Studio Hours : Reflection on the Experiment
This reflection comes a whole week after the culmination of the four week Studio Hours experiment which ended unceremoniously with the last two weeks falling away in the midst of other summer happenings, doings, and experiencing. I feel a tenderness in not having marked the ending more deliberately, feeling like I wasn’t really even there to experience it. This discomfort has a sting of failure to it, even though I can quickly remind myself that there was nothing to fail at because, after all, it was set up as an experiment, which inherently means that even failure is positive because it offers the opportunity for reflection and understanding and ultimately reveals something that wouldn’t have been known or seen had the experiment not been undertaken in the first place.
Anyways, all that is to say, a part of me wants to slink off and fade into the rest of the summer and abandon the entire summer portal/artist residency all together. I missed too much, and did too little, and the failure is too much to face and I’d like to simply forget it ever happened. At least this is what one part of me wants. The fear of failure can quickly turn into a giant weaponizing eraser, ready to smudge out everything in one undiscerning and final sweep across the paper.
But, I am going another way, experimenting with returning, facing the fear, gently removing the eraser from it’s grasp, and turning toward the experience with an opportunity to direct my compassionate witnessing self toward all that was experienced, and all that was not.
Week One – We’ll call this the “honeymoon phase”
I began with a palpable excitement, and a desire to be in the studio long after each day of studio hours ended. The first week my children weren’t yet in summer camp and were instead home. I had the blessing of my sisters help for a few hours each day, during which time she would take C & O to the park leaving me alone in the quiet of our house. I relished the studio time the way one does at the beginning of a new semester of exciting classes, I felt alive with possibility and inspiration, and it felt like such a gift to give this experience, this time, this undivided attention to myself and my creative expression. I love beginnings (Aries sun and moon baby!) and I loved this one.
This week was also the first of the residency so the “new beginning” energy was alive in me like a drug pumping through my veins and I felt like I was ten feet tall and levitating. Everything was fresh and close in my awareness, my intentions for the summer portal, the endless possibilities for what might arrive in the space created, my artist statement was fresh, and my guidelines for the studio hours experiment were top of mind offering a sturdy foundation to carry me through the week.
Week Two – This could be called the “subtle shift”
Week two began and my children were in day camp which meant even more spaciousness, but the added morning commute to school. The week started out with a choice to reschedule studio hours to Tuesday. I realized this week that I needed to add a second alarm to prompt me to wrap things up before finishing my studio hours time. Reflecting on this now, I’m aware that the first week I was spending a lot longer in my studio than I had originally planned for each day. This was wonderful and exciting and I love allowing myself to stay in flow when the flow comes, but I think this points to a tendency I have to go all in and then expect the same thing to happen, or perhaps even fear the same thing to happen, when I don’t have as much spaciousness and time to give…
The rest of the week fell into place, I made it to Wednesday and Thursday studio hours on time and I made progress on my second weaving.
Week Three and Four – And we’ll call the “slow fade”
This was where things began to fade. Our family routine shifted once again for week three, with no camp for my kids who were home with support from my sister. This unsteadiness in the larger web of routines seems significant to note as I think it has more of an effect on me than I would like it to. The changing of tides requires more recalibrating and reorientation than I wish it did and I often forget to honor it as such.
Monday of week three I finished my second weaving during studio hours. And then the rest of the week slipped by without any touching in. It feels glaringly obvious now that I was overdoing it with the expectations I had for myself and what I felt I should be able to not only do during the studio hours time but what and how I should be sharing about and reflecting upon the time. As much as I have loved using the spiral library and the sharing here as a way to make and honor and how up to the process of being witnessed in my process, I don’t always have the capacity or spaciousness of time to do it in the same way each time, which really seems to trip me up in a way that I have yet to find a supportive alternative for.
The fourth week of the experiment, July 6th through 10th, coincided with the lead up to a trip to visit my brother in California. I made it to all three studio hours sessions, I began and finished my third weaving, I read poetry, and wrote poetry, and I didn’t share a single thing with anyone.
In conclusion, I find it oh so funny how obviously successful this experiment was. And I can laugh too at how challenging it would be for me to see it this way had I not taken the time to reflect on the past four weeks.
Here we are, tiny creatures wandering about a giant floating rock, hoping to find our way in vast universe of possibility, living through an unending series of getting lost and then finding our way again and again.
From where I wrote this reflection while nibbling a blueberry muffin, sipping an oat milk latte, and watching the summer birds bathe in the little fountain.
