people from writing at all.

So much of what we tell about ourselves is truly a form of fiction anyway. . . or at least a skewed bent of reality. One side of a story. And they do tend to change with time as we all know. . .

Which is all fine too.

But the main reason I believe in using that power of storytelling for my work is this:

 I believe the stories we tell about our lives. . . about ourselves. . . becomes the single most important factor in how happy we will be in life.  The spin we put on things. The pieces we chose to carry forward. The power of storytelling is immense.

Those who dwell in the negative, the painful, the betrayal and losses and the common-among-us-all poor choices are doomed to relive them again and again with each retelling.

It's how we frame the stories that decides how we experience them in the retelling.

Maybe this is just another spin on my world of paracosms? Maybe it's a "cheat" that I leave out entire sections of my life. . .  that I have reinvented who I am again and again and why I carry almost nothing and no one forward from one incarnation to the next.

The past is a world of ghosts.  . and as I recall from my childhood, ghosts almost never have good intentions. . . .

( Part II tomorow :)

Realization

I've lost count of the number of times I have heard someone express frustration that they can't seem to get of the ground with their creative work.  In the last five years, as our business has thrived and grown with each passing year, I have been keeping notes and trying to find a short summary of what I think are the most important things that are conducive to creating this success.I have always wanted to share it openly if I thought it could help others.

These have ranged from the grand: "Tailor your entire life to fit your art. . . not the other way around!" to the ethereal: "Find the threads that have run throughout your whole life. . . from your earliest imaginings, and follow them." and to the obvious: " Only do what you LOVE!"

But there is little practical "how to" knowledge in those and, even if we explained them from our perspective, they must be adapted to each individual and their situaton.  .

But today I think I can put it in one word. The one that absolutely WILL make a difference and help generate success.

Realization

As in, the evolving realization of the potential of your creative abilities and every idea you'll ever have.

And that realization comes with these simple things. . . practice, repetition, dedication and time.

There is no quick fix. No Instant success. Four years later I am still creating some of the same things I did at the very beginning, like these fairy mushroom houses upon a star:

But four years later everything about them is more realized. The mushroom shapes, the grass blend, the flowers, the trees, the tiny mushrooms under the trees, the windows. Each part has improved.  . even the spots!

And four years from now they will be better still. . . 

That is the essence of realization. Nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. . . but that also means loving what "is" at the time too. And it goes for the skills of your craft as much as any one product. As they improve, so will you!

And this is hard for people to take in because ultimately so many want the success and the payoff NOW. But like any great thing in life. . . and creating one's art from the soul is certainly among the greatest. . . it takes a lifetime. Not one day less. 

nicolas

Giving Imagination It's Space or. . . the Zen of Creativity

(1)  There was a time where I found myself very much a student of Zen.  It began at an early age when I came cross a book on Zen Buddhist beliefs n the first New Age bookstore in the fairly traditional town I grew up in. I was 12 or 13 at the time. . .

In browsing the pages I found that so much of what I read seemed to go along with what I already felt about life at that early age.  Later, when I moved across the country, I began attending meditations  and weekend retreats through a monastery nearby.  I loved the simple structure of the monastic days/routines such as the rising at 4am for meditation because, as my teacher explained it, "that's the time before the brain kicks in and takes over." There is work, meals, quiet time, meditation and sleep. A simple routine.

One of the most common comments one will hear after such a weekend from the laypersons attending is this: "I wish I could carry this feeling I have when I am here back to my regular life/world/"

(2)  As I tend to spend many hours thinking about, and revisiting, my childhood I can recall that all of my favorite and most creative games (especially those played and created alone) were a product of reworking and recreating their parameters and scenarios time and again. The thrill of pretending to be a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt is immediate to a 9 yr old boy. . . but it is so much better after weeks of making dozens of tinfoil votive statues and royal jewelry, fashioning a crook and flail and other  treasures out of cardboard, gold paint and plastic gems. . .   and even painting the inside of your closet to look like an Egyptian tomb! That takes time.

Some of those favorite games took years to reach the stage I ultimately remember today. Nothing was ever perfect "as-is" , even in that childhood state of having all the time in the world to indulge our imagination that we sometimes wish for as adults.

(3) There are, in my way of seeing it, many similarities between Zen mind and Child mind. There is a simplicity to both that sort of suspends the normal, over-worrisome adult brain. You know, the one we've all come to  "develop" with all of it's rigid beliefs and time-clock structures.

To be sure, we cannot go back and live completely as a child again and the monastic life is certainly not for most (including myself) but what I can say is that both offer clues and lessons as to how, as an adult, to get deeper into what you wish to ultimately create by letting go of all that keeps you from doing it!

