Monday, May 28, 2012
Today, I ate breakfast before going to the studio to start work on my lace project. I'd finished the sketch yesterday but hadn't had time to start weaving. The project was due Tuesday morning.
I took a half-hour break to use the restroom and get a sandwich for dinner at the closest affordable place I could find.
I skipped lunch.
I had to stop for perhaps another half-hour to ride the Metro back to the Penzion.
That was all. Other than that, I worked on my lace project all day and all night. I worked in the studio until the Institute closed. I worked in the hotel room until my roommates came back and needed to sleep. I worked on a chair in the hallway outside, clicking away as the late-night wanderers among the students gradually trickled back into their own rooms, expressing surprise and occasionally concern to find me still working at such a late hour.
I like to listen to music while I work, to occupy the part of my (left) brain that's in charge of distractions. I've found that, after a certain point, it becomes easier to keep focused on a project if I simply listen to the same song over and over again. The song for this project was one by the incomparable Kirsty MacColl (repeated 61 times, according to my laptop). It worked quite well.
I finished just before dawn (not as late as you might think, since we're quite far north here and the days are a few hours longer than they are back home) and climbed quietly into bed for several hours of deep sleep. I felt like I'd earned it at that point.
There is a certain fierce joy that comes only from this kind of stubborn, sustained effort. If I tried to do it routinely - or even twice in the same week - I suspect it would kill me; but every once in a while, it becomes necessary to throw all the time and energy I have into a project, casting everything else aside for one unceasing burst of creative work. I love it when it happens. There is nothing quite like it.
And the result was this:
So I'm satisfied.
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