the Weekly Themes

Warning! Very very long post about creativity!

So. The Weekly Themes is something I came up with while sitting on the bus, going home from Linköping a few weeks ago. It was a very long (four hours) and rather dull bus ride and I sat there, thinking about what I can do to keep my creatitivity going when the summer holidays are over, when school and dancing and everything else in the "regular life" starts and there's not much time to create. The problem, for me, isn't really time. There is always time if I just use it well. The problem is, and has been for a couple of years, that I get overwhelmed.

There are so many opportunities and so many things I want to do. When I feel like making something, what should I make? Something in the art journal, a collage, a painting, a scrapbook page, should I take photographs, write a letter, draw something, blog or work with the photo albums? Most of the time (yes, most of the time! Sad but true) I end up not doing any of it. I can't make up my mind, all the thoughts and ideas just keep swirling and I get stuck in front of the computer (flickr, mostly), looking at things instead of making my own.

Looking at what others have made and being inspired by it is wonderful, and I've gotten through many a creative block by seeing what others have created. But I need to remember that looking is not the point. Creating is the point. The best blogs and pages are the ones that make me turn the computer off immediately and go create something myself. It often works that way and I can use flickr and other inspiring places as creative starter. But, if I am already overwhelmed by the amount of ideas in my own head, the extreme amount of brilliant ideas on flickr just makes it all more complicated, and it makes it harder to start creating. Instead I fall into the "oh well I could never create something as brilliant as this anyways" and so I make nothing. Which is weird, because at other times, looking at the very same picture can make me so inspired that I can make stuff for hours, not thinking at all about the outcome.

So, I needed to find a way to focus. To find one idea and stick with it - not for long, just long enough to make something! The idea of weekly themes soon came to mind. A week is long enough to be able to make several things on the subject, but short enough to soon be able to choose a new theme if I realise I'm not too fond of the theme. And as soon as I had that idea, themes started flowing in. I have a about thirtyfive useable ideas, so I could keep this going for a while if I wanted to. :)

I didn't want to tell you until I had been going on for a little while. I usually come up with a great idea, work with it for about a day or two, post about it on the blog, and then someone asks "what happened with this or that project?" and I am forced to answer that I forgot about it, or that something that sounded like more fun came up. I have been quite bad at keeping up with something/ a project/ a journal for longer than a few days. This time I wanted to not tell anyone until I was sure that this is something solid, something that actually works for me. And, since it's been four weeks and I've created like crazy, I think I can say now that it works. :)

So here's how it works. Every Sunday or Monday, I look at my list of possible themes and decide which one I feel most drawn to at the time. My goal is to create at least five things on the theme. (This is not true. The real goal is to create at least three things on the theme. But I always have to set myself a higher number, to allow some space for "failure". If I for some reason really had to make five things a week, I would have to tell myself "I need to make eight things a week!". That is why I keep telling myself I need to go to the gym three times a week, so that I actually go there two times a week.) Then, every time I feel like creating something, I stick to the theme. Because of I let thoughts wander off, I won't make anything at all.

And that's the whole thing. Easy, huh?!

So now that I've made this official, I thought I might start posting about it on the blog. The new theme will come up on the blog on Sunday or Monday (depending on when I am home/ have time) and the things created will be shown, if I feel like it, sometime during the weekend or on Monday (depending on when I am home/ have time). Feel free to cheer me on during the week, create your own weekly themes, or join in on mine!

(My weekly themes include all kinds of stuff that I usually work with and am drawn to, like work in my art journal, photography themes and scrapbooking ideas. But there are also some that are quite new to me, like drawing (I want to learn!) and researching. And I am sure I will keep coming up with new themes all the time. Quite a few are, of course, music related, including making stuff with lyrics and feelings about music.)

So well, here's how I've done so far:

1. My first theme (week 35) was mini books. I've been intrigued by them for a while ( a couple of examples if you are as new to the subject as I was: I Feel by staceyfike, right now by Elise Blaha and old soul by candimandi) but never got around to starting, thinking something like "but what would I do with them? Where would I keep them?". But then I thought of how lovely it would be to have a whole shoebox (I like shoeboxes! Prefect size for everything) (nicely decorated of course) full of minibooks, to just pick one at random and look through. And to get a whole box, you have to start somewhere. I started two minibooks during the first week, and finished them and made a third during second week, so I'm going to consider that theme a success. I've shown two of them in the blog already, here and here.

2. My second theme (week 36) was drawing buildings. But then I got a muscle inflammation and had to stay inside for the most of the week, so I changed it to "drawing things in the studio", including the old tin can that holds my boyfriend's pens, my photo printer and a plate of cookies. Won't show any of these though. I'm so new to drawing and - well, I'm often very happy with my drawings no matter how little they look like what I was trying to draw, because drawing makes me calm and focused, and record a piece of my day. But if I were to show them online, I would immediately compare them to other people's drawings, see that they are "bad" and feel bad about even trying, and I really don't want that. I've had enough problems with that concerning my collages already. Maybe I'll show you something later, if I draw something that I am VERY proud of - so proud that I don't feel the need to berate myself for drawing badly.

3. Third theme (week 37) was sending things in the mail week. So many friends have left town this semester, and I had neglected writing to others, too, for way too long. I wrote three letters and sent one gift so I'll have to say this one was a success.

4. My fourth week, this week, was (is) a good week, because I really felt the need for weekly themes. I didn't choose one, I couldn't make up my mind which one I felt like the most, and so almost the whole week went on without creating. and the problems I discussed above - about wanting to create but ending up not doing anything because I get overwhelmed with choicing - were back in an instant. This proves how I really NEED to decide on a weekly theme and STICK TO IT. I know that for some people this would be way too rigid.

And for weeks five and six I am going to 1. Draw and 2. Make a "minibook on the road" (or some other kind of gluesticked project). Because tomorrow at half past eight in the morning the boyfriend and I are leaving for New York. I think I'm going to be able to post from New York but if not, see you in two weeks! :)