Simplicity is what makes the monastic life work and what creates the feeling of calm and "peace of place.". It is not cluttered, is often cloistered, and based on a very simple and set routine. There is no one in this world who would not benefit from scheduling their creative time a bit more, paring down the distractions and number of people/events committed to,  and saying no to a few of the adult distractions that hobble us all on this path.

And if you can, doing so when the mind is least active, early morning or late night when the world is silent around you, is a good starting point!

From the Child mind there is no one who would not benefit from making time to allow the imagination to just run wild with no time limit/clock and no pressure to "achieve" anything. Not judging the results and working and reworking the creations made while giving them time to develop and become their best.  At 11 years old you don't think, "I need to perfect this game or craft by the time I am twelve or I am done with it!" You just do it because it is what you are wishing to do and you enjoy it. There's the key to adult creativity. . . 

This is one of the main reasons that, on a day where I may have 3 or 4 custom orders to work on or finish, packages to ship and message to reply to, I will often begin something completely new in the middle of it all. If only for 20 minutes or so. . . just to keep the child mind happy too :) 

(4) At the core. . . resilience.

I've never come across anything that can teach someone the workings of this little, invaluable key to life. Mostly because it too is a practice and not truly inherent to most of us. But resilience is a part of both Childhood and Monastic life. Kids usually do not give up on anything if left to their devices AND not made to feel a sense of failure. I am fortunate that despite having a Mother who thought everything creative was a waste of time and/or money, I had a grandmother who was a creative force and who always gave me the loving support needed to keep me going. It is worth mentioning that I also seem to have an inherent drive that kicks in as soon as I am told I can't do something.  So, in that way, I have to be thankful for Mom too. I stuck it out on things I might have given up on because of her negativity.  It's the stubbornness,more than a resilience, I inherited directly from her. :)

In the monastery, if one does not have a focused or centered day. . . or if one has a completely blissed out perfect day of awareness. . . well, in both cases, there is always tomorrow. Because it is all you have to do. Get up and do it again tomorrow. There is no fail or succeed. 

This is how I have approached my creative work/life. Whether today, sales are great, my work becomes more and more requested and desired. OR I sell nothing and no one responds to it at all. It's the SAME to me. Tomorrow will be another day. Get up, put on the hot water for coffee, sit down and create.

(5) The simple,workable equation for deeper imagination is this: . Create, recreate, and then recreate some more.
Or as it might be notated

c + rc² =  good

Imagination, at it's deepest levels, takes time, space, focus, some form or shape of routine and a commitment to it to access the deepest parts of it. We are all creative, of this I have no doubt. But how deeply we go with it is,in the end, a huge factor in what we create and how much it resonates with the audience or buyer we seek and, most importantly,withiourselves.

The adult measuring stick of "how busy = how successful our life is" is just about as far from deep creativity and imagination as we can get. Don't measure the time spent creating anything in hours, days, years or by a measure of success or failure. Let the timeless child, the queen of years, the infinite soul have reign over that and let the inner monk have his or her due when it comes to creating a bit of practical simplicity, silence, solitude and routine.


(6) A last thought. . .

I know many artists who think the key to a happy and creative life is to seek out everything life has to offer. New people, new places, classes, outings, happy hours, social media, organizations, new experiences and adventures great and small. They're so busy they swear there's a need for a planner and a personal secretary to keep up with it all. They are also, at the same time, always talking about what they want to do with their art, writing that great novel, saying something important, expressing their soul. . .  and vowing how they'll, one day, have a "regular" creative practice. 

I also, as I type, know more than a handful of artists who make their living completely from their art.

I do not know a single person who is a member of BOTH of the aforementioned groups.



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Happy June everyone! May it be the start of a creative and deeply imaginative summer. . .

XO
nicolas

PS. . . those days as a Zen novice did indeed filter into my world fo creativity too. :)

My mini Jizo statues. Protectors of all spirit travelers, children living and deceased and mothers.

The Art of Sincerity and Authenticity

Recently I heard someone state that their belief was that "the universe always rewards authenticity and sincerity in our personal and creative work". While that statement did not come as an epiphany or shed any immediate light on my own thoughts, over the last month it has worked itself into my subconscious and I find myself now writing and thinking about it, and how it relates to my life overall, almost daily.

I cannot say or try to describe what that means for anyone else or even where one would begin to follow that path inthemselves, I just know that, looking back acros 40 years of creating, it rings 100% true in my world.

