“You have the strength to do it.” said the yoga teacher on my first ever attempt on preliminary handstand poses. “Hold your middle body. That’s it. Very good.”
I realised it was one of those things you just have to believe you can do. And if you don’t - no chance.
Rather like everything.
What is creativity? What makes a designer? What is your motivation?
Everyday at some point self doubt sets in. The emotional stress of applying to schools is laying heavy. Only brightened up by the challenge of the preliminary assignments. Looking for inspiration, gathering sources, the excitement of catching glimpses of ideas.
I’ve been drawn to my childhood photographs. Looking for clues, I guess; one piece I get to do is a visual map of my life.
Inspiration is in the big stack of graphic design books piled next to my computer. In the prettiest necklace ever, sent to me by a dear friend. Said friend coming to visit from England. In all the positive feedback I’ve received lately. In the book on exotic birds loaned from the library (for a bird poster). Digging out the watercolours and starting to play.
Begin now!
The circumstances will never be perfect. You will never have enough money saved. Your portfolio will never be ready. You may never have the perfect space, studio, or equipment. These are self-limiting beliefs created by our inner critic. You will not have the time if you don’t make it NOW.
-living out loud
The lecture today was about the psychology of living; how we make our homes the image of ourselves, to strengthen our identity. We try to make them filled with as many good things as possible, to make us happy, or just to survive.
Our home is chaotic. We have trouble with territories and space. Yet it is the best place I’ve lived in. Maybe we make this home work or it changes us so we fit.
In the circus, of course, everyone knows the show must make money in order to continue, but it’s the circus, not the money, that provides the livelihood. I mean that they don’t keep the circus going in order to make money; they make money in order to keep the circus going. An artist might see it this way: there’s a difference between painting in order to make money and making money in order to paint. -DQ
It’s a funny shift in thinking, deciding to take only the courses you perceive to be useful and that interest you. Sure it should be like this all along? Listen everyone bitch and moan for having to go on a camp for a week to measure and draw old buildings. Because they have to. You don’t have to. You choose to do so, you like drawing.
It’s freeing to quit thinking about degrees and start thinking about learning as a personal process. Taking responsibility and stopping whining. It’s also scary as hell.
There was a brief window of time between November 1999 and September 2001 when the most fundamental conflict in the world was between power and people. Up until the Berlin wall fell, it had been between capitalism and communism; now, as everyone knows, it’s between terrorism and so-called democracy. But for that brief, exhilarating period, the primary dichotomy in more and more people’s minds was between hierarchy and domination on the one hand and autonomy, liberty, and cooperation on the other.
Everywhere across the planet, people were starting to organize themselves, testing their hands at self-directed activities and pushing back when state and corporate interests tried to interfere. As summits of the economic elite were shut down, local collectives assembled, and global networks of resistance linked up, it began to feel like the future was up for grabs.
- the hijacking of reality, crimethink
Remember? I do.
Activism for me is doing things the other way. Better way. I like Daniel Quinn’s ideas about change, comparing our time to the renaissance, how living another way starts with a shift in our thinking and how that is already starting to happen.
I like reading about people living it, becoming vegan chefs, taking the plunge to become artists and artisans, taking control of their lives. I believe the best way to bring about change is to do what we love the most.
i do not think this is escape. i think it is creation. in the play RENT they say, “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation,” and i believe it.
living underground is not the negative act of rejecting the world, it is the positive act of creating a real life independent of the sado-society. it is the process of remembering that WE are the ones who decide how to live our lives(…)
I want to find my underworld again.