(This is the seventh in a series of posts following Tyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. All the previous posts are collected in the Summer Blog Project category.)
Remember when I said that I would get back to this one? Well, here we go…
Pick out two people, write down everything they do until you get to twenty items. You could easily make up a story about them, but that is not the point of this exercise. Then pick out another couple. This time, only write down things that they do that you think are interesting.
Then compare the lists.
I suffered for this one. I sat in the food court at the local mall for a several hours watching people and making notes (and doodles). I felt like Harriet the Spy.
So what did I learn?
Well, watching people chew is oddly fascinating. It is a really idiosyncratic action. Everybody does it differently, chew on one side or the other, speed of chewing. I had no idea.
I find I noted the things that distracted them from what they were doing and from each other: people they watched, the sounds that made them turn. Usually the other person looked around to see what caught the first person’s attention.
It seems that the major thing that I noted was expressive hands.
People talk on their cell phones a lot. I pointedly didn’t write that down in the second list. Neither couple ignored the phone, or looked at who was calling and decided not to take the call. The phone call always trumped the person standing beside or sitting across from them. Irritating.
But I did note what the person who was not on the phone did, how they tried not to eavesdrop. In every case the ignored person seemed to deflate, how whatever was shining in them went dim. They looked at their fingernails, leaned back in their chairs, moved a step or two away.
Twyla Tharp says that if you do this regularly, that you will note patterns, that what you included or left out speaks volumes about you.
Will I do this again? I am not certain, maybe if I modify the assignment. I am not terribly interested in watching people. I like people watching, but only casually. I felt like a stalker. I felt silly following people around and staring at them.
To tell the truth, it is not people that interest me. I would rather watch animals or birds, note plants, or colors, or details in scenery or architecture. I might try it on a walk, write down everything I see, and then everything I see that is interesting.
(This is the seventh in a series of posts following Tyla
Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. All the previous posts are collected in the
Summer Blog Project category.)
In this
exercise, she has you memorize a list of the 9 muses.
Calliope, epic
poetry
Clio, history
Erato, love
& lyric poetry
Euturpe, music
Melpomne, tragedy
Polyhymnia, sacred
music
Terpsichore, dance
& choral poetry
Thalia, comedy
Urania,astronomy
Rote memory works, but she points out that associative memory makes it easy. She gives a mnemonic for the names of the Muses: can clear earnest effort make proper things add up for the names, and then asks how you would remember their domains.
This exercise is about associations, attaching an image or a subject that triggers a memory and calls it to mind. There are the obvious ones, Urania sounds like Uranus, the planet, for astronomy, Erato sounds like eros which means love for love poetry, and Polyhymnia like hymns which are sacred songs. The question is, how do you remember the others?
For me to remember anything I have to write it. If I just hear or see something, it is pretty hopeless. I have to write it, make the shapes of it over and over. I sort of burn what the word looks like into my brain while attaching an image, a sound, or a word to what I am trying to memorize, like this:
Calliope has the repeat of the L’s and ends with p and e. The repeat of the L shapes in Calliope reminds me that the p and the e repeat themselves in epic poetry.
Clio sounds like Cleopatra so I drew an Egyptian style face
Euturpe has two u’s which make an upside down m for music, and the sound of those u’s is in music as well.
Melpomne starts like melancholy, one of my favorite words, and sadness is a part of tragedy. I drew a frowning face.
Terpsichore dances, so I drew a stick figure of dancer .
Thalia is comedy and using the tail of the final a for a grin, I added two dots for eyes making a smiley face.
Silly
maybe, but it helps me.
Sorry! I couldn't find the doodle. I stuck it in a book and forgot about it. There are a couple of reasons that I wanted to post this one and didn't pick a substitute so I would be on time.
(This is the sixth in a series of posts following Tyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. All the previous posts are collected in the Summer Blog Project category.)
#6. Pick A New Name
Hey! What happened to #5? It requires going somewhere to
watch people and I won’t be able to do it until next week, so I thought I would
skip ahead.
This exercise is to imagine your ideal name, and what it would say about you. It is about identity, who you are and who you aim to be.
I like my last name, Badyrka. I got it when I got married. It was important to my husband that I change my name. I didn’t really care one way or another, but it was important to him, and that was good enough for me. It means we are a family.
The only drawback to the name is that Badyrka is unusual and hard to spell. But lots of last names are hard to spell. We are often amused by how people try to pronounce it, people get thrown by that “y” in the middle.
My relationship to my first name is problematic.
On the one hand, I like it. Miriam is a beautiful and historical name. It is a very ancient form of Mary. In the Old Testament, Miriam is the name of Moses’ sister, who sets him afloat in the basket. She is also a priestess to her people.
My mom told me that she didn’t take it from the bible, but that she got it from a novel she was reading in the hospital when I was born. Unfortunately, she didn’t remember the name of the book. I have always been curious.