In retrospect, so much of what I tried to do creatively in my 20's and 30's was not quite either of those things. I felt that I had to find my angle, my way in, my one great idea or concept. All the while ignoring the places I truly came from and knew so well in my heart. Also, I totally bought into the idea of my work having to be "grown up" and to project a mature viewpoint or an adult perspective. I'd at least like to say that while I feel the work I created was always sincere, it usually lacked the personal authenticity that I find people most respond to these days with my creative offerings.

What I have come to understand is that I only really began allowing myself to be completely authentic with my work a few years ago and, with that, came the growth and means to now create for a living.

So I have been listing every possible example of this authentic and sincere approach from my life. Trying to follow it back to the roots of my origins and where my best examples of it came from, mapping it like a travelogue.

A polestar for my creative heart.

In 7th grade there was a boy named Timothy Jackson who sticks out in my mind. While may of us were trying so hard to be cooler or to at least not stick out as easy marks to the bullies, Timothy went about his days just being Timothy. He was an A student who never missed school or an assignment. Over that year we grew to become passing friends and we bonded over what I learned was Timothy's free-time passion. Drawing superheroes, super-villains, medieval worlds, spaceships, aliens and then, sort of out of context, all out army battles on regular lined notebook paper. Stick figure soldiers mostly populated those but the time was put into complex and well-thought-out landscapes, waponry, castles, fortresses, space stations and alien worlds with detailed terrain, battle simulations and situations. I had noticed Timothy often drawing something when he was done with class assignments. . .  and at lunch . . . and at assemblies. . . and in homeroom. . . and after school in the library.  He was far too smart and too much of a loner to be bullied and too nerdy to be "cool". He was invisible, untouchable, an alien himself to most.

Of course, looking back, he was the coolest kid of all in hindsight.

As we became friends, I took to sharing in this drawing with him and, for most of that year, we were always comparing images and battles waged.  We lived too far apart to get together out of school but we found time during the week to share ot drawings and great epic stories told on paper.  In 8th grade we shared just one class and then, on different buses sent across town to a school of 3000 kids for high school, we rarely saw each other.  But the impression, as I now am understanding, was left just the same.

He is one of the few people I recall clearly from that time that I have nothing but love for in my heart's memory. Authentic. Sincere. Just Timothy being himself every moment. Lost in what I now call a "paracosm".

When I return home, as I did last year for a few days, I can't help but go by the old school which is closed and listed for sale now. The neighborhood is just a shell of what it once was in it's heyday.

The old soda fountain pharmacy. Gone
Steel Mill. Gone.
The old homemade Apple Butter ad painted on the side of the brick post office, Gone.
The little market. Gone.
Five and Dime. Gone.
The Hot sausage sandwich shop. Gone.
Library. Gone.  . . well, moved. But no longer in the old gothic brick building that made it a welcoming and timeless place.

An abandoned school is a haunting sight. Sit on those steps and close your eyes and it seems like there is the echoes of laughter and nervous chatter on the wind. So many impressions left behind on those playgrounds along the way.

So much of it seems like a blur. two years in that middle school with so few friends and each day, for the most part, an eye on the clock waiting to be done for the day so I could head home to MY paracosm and my own world of creation. My own authenticity.

It's really only now, all these years later that I am thinking back and realizing how few people I knew then that were living in authenticity and sincerity then. School years are usually about anything but as we try so hard to grow up so fast and become. . . what exactly?

All I can say is that everything I do today. All that you see in my shops and in my work is drawn from those early days exploring my own inner world and creating this paracosm that I have returned to. That I thrive in.   

And I just want to add that authenticity and sincerity are not just about creative work of course.

My grandfather, during those two years of middle school. and all four years of high school, rose every day at 4 a.m. (as he had done for 35 years for his job at the the steel mill) to make sure I had breakfast before school. During the middle school years, since the school was just three blocks away, I'd walk home each day at lunch, which he always had waiting for me upon arrival.

That, in my memory, is about the most devoted example of sincerity and authenticity as I can show.  That was who he was to his core.

I hope all of you are exploring and expressing and embracing what is natural, sincere and authentic in your own souls. FInding it in your past or present and carrying it with you into the future.

It will, undoubtedly, serve you well.

xo

nicolas

Do What You Want, Be What you Are

So I want to begin sharing more of the day to day process and inner workings of being a full time maker-of -things.  Let me start by sharing a little picture with you.

This is my studio work table on a random morning taken about a week or so back. Now, the funny thing about this picture is, I almost did not use it for this blog because, as I looked at it, I thought "Oh that's too neat. . . it looks staged." I'll pause while those of you with a neater bent to their organization and creative work spaces gasp and shudder at the thought. : )

In actuality, all I removed from the scene were paint rags and some scraps of notes that were not relevant. The rest, as seen, is pretty much how my work table looks. . . on a good day.

