Today, I had a wonderful session with a friend and mentor, and afterwards I came home so energized that I went hammer and tongs on my studio, cleaning, sorting, scrubbing and generally throwing shit out. The studio was getting really odious, coated in a heavy layer of graphite dust and pet hair, and it was a relief to finally snap and hose it down. I'm getting rid of all my old art prints; they're probably going to wind up at a freebie table at an upcoming convention. My first real print -- a big blue dragon stealing strawberries from a woman's basket -- got hucked directly into the recycling bin, because it was so old I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. As a selling item it was a morbid failure, and I can't remember what level of sentimentality caused me to bother moving it from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo in the first place.
Now I'm sitting at my clean computer desk, with my back to my clean art desk, a neatly sorted and cleaned bookshelf to my left, a scrubbed-out sink to my right, looking at a closet I can enter for the first time in ages, and damn if it don't feel good.
Here's hoping this is a sign of productive things to come.
Sometimes clearing the workspace in the physical can really help to clean the workspace in the mental. I often clean the house before I start a big project - not just because I tend to ignore the house during the project, but also because it says to my brain, "OK, time to get to work, to focus - all else is taken care of, you can dedicate all of your energy to the project now."
Perhaps the sentimentality of the piece was simply that it was your first piece?
I'd love a print of the horned woman in the fog. I always loved that one.
Yay! It feels good to clean things out once in awhile. I always find it helps my creativity. Hope this leads to fun, new things for you.
BTW, you inspired me to clean up my own studio. It was starting get overloaded with cruft. Still need to sort through the bookcases, but that can wait. At least the papers have been cleaned out for now.
Time to create!
@Tish: YES. And this is exactly why I did it, so I wouldn't have any excuses anymore.
I'll be happy to give you one of those prints, the next time I see you. I have a box of 450 left.
@Dirk: Glad to have inspired you! I'm so glad to have a clean workspace (however temporarily; I expect this will last about a week) that I'm hoping I can be extra productive for a while.