inspiration – Page 4 – Sidewalk Face

Better Safe Than Sorry vs. a Good Guy

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl13 Comments

I ride my bike to the bank to deposit a check and realize the box store is next door. I need a few mailing supplies for all the prints I sold on my first limited edition print offering!

There isn’t a bike rack out front, so I ride to the alleyway entrance, dismount next to the metal fence and start to secure my bike when a young person wearing a mask makes some noises in my direction. I can’t understand them and do not assume they are talking to me but despite my disregard they persist, and I look up.

What?

I’ll watch your bike.

Blank stare.

I can watch your bike while you’re inside, nobody will take it.

Oh! Thank you so much. That’s nice.

I take off my helmet, leave it in the front basket and walk inside feeling both uneasy and something else.

I’ve lived in major metropolitan areas my entire adult life. I don’t leave things unlocked. One of my main mottos is Better Safe Than Sorry. I like locking my bike. I like reducing risk. I like certainty. This act of generosity is making me think about it rather than just knowing it’s handled. But it’s also interesting.

The young person is wearing a t-shirt with the store logo. They are in the act of sweeping. That adds up to a legit employee. Or at least 90% of one. What are the chances the small box store would let some rando wear one of their shirts and loiter productively outside the shop if they didn’t know them? So, with that calculus, I am still in the acceptable range of Better Safe Than Sorry.

At the cash register I try to see my bike but it’s either not there or out of site. I spend the full minute I am in the store thinking about my bike and wondering if I will have to walk home. That’s my brain!

The bike is there. I shout out, Thank you so much!

You are welcome!

How lovely! They are probably doing it to be a good employee, but it feels genuinely nice. It’s like Ted Lasso nice. It makes me really happy.

And with this I add a new category called Mottos. I have several I live by and I would like to explore them.

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Art, Art Journal, Creative Process

Get Yourself a Pocketful of Yes.

October 10, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl8 Comments

I have a brand new category – Art Journal. This is for writing specifically about the practice of keeping and filling up small blank books. I usually refer to them as little books but art journal is the more commonly used desgination so I am using that. I don’t care about journaling, I care about making blank pages non blank.

It’s really super important to me to have a place of artistic freedom. If you have no art practice at all, then any art may feel like freedom. But if you have an ongoing art practice, you probably experience some sense of being hemmed in. It’s not bad, it’s rather necessary for most elaborate pursuits. If you are knitting a sweater, you need to follow the pattern or it’s not going to fit. If you are editing a documentary, you need to have a story structure or it’s going to be incomprehensible, if you are cooking dinner, you need it to taste good or what’s the point? Artwise, we follow certain rules to get desired results. That’s good. A useful rule is very handy. I love rules. Especially the ones I have made for myself. I wrote all about it here: Rules. Can’t Live With Them. Can’t Live Without Them.

But I also yearn for adventure. I want to wander the streets blindly, not knowing where I may end up. I need a place to do that creatively. Small blank art books are that place.

I’ve been keeping a small blank book for decades. I like them small enough to:

Fit in a bag or pocket without being a pain in the ass.

Not be intimidating (not too much surface space to deal with, not so cool looking I’m afraid to make a mark)

The number one rule of the personal blank art notebook is no rules! If you feel like doing it you can. If you feel like doing it you should! The weirder and worse the idea sounds, the more likely you should do it. Otherwise how will you know? It’s so easy for our minds to tell us no, to make us afraid of failure. This is the andidote to that. This is a pocketful of yes.

The stuff you do in the black book is not there to impress you. It’s there to entice you. It’s not a museum, it’s a workshop. When you look at it you should be think, why am I so wild? When can I hang out with myself again?

***It’s not about what you can do. It’s about what you will do.***

Creative Process

You-Can-Do-It-Ness

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl10 Comments

I write for two audiences, you and me.

For you I edit my stuff rigorously. If you’re bothering to come over here and see what’s up, I want you to feel rewarded. So, I try to keep it tight, focused and upbeat. I regularly eliminate meandering paragraphs and I only keep complaints if they are very funny. I wish I could be funnier. I try but funny is a hard thing.

Content wise, I write for myself. I need a lot of encouragement. Not just a mega dose every month, but many little bits and bobs of you-can-do-it-ness throughout the day. I am a never-ending cheerleader for myself. Not to promote myself, but to keep myself going, to be the kind of person other people can stand to be around. So almost all my content comes from this place. A place of internal encouragement. I want to be happy. I want to be a source of happiness. This is me figuring that out.

Making art is one of my top ways to keep myself sane so that’s why I write about it so much. There are so many ways to be creative and I don’t have a universal system. I don’t know if what I do will work for anyone else. But I love thinking about it. Also, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s nice that my monkey mind will get stuck in this particular eddy because it’s not unpleasant. Way WAY better than thinking about worldwide current events.

My number one all-time best creative practice is keeping a blank notebook and bringing it with me when I go somewhere. I feel like this deserves its own essay so stay tuned! And thank you for being here. It’s very nice to see you!

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Heads up! I added two new menu categories, Humor and Creative Process. This is an easy way to see some of my better posts if you are new here.