That little clear space on the front/right table, on the clay mat, that is where I make almost everything in my shops. All the rest are the parts of projects that are going on right now, things drying, things waiting for their day in the photoshoot sun, things in progress etc etc. This is the eye of the storm I suppose you could say. . . because it is always a clam and workable space to me. And, in the chaos, it all makes sense.

The point of this simple little post is this:

Too often I think we unlearn things that were simply inherent to us because our "teachers" believed their way to be better.  In the end, as we grow up, we fight our natural tendencies because we may have been taught that they were not good ways to be. Nowhere is this more destructive than in the creative realm.

In my world, that "teaching" was an endless string of contradicting statements that for years kept me from being the wonderful mess-maker that I am.

Family "teachers" said:
"When you are done (playing) put everything away! It's a mess!"

Except so many of my "games" were paracosms and ongoing worlds that didn't end when I had to stop playing for dinner, sleep or some other such nonsense. . . . They went on without me so how could I just pack them all away? How could I slip back into them seamlessly if they were neatly stacked in a closet or forced under the bed?

Art teachers in school said:

"Focus on one idea or technique. Don't try to do it all. Finish the project you've started. Perect what you are doing"

Except that I never was a one thing at a time person.
Not in reading books ( I have 5 going right now)
Not in traveling. The first time I went to Europe I looked at the map of the continent and said, "Right, 17 days and I'm going to 14 countries! (umm that did not work out once I hit France. . .  and so I DO learn you see!)
Certainly not in creative projects, which, I believe, tell ME when they are ready to be finished and not vice versa. So some sit for days. Weeks. Even months till the finish is apparent to me. 

In my first "career" of the culinary arts, I was taught by the chefs I worked for:
"Don't try to do too many things, just pick a cuisine and master it." (So, needless to say, I fell into the Fusion/cross cultural cuisine trend of the 90's with all my heart and soul!)

Oh the list goes on and on. . .

It took me years to learn that I have this pattern of creative chaos and that it works perfectly for me. 
Let every idea come forth.
Jump at making whatever makes me happiest
Figure the rest out as I go along.

That's being me.  That's who I am. Yet I spent a great deal of my early adult life trying to "do it the right way" by what I had been taught was best.

And while I had to do some work to learn how to make this authentic, natural me into a workable model that could make a viable living, it really only came together when I finally sloughed all that old, repetitive programming off and let myself be the creative soul I was born as. . . working with, instead of against, myself.

That's what allowed this to now grow into a full time occupation that suits me perfectly.

The interesting twist to the story is this. For all the "creative" mess one may see in my life, in my daily way of being a maker-of-things, let me tell you where my life has no mess and jumble.

Basically that would be in every other department.

There are few people who get my time, few outside distractions are ever allowed in, I make very few obligations/commitments and selectively extend myself and there are just very few things I feel compelled to do other than create. I have not heard my phone ring in four years and, like the old days, only return calls at the end of the work day when done. I moved to a place where I can walk to almost everything I need (including places in nature where I can be alone) each day.

That too was something of old programming that I had to break.  We are told to "do one thing" when it comes to work, art, careers, interests or anything we want to "achieve". . . but then we are told a well rounded life includes all that excess which pulls us in 20 directions at once.

How many people I have known that felt that a well rounded life was about having all THOSE diverse interests filling up their schedule and making the hours something to be counted and rationed?

How many people have I listened to as they lament not having the time to do the things they really love while constantly rushing off to yet another engagement or obligation?? How many friends have I watched running around frazzled all day long, every day, so caught up in being "busy" and saying it as if being busy were an accomplishment in and of itself?

But I'd swear, if you ask me, busy is a modern synonym for "messy" in regards to living life.
And when I did it, it just made me feel further away from what I most wanted to be doing. 

And so my advice to others, about a creative life, when asked,  is:

Neat or messy, one thing or a whole basket full of ideas, or anywhere in between makes no difference
Do what you want but be . . . what. . . you. . .  are.
And what you are IS inherent. Yes it can be molded and tightened up and tinkered with.
But the core of it is going to be something you always and already were. . .

Because following that path and being just what you are is always going to lead to happiness doing what you most want to do.

So as a word of advice from a mess-maker extraordinaire, messy is cool. . . it's fine to stray and wander and indulge in many wonderful ideas and pursuits. . . just tidy up the REST of life and let the true you rule the creative day.

xo
nicolas