On the other hand, I hate it. Miriam means sorrow or bitterness. Who would name their child that? I don’t know what my parents were thinking! Miriam was also my “uh-oh I am in trouble” name. Plus, it is a fairly uncommon name. I often get called Marion or Marianne. No one can spell it either.
The combination with Badyrka means I have an unpronounceable name that no one can spell.
My nickname is Mimi, which I like and am used to being called. I didn’t even know I had any other name until I was in Kindergarten. It is a long story, which I won’t bore you with.
I have never really thought about it before, but I would be happy to change my first name. I thought about it for a long time, and I realized that I wouldn’t want to change to a completely new name, or name myself after someone I admire. I would choose to be called Marie.
Marie is still a variation of Mary. Marie Badyrka sounds pretty good. It still starts with an M, so I wouldn’t have to change my unreadable scrawl of a signature. Marie is not totally common, like Mary, but it is not so unusual that people need lessons in how to say or spell it. Plus, it is French, my fantasy nationality. Sophistocated, artistic, fashionable, and perhaps a bit snobbish.
All things considered, I think my choice says that I am pretty happy to be me, but I wouldn’t mind tweaking myself a bit.
(This is the fifth in a series of posts following Tyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. All the previous posts are collected in the Summer Blog Project category.)
A very important part of this portion of the book deals with
work rituals. What do you do when you prepare to work. She sees it as a
focusing mechanism, and I agree. I talked about sitting down to work every day,
but I didn’t go into my own ritual. That is because it is summer and my life is
entirely different in the summer than it is the rest of the year.
My studio is in my home. At this point in my life, I do not
have the luxury of a separate studio. My husband is a teacher and he is off for
the summer, our daughter is still a student and usually (but not this summer, she is studying abroad in New Zealand)
she is hanging around too.
Summer dislodges my rituals. I used to be upset during the
summer, because it becomes so hard to get anything done. Reading this book has
made me realize that it is the disruption of my work ritual, right from the
beginning of the day, that throws me off.
On the plus side, I love the extra time with the people I love. We are so
lucky that we are able to spend this time together.
So, instead of griping about how everyone interrupts me and
that I never get any work done, I have decided to use my summer as a break in
the routine. A time to experiment and explore, to go out and have experiences.
I work when I can, and I accept the fact that I won’t get as much done as I do
the rest of the year.
(This is the fourth in a series of posts following Tyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. All the previous posts are collected in the Summer Blog Project category.)
#4 Give Me One Week Without. (This is the fourth in a series of posts
This has to do with dealing with distractions, like the
phone, clocks or the internet. Tharp makes a list of things she will ignore for a
week in order to sharpen her focus on creativity.
Today, I am starting an internet surfing hiatus. I can’t go
randomly looking at things , which is the biggest time waster ever invented as
far as I am concerned. I love to type in any random thing that comes to mind
and follow where it leads me. I will keep up with my own blog for the purpose
of this project, but I will not go off reading any of my favorite blogs. And no
internet forums either.
She suggests avoiding Numbers, on clocks, scales, bills, dials, meters. Any form of counting to give the left side of your brain which is the counting side a rest, which will let the right side, the more intuitive side, come to fore. I think I will be good at this one. I am kind of like that anyway.
Another suggestion is avoiding background music. I don’t like background music when I am working. I listen to music, and often stop what I am doing while it is on. I can’t work with music because it grabs my focus. Music is based on repeating patterns and is full of colors. I can only listen to music when I am doing something fairly mindless that I don’t need to pay close attention to.
What I do instead is listen to NPR. I can ignore speaking in a way that I can never ignore music. I turn on NPR and let it drone on in the background while I work. Sometimes, things catch my attention, but mostly I use it to make a kind of white noise.
So I will give up NPR for a week as well.
Books. I love to read. Although it gives me many ideas, it is also my biggest distraction. No books, other than this one I am following, for a whole week. This will be the absolute hardest thing for me. I may die.
Tharp compares this pact with yourself to abstain from your distractions a ritual sacrifice to the gods. Instead of goats or sheep, the sacrifice is distractions.
(Update v1: I wrote this last Wednesday, so I have 3 days to go. I have already failed the test. I started farting around on the internet without thinking. It was only briefly, before I remembered that I was giving it up and stopped. I am doing well with everything else though. Even reading!)
(Update v2: I did better at this than I thought I would, but I wasn't absolutely successful.
I did forget and start surfing once, as I have already confessed.
I also read for about 20 minutes, totally on purpose. It was a book I have been wanting to read for ages and it was on 1 million holds before I could get it from the library. But I forced myself to Step Away From The Book, and didn't pick it up again until the week was up. Pretty good for a gal who generally swallows 3 books a week.
I didn't listen to NPR for a whole week, which was harder than I thought it would be. As I suspected, I didn't have any trouble avoiding numbers.)
This week's doodle is an interesting assortment of mandalas, free form botanical doodles, hieroglyphic doodles and a couple of boxed doodles thrown in for good measure. This sheet has something for everyone.
