RITUAL and the workspace
/You will recall from your reading of the chapter on RITUAL in the book that, boiled down to its essentials, our Lichtenbergian Precept means simply “make time and place for the work.” That time and place varies greatly from artist to artist, naturally, depending on our circumstances. Jane Austen scribbled whenever she was alone on pieces of paper hidden in a drawer. Gustav Mahler had a cabin in the Alps to which he could retreat to compose. James Castle used soot and spit to make his drawings.
And our lack of access to time and place impacts the work we do or even are able to do. It’s really hard to create wall-sized oil paintings, for example, if you don’t have a room in which you can set up and work on your 50x30 canvases.
While my artistic goals are not that extravagant (give or take a GALAXY Project), I still felt the lack of a space when the air-conditioning minisplit in my attic study finally admitted it was defective and stopped working altogether, back in May. Or was it April?
In any case, I have been working on the dining room table for six months, and although I was allowed to clutter it up, it was made clear to me that this was not optimal. Nor was it: I had to clear everything off for the rare dinner party or family gathering, and I was pretty much limited to wordsmithing during this time. Art and music were off limits, plus my being in the dining room meant I was more susceptible to interruption from others in the house.
So it was with great joy that I got the news that my HVAC company — and here I will give a well-earned shout-out to Powers Heating and Air — had gotten Daikin to agree that its unit had failed under warranty and should be replaced free of charge. (I had to pay only for the installation charges.)
Yesterday, the team swooped in and after hours of trooping between the compressor outside and the minisplit upstairs, they handed the keys to my study (as it were) back to me.
So I’m back in my space, and now we’ll just wait for the creativity to gush out of me.
Yes, it’s a mess. You should have seen it before I tidied up.
Just kidding. I am finding that I am having to relearn how to work up here. Having the laptop always on and always right there in the dining room meant that I could create on the fly, which was driven home to me last night while I was cooking dinner, had an idea, and turned to make a note on the laptop… which was no longer there.
I’ve missed my cinema display, but now I’m having to get used to mousing over that huge tract of real estate. My fingers have learned in the interim to use the touch strip on the laptop and the fn key to activate the function keys, and that’s been tough to unlearn.
But on the whole, I have nothing to complain about: I have a huge room all to myself, full of supplies and books and workstations, which is tremendous privilege. I was out of it for half a year, but now I’m back, just as all my other projects are winding down and I’m ready to start new things.
Abigai, the good and deserving Assistive Feline™, settles back in to the workspace. (She will deal with her nemesis the Green Rubber Devil Ducky later.)
I’ll keep you posted as I settle back into my time and place. Here’s hoping your time and place are what you need to accomplish all your TASK AVOIDANCE!
Tonight is the first Lantern Building Workshop at Backstreet Arts for Unsilent Night Newnan (Dec 4). It’s free and open to all ages. If you’re in the area you should 1) mark your calendar for Dec 4; and 2) come decorate a lantern (6:30–8:30